Opinions and experience with automatics

This is all pretty accurate.

 

I hate automatics. I drove most of them, can't stand them.

 

The Detroit transmission is good. It has downhill mode so it will holds the truck at the speed you want as low as 30 mph. Just remember to not use the Jake brake or cruise control when roads are slippery.

 

Most trucks with good jakes get a little "slidey" after wanting to lock during ice or other slippery operations when the situation is right for it. That's one reason not to use jakes in that kind of mess.

Cruise control is nice but if you noticed or recall, getting on the brakes immediately there is this horrible pause potentially eating up the distance you might have left to actually stop before the impact. When 40 feet or less matters, it's gone when you have to brake pretty fast under cruise.

I cannot recall if the transmission will go into nuetral and pick a gear when you come off braking or make a shift or two following you down so it will nuetral when you actually stopped. Because there were times we had to slow down and when the immediate problem cleared up and it's time to go; the transmission knew what gear to select and rebuild speed and power.

That's all I have. I cannot emphasize enough to you newbies how dangerous to have the jake set up on ice or similar slippery problem out there. It could really come back to bite you.