What I learned two days ago

Automatics dramatically open up the driver pool. I'm surprised they offer a manual transmission at all these days.

 

You know drivers like to complain about any kind of change. It takes a minute and they'll threaten to quit and as soon as the non driving job doesn't pay the bills they're back in a truck

 

In transportation there is going to be change in the next couple decades and guess who is in the drivers seat. We moved on from horses, we will move on or die/ and I should say.

 

Then I will just have to go back in time and pay for the older. Just as well. None of that emissions crap.

Some of the autos in pickups are getting unnecessarily complicated. 10 speed and what? Come on.

I'll die with a manual in my hand, and the only auto in a big rig I would accept is one with a manual paddle to hold a mountain gear all day when necessary. I can even do a little bit of two stick and rear axle shifting as well. Those skills are literally going to die off in my generation given enough years from now. Unless the next one maintains that kind of shifting skills into the future the way we do say steam engines.

I finally drew a hard line and reject transmissions that need input from satellites in space to know when to shift. That's just flat too fancy and too much BS. The engine knows when it's pulling, then the transmission should know when to drop a gear.

 

My Pinnacle, 360k, mDrive replaced. We have new Anthems with the same transmission already getting replacement transmissions because of failure. The last truck I owned, 10 speed manual, over 800k still going strong, and it was getting better mpg's than what I am driving now. Technology improvements? We are currently using something that was invented thousands of years ago, and it hasn't needed improvement...(referring to the thing called the wheel)

 

In 2001 when FFE says here is a new truck, 16 miles on the clock for you two. (Me and spouse) whoo hoo.. keys please.

Wait just a minute driver. It's not the truck you had before or ever. It's a auto. So you don't have to teach your spouse how to shift.

Let me tell you that was a most difficult month. And the worst thing? We had to be towed twice destroying very high value JIT load appointments that threaten the account because this is one Team truck that never shut off. The manual for the transmission requires once in 7 days a 1 hour shut off so it can totally sit and dump it's buffer in software. If you don't shut off, it bricks. Paperweight. Dead.; KAPUT. Tow man time.

The one blessing the engineers left us was the transmission was tuned to the Detroit. When it's working hard and needs a gear, it shifts correctly when I am reaching for the stick that is not there anymore.

 

We still have some trucks with two sticks. The drivers like them and don't want anything else. They're older guys and they're comfortable with sticks.
Your point is valid though...new guys, guys without any real experience, wouldn't know what to do with a 6 and 4.
The rest of our trucks have 18's. We do a lot of off-road work in steep terrain. We tried a truck with an automatic and it just didn't do the job well enough. We do a lot of work where we start out from a dead stop fully loaded on a seven or eight percent grade. We might get a little push from the loader to get moving or a Cat will tow us a ways but after that it's all truck. Dirt or rock road. On long, heavy, and steep pulls there were heating problems with the automatic...we totally fried one... and it tended to get gear-bound where a set of sticks or an 18 could have picked up a couple of gears, even on a hard pull.
I agree that automatics are the future. Truck sales don't lie. We might eventually have some in our highway trucks as we buy new equipment but the off-road stuff will have sticks. For now, anyway.

 

I bought a new one in 2016 and I got the 6 speed because I wanted one. Then after about 3 months I wished that I would’ve just bought an auto. Lol

 

You all need the Detroit DT12 transmission 300,000 miles and not a single problem yet, this is 2019 not 2001.

It can do all kinds of cool things. It can sense the load and hills and change the shift point as needed. It can apply the engine brake between gears. So it never misses a gear say on a hill or at a stop light on a hill or even in the parking lot in a low gear.

It can drop a gear or two to give you crazy engine braking power. You can go down a 8% grade with 80,000 lbs and not touch the regular brakes !

It has a special downhill mode most people don't seem to know about. You set the speed to what ever you want down to 30MPH. The transmission will keep and hold that speed by turning on the engine brakes as needed and downshift if needed to give the truck engine brake more power. All automatically.

It can coast on small hills then go back in gear and give more power if needed or turn on engine brake if you start rolling 7MPH over the set cruise speed. That not really new.

A cool thing to does if you need to stop faster or just want save you brakes. When you turn on engine brakes to say stage 3 or 2 or 1. It will never give up, say your slowing down for a toll booth and turn on engine brake. As the trucks slowes down it well keep dropping gears and keep applying the engine brake all the way down to like 15MPH.

 

2 sticks? Totally unnecessary today. 2 sticks was from a time when Detroits had a 300 rpm power band, just like a 13 speed just isn't needed today. Today, if I had a truck, it would be some big motor and no more than a 10 speed. I'm sick of shifting, but not enough to have an automatic. Now, what happens if you can't use a clutch? I injured my Achilles Tendon, and no way could I push a clutch in. Career over? Automatic would save the farm.
Push from a loader? Cardinal sin of dump trucking,,
I guess this guy saw the dump truck video : houston