13 speed

Just shift it like a 9 speed to start,and only go into over drive in the top gear. No need to split every gear.As you get used to it, you can learn to split the others. No big deal. I love a 13.

 

Yup drove a Pete and A Kenworth like that.. when ya got both up against the dash thems your GO HOME gears lol

 

Your worrying too much about the gears. A 13 speed is a 4 on the floor with a granny gear and a high lo selector.

Ignore 1st gear (you will hardly ever use this gear). 2-5 is now 1-4 and the same for the high end. The splitter on the high end is your efficiency gear. When your cruising along in city traffic around 6th gear and your taching around 1600, slip into your efficiency gear and you should be a more comfortable 1350. That really is all there is to it. You will be cruising down the freeway in a 13 speed at 65 and slip into that OD high gear and watch your projected mpg go from 6 to 7.2+

CR England trucks were all 13 speeds before the cascadias. No idea if you can get something other than a autoshift on a cascadia now.

 

Most drivers that brag about their 18 speed tranny's never drove and old 4x4 with a brownie box. Now that's what I call shifting gears, old-school style!

Give me a good old 13 speed any day of the week. Still get there just as fast as any 18 speed.

 

The nice thing about the 18 over the 13 is the low hole on an 18 is lower. I know its not used much but when you do its nice and slow. I haul heavy. 107,000 lbs with a lot of off road. Mostly Construction sights, mines and quarries. Getting that much rolling on soft ground takes a low gear. Ill take my 18 over a 13 any day. I usually dont start to split till 5th just like a 13 but sometimes on real steep grades ill split the bottom. It nice to have even if you dont use it all the time.
Just a tip for someone that has never split before. If you are spliting to high let up on the fuel. if you are spliting to low step down on the fuel. Up shift up on the petal, down shift down on the petal.

 

when i drove for crete/shaffer this past summer, the cascadias were all 10 speeds, and they were 2010 models.

 

You can get any tranns made in any truck made.