Manual vs. Automatic is the skill set really needed?

Shifting when mastered is a part of driving that takes place without effort, having to do this or that physically etc. I never think about it. It just goes into this gear or that gear. I never get tired of shifting a manual.

It is good for a auto to have a manual mode for particular situations.

Autos are nice, they do have limitations. The best autos shift when the engine is working hard in either direction, pulling or jacobs. If you yourself find that you are reaching to shift and the truck shifts that tells me the engine and transmission are tuned correctly to each other. That's really important.

You do not want a automatic that has overtuning for fuel mileage. You might as well stick a 20 horse lawn engine in there for all you want to spend in fuel. Fuel = work. That 3 mile grade is alot of work.

I suppose when some drivers get older they want to do less work in shifting. I don't have that feeling. I'll still buy a manual for my next vehicle. It's no work at all.

Bad weather as it goes can be something else. It is good to have a truck that can push snow as it were. You do not want a crappy truck that wont. Sometimes it's even better not to be in a position up on a pass in a storm to have to push that snow for a while.

 

I think you are looking at it from the other side.

You have plenty of experience driving a manual transmission and going to an automatic is no big deal.

But let's say that you had several trucks and they were all manual transmission. Would you hire someone that only knew how to drive an automatic? In other words, would you let them learn on your trucks?

I can't tell you how many garages I have been in and seen transmissions just torn out and rear ends and Driveline parts all about the shop, from drivers that supposedly knew how to drive. Can't imagine what would happen if you just cut someone loose and let them learn on your stuff.

 

For me I think it’s more of having something to do and somewhere to rest my arm more than ego. I don’t care much for either I’ve logged about a million as well more with auto than manual. I just like having control over my shifting.
In the end it’s preferrsnce.

Had a guy come in for an interview.
He wanted a Volvo with a table okay no problem. Here’s a 780. We told him it was a manual.... he said no thanks call me when you guys get an ishift. I don’t get paid to shift gears... WHAT?

 

The change in the FMCSA rules calling for the (E) restriction for the most part is just the FMCSA doing feel good rule making. I am opposed to it just as much as I am some of the other garbage that was part of those changes. For the purposes of thread topic I won't list them. I am one of those old dinosaurs that believes a truck driver has better control of their vehicle with a full straight shifter in their hands. I won't change this opinion or try to justify it either. However with this said I have driven both the full shifter as well as the auto shifter tranny. If the driver understands a few basic safeguards I see nothing wrong with driving those auto shifts and it DOES NOT make you out to be less of a truck driver if you do. I also think that these trannys are the future of trucking. However I do think that a trucker needs to at least know how to drive a full shift tranny. I do think this topic is a bit silly. Just too much about trucking that is a heck of a lot more important then what kind of a tranny you are pushing down the road. Just way too much!

 

I don't think particularly it makes him less of a driver. But it can make him less of a desirable employee if he tries to go anywhere except a place with automatics.

That's the real problem for the driver. It can limit him to the places that he can work.

 

I really am conflicted with the Federal rule making or the states banding together to create a restriction for auto only. Come on does that mean really no manual pickup trucks or cars?

I have always encouraged people to take a manual and actually learn to master it because there is too much forces or power going on in that transmission down below for it to be abused. I don't know what to think if a automatic tractor trailer showed up in a shop without it's transmission. You would think of all the potential safegaurds in it. Is a driver so bad that they destroy the auto? Then they should not be touching a 18 wheeler.

There is one thought. "The Northeast" in the USA. To me it is one giant set of stop and go. Over built since before there was America. No wonder drivers get kind of tired trying to travel up there with a 18 wheeler. Ive been tired a couple of times. Out here in the west, there is nothing for a hundred miles which is why it's even more important to be good. If you tear out a transmission or break something there you are stuck. At least in the Northeast you can get help or have one already called out to you.

I don't worry about the thinking that someone is "Less of a man or woman" for failing to [insert task] I am past that decades ago. I tell you why. Because I was a deaf person, society requires me to do something twice as good as you, you and you in order to be accepted. This was back in the 60's and into the 80's Even today you still have to be twice as good. I can pick up a toothpick or deal cards with a front end loader. (A exaggeration, but you get where I am going.) I would be the last person to expect that someone is to be somehow less of a man or woman for trying something that is hard for them. Maybe once they master it, then things will get better.

I sometimes get the feeling that fleets like autos because they can crank out a driver from training without the risk of a torn out manual transmission forced into a gear it will tear apart on. Or a set of rear ends bit bad from all that power applied in a abusive way. You can only put so much onto metal before it fails. And I could argue that the fleets need to stop buying cheap stuff that breaks so easy. Most people alive today don't understand how sturdy old iron really was.

I leave trucking for a while and I turn around and take a look at it again a while ago and I am seeing all sorts of rule making that has grotesquely taking the form of law. Don't do that, not qualified for this. You cannot drive 11 hours straight through etc. These are people who never touched a truck and don't understand in some areas it can take 30 minutes just to park the #### thing. Instead of being 40 miles down the road you waste it tooling about at 2 mph or less with the additional risk of running into stuff. Expensive stuff.

Sometimes I don't think I should start writing with all these conflicts and problems. I would prefer to have answers.

What is the answer? Well... all I can tell you is this.

There were things 40 years ago dating to the 1930's that were part of trucking and NOT a problem until the Government made it to be. And the industry brought in itself new problems when they say.. oh he's trained. Let him have a load and take off and be in Burnt Straw West Coast by monday. Instead of really training him while you still have him or her in the trainer's truck.

If we don't watch it and fix what needs fixing, then robots should be doing the trucking for us because we cannot or will not.