Automatic trucks

Welp, since my company requires a MINIMUM of 3 yrs or 200K exp., I guess we don't qualify as a "training" company, and since we only have a dozen trucks, we don't qualify as a "MEGA", yet all our trucks are are either Autoshifts or M-Drive push button autos.

I'm not Against Automatics... Run what makes you happy, .....But when you have to foot the bill for your Equipment you will see why Owner Operators Almost always run stick shifts.. Instead Of me Listing all the Pros.. go ask An Owner Operator why he DIDN'T choose an automatic.. Or Just Search for all the Threads here of owner operators stuck somewhere losing money because their Automatic Tranny Has a Fault and wont shift...[/QUOTE]

Welp, between the above mentioned dozen autoshift and push buttons, there is more than 2 million miles, in the last two years, not a single one has been in the shop for a trans related problem, the last time one was in was three years ago when the clutch failed on my '09, and that was chalked up to a failure of the springs inside the clutch plate causing a premature failure.

AS for O/O choice, it depends, KW brought us a new T880, O/O spec'd, with an automatic, for us a to demo for a couple of hours, before they had to prep it for delivery. The dealers GM said they are ordering 4 to 1 autos for fleets, and 2 to 1 autos for O/O's. Pretty everything Mack is selling for Class 8 has the M-drive trans.

 

Ease Off The Pedal There Jeff Gordon, I could Care less About your company's Hiring age The number of trucks you have or what Transmission they have....what are you even Trying to prove with that comment?

Boils down to "We Run automatics and we are not a Training company" Well im happy for you... but that Doesn't change The reality that Its easier to put someone inexperienced behind the wheel Of a Vehicle where all you do is put it in D and go.. and that's exactly why Megas are switching...
If you Cant shift Without almost causing a Wreck you don't need an automatic Truck to shift for you.. You need either more training or a new Career... People complain enough about Terrible drivers now.... just Imagine that the people who would have gotten kicked out of Training due to their Atrocious Shifting can Now have another Swing at it.. No Thank you...
Now just because You and the people you happen to know have had Good luck with them Doesn't Mean that its going to be the same for Everyone.. Anecdotal comes to mind..

"more than 2 million miles, in the last two years, not a single one has been in the shop for a trans related problem, the last time one was in was three years ago when the clutch failed on my '09, and that was chalked up to a failure of the springs inside the clutch plate causing a premature failure." Well I would hope like hell that After 10 years of Nightmares they would finally start being Reliable.. But again.. You Dont See Manual Drivers Bragging That their Tranny made it X number of miles.. I wonder why?

"GM said they are ordering 4 to 1 autos for fleets, and 2 to 1 autos for O/O's."
We can Believe Everything The Dealer Tells us... Really.. the word "owner Operator spec" when it comes to trucks means More Gauges and a slightly better interior and Drive-line of your choosing.. Thats it.. its the same truck.. so "owner operator Spec" is a Misnomer. Especially when we are talking that Same transmission that powers both..



I said I was going To leave this alone, but I Don't Think Its Fair At all That The tone of This Thread has come to bashing with "You old guys need to get with the times" Grow up.. This is not The Honda Civic forum.. Even If Automatics are "the Future" That will only mean more Spare parts for us who Choose to live in The past..

 

I make over $70k a year and I now do it in an automatic Cascadia. Everyone is switching to these because they get over 7mpg with zero effort. I get 8+mpg when I slow down in this truck. The Detroit 12speed auto has gps and maps loaded into it's computer. It cuts throttle before topping hills and coasts out of gear in a lot of instances to save fuel.

I was told it was because drivers are asking for them. LOL. I don't hate this tranny, but I'll know how I feel after one winter with it for sure.

Automatics don't imply bottom feeder companies. If anything, a company willing to run paper logs and turn trucks up over 68mph should be considered bottom feeders. They take advantage of stupid guys with egos.

