Auto shift vs Manual!!

Fresh out of school go with a company that is manual.If you decide later on down the road to leave that company with automatics and go with a manual company,they may want you to get retrained to learn manual.

 

I don't plan on ruining a drive line in bad weather or in the middle of no where and every driver I know that has 30+ years just like yourself that own their own trucks have never had problems floating and never ruined their drive lines by floating...so your statement is pointless

 

I don't plan on ruining a drive line in bad weather or in the middle of no where and every driver I know that has 30+ years just like yourself that own their own trucks have never had problems floating and never ruined their drive lines by floating...so your statement is pointless

 

This comment makes no sense.

ask any real diesel mechanic. They'll tell you the less you lose the clutch the better.

Sent from my cappy using tappy...

 

I have never ruined a driveline at all...and I drive through the wet muddy fields and shift with the jake a little...all depends on how good you are...

 

Yup I was taught how to drive with a manual in school, then 3 days out of school, I got a job with a company that was all automatics. worked there for 2 years. then went to another company that was mostly autos, then one day my trucks broke down, so they put me into a newer truck with a standard and i got right in and never grinded a gear. but even before started driving trucks, all my cars that were standards, i never used a clutch. I always floated the gears, so I was some what use to the concept anyway. it really depends on the person and how good that person is.

 

I drove an auto shift for the first time, when my brother bought one. I was backing it up a trailer, and I let off the throttle too quick and the tractor stopped just as the 5th wheel touched the trailer. It was on gravel, and when I gave it throttle to back up more, the tandems spun out in the gravel. So I had to pull forward and take a little run at to get under the trailer....now this was just a learning thing, cause if I had not let off the throttle the first time it would have rolled under the trailer the first time. The biggest learning curve is how to use the throttle more accurately. From a dead stop, you have to get the engine to 1,000 rpm before the truck starts to move, and that was something I had to learn. Knowing how lousey a manual shift tractor will start in the snow, I don't think the auto shift would be that much different, as you can feather the throttle just like you can the clutch. I have not done it, so I don't know....would be interested to hear what others have to say about snow and ice.

 

In driving school you learn how to double clutch, because that is how the DOT examiner will test you. Once I started driving, I would usually just single clutch to shift gears.....you still have to wait a full second for the rpms to drop down to upshift. After driving that way for 5,000 miles, my boss told me I should be floating the gears without using the clutch. Since he wanted that, I decided it would be ok for me to start shifting without using the clutch......but the first time I did it, I was fearful I would grind the gears smooth or worse yet strip a gear.... But since I had been single clutching I knew how the stick should feel when it was going into a gear easy and which gears were ususally the easy gears....so the first time I shifted without the clutch, the gears did not grind! So I kept trying different gears, all in the high range, as those are the easiest to shift....and I found I could shift all the high range gears without clutching. Wow.....then I started working on the low range gears, and got to the point where I could upshift all the gears without clutching.....remembering I had to wait a full second before I moved the stick into the next higher gear.

The stick won't go into any gear, with or without using the clutch, unless the rpms are matching the road speed. So not using the clutch is no harder on the transmission than using the clutch, as you are matching the rpms in both situations. Using double clutching, you still can't shift into a gear unless the rpms are matching. So what you have to do is have a lighter touch on the shift lever, as sometimes you may need to touch a gear lightly while you are waiting for the rpms to come down and then the tranny will just suck the stick into the gear.


Now in order to get the stick out of a gear, you have to let off the throttle a little to release the pressure on the gears....so just as you release the throttle you pull the stick out of the gear....then you wait a second for the rpms to drop down and then you ease the stick into the next higher gear. I think 10th or 8th gear are the two easiest gears to float into, as I seem to have a lighter touch when pulling the stick back, for some reason.

 

been driving an auto for 12 yrs, every so often I have to drive our manual shift freightshaker, before I leave the yard I've got it back down, kinda like sex and riding a bike, once you learn how you never forget

 

Well I was taught to double clutch by a guy who's been in this 50+ years, and see myself doing it that way when in the truck. Just comfortable for me.

I also do understand it may not be as crucial as it was years ago and probably a good thing to know. I've been told the gears in the old trannys had more of a square shape to the teeth and had no syncros, making it much more touchy. Hence the double clutch method.