 

Of Course running Automatics Doesn't Make you a bottom feeder... its a method of Transmitting power to your axles, Its Ridiculous That one People Even assume that.. However running them in your equipment for no other reason than you can Hire Even more inexperienced Drivers and have them Trained Quicker.. DOES in fact Make A company A Bottom Feeder...

 

I can't take what you say seriously with all this random capitalization. Are you a terrorist using these forums to secretly communicate your subversive agenda with like minded terrorists? Did you buy a Chinese knock off android phone from Amazon and this is the result? Are you a narrisist and feel your words require emphasis?

What is going on here?

 

I Don't Know Captain Grammar, what is going "one" here?
thanks for the laugh.. gotta report back to Beijing for my debriefing now..

 

He Is Referring To Every Word Being Capitalized.

 

That would be interesting to see if they had such a statistic for it. Unfortunately, they don't, but I would be willing to wager that it's probably not a high number, and accidents, inability to back a trailer, etc. account for more training failures. Be mindful of the megas/bottom feeder who earned their ill repute in spite of having employees who've apparently been able to shift well enough to get hired on. You seem to be thinking that manuals equal a better driver, and I'd have to disagree, and I think I've think I've already made it apparent why.
You want better drivers, you need better training. A bad driver is a bad driver, period. Most bad drivers I've encountered are such because of their attitude, laziness, just not caring, etc., not for shifting. Anecdotal, perhaps, but again, it's not really a statistic you can look up and cite. I really don't think a trend towards auto is going to make anything significantly worse in that regard. 40 days or whatever of being thrown in a cab while your 'trainer' sleeps and gets paid for your miles is a piss poor training program which cranks out inadequately trained drivers, period. No matter the transmission in use. I do agree that at least part of the incentive is to get bodies in seats with more ease, but that's what they were already doing before the autos.

Did you see anyone making such claims about manuals? He simply addressed a claim made about autoshifts which were contrary to his experiences with them. And since this is a topic about automatic trucks, it kinda makes sense that it would be discussed here. Perhaps that's why? Not to mention the fact that nobody on this forum is going to just come out and say, "yeah, I destroyed my manual transmission because I did xxxxxxxxxx", so you have to take that into account, as well. The amount of posturing and one-upmanship on this forum pretty much ensures that'll never happen, coupled with a general unwillingness of people (especially in this industry) to take responsibility for their ####ups.
Of course, manuals last forever in the eyes of some, so long as we forget how may out here who can't shift to save their life (in spite of how they swear up and down they can) and beat the living #### out of a clutch. The latter can be especially prevalent in vocational trucks and sitework vehicles, where constant clutching and feathering is just a reality of the job. In their case, an auto would probably give their brakes a shorter lifespan, but one of those two things is a lot easier and cheaper to replace if it comes to it.... care to take a gander at which one that would be?
Then there's also the fact that, if an autoshift goes down, the transmission itself will be blamed right off the bat... if a manual transmission goes down, the operator will be blamed. So, we go back to the bit about how nobody's going to admit to it. In an industry where we're constantly being serenaded by the driver at the truck stop next to you about how he's been driving since the age of 2, starting in a Peterbilt cabover with three sticks to shift with, and having to do the job in spite of being infected with Ebola, only taking a break from singlehandedly saving the trucking industry to do a stint as a Marine Pararescue Ranger Delta Recon SEAL, are you really expecting honesty and for someone to fess up when they do something like, say, wreck transmission gears? Let's be real here.

The bottom feeders are already bottom feeders... Swift, England, et. al.... got the reputations they got with manual transmissions. This changes one aspect of such companies - not their entire dynamic.

 

I remember back when "Real Truckers" didn't meet power steering... Times change, technology improves, most of the Manufacturers have European ties where they run mostly Automatics and so they have easy access to the latest technogy and data to support it.

I have driven both and don't think either has made me a better or worse driver.

 

Hahahaha... This made me chuckle out loud. Perfect description,