Autoshift Or Ultrashift?

Some bright person ordered all our new trucks with the autoshift trans.

The IH are 10 spd and are crap. They are programmed to shift at 1800 and 1400 respectively. They shift hard and will occasionally "hunt" between gears both up and down. We've had 6 blown already. In reverse you gotta rev em to about 900rpm before they'll move and you can smell the clutch burning. #### scary things when backing in the tight quarters of a chemical plant loading areas.

The Macks are 12 spd and work quite a bit better, but they have their own issues. Mostly electronics. Odd thing tho, they shut off the radio when the truck goes into reverse. Kind of a WTF moment the first time it happens.

Frankly, they're garbage. A "bean counter's wet dream" produced by a techno-weenie who has never worked at anything real in his life. I wouldn't buy one if I won the #### lottery.

I can understand why you'd consider one, but you're gonna need a deep pocket cause you're gonna be well aquainted with every #### dealership in the country. Oh, and guess how many "mechanics" know the first thing about working on them.

 

I've got an autoshift in my Pete. I've never had to rev anything, just release the clutch and she starts moving. I don't know anything about the ultrashift however. I've not had a stitch of trouble with my autoshift and frankly I'm glad I have it.

 

I've driven an autoshift for the last 6 years and love them. I drove a Pete with the ultrashift it was the best because of the skip shifting with a lite load. That was the only thing I liked about the Pete.

With the Autoshift transmissions you do have a learning curve. I will not drive another truck without one. The person that can't drive an Autoshift without messing it up, is the same person that when they shift it sounds like a giant coffee grinder.

 

stay far away from the first version of the ultra shift. its the biggest pita youll ever drive. the ultra shift plus on the other hand is supposed to be the cats ### of cadilac

 

sounds like a combination of driver abuse and trans settings which are not being communicated properly to the company/IH/Eaton/mechanics. My old Mack would upshift between 1800 and 1900 and downshift between 1250 and 1400. My new Mack upshifts between 1600 and 1900 depending on the load and won't downshift if the RPM's are above 1400, but typically downshifts around 1250, though I can manually downshift it 1350. Never had a problem in reverse or forward, occasionally if I shift it too quick it won't go into gear (mostly reverse) without the clutch far enough in it won't engage, I push the clutch harder and it's fine. My last truck had 670K before the clutch was replaced, and even then the clutch still had 100K left on it, but they had to replace the clutch brake so they did everything at once.

yep that's an option, it's to cut out on driver distraction while backing, it's an option on mine as well. But since I know how to use the mute button, my boss didn't feel the need to micromanage me.

From the sounds of it, your company needs to retrain it's drivers about not abusing equipment.

My company has a fleet of 9 autoshifts, 8 have had the clutches replaced, 3 of those have had single gears replaced. 1 is 3 yrs old, 2 are 7 yrs old, the rest are either 10, 11, or 12 yrs old. 1 sleeper ( 3yrs old) and 8 daycabs. All are driven daily in city and mtn. traffic along the front range and out to Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming. 8 have over 500K and one has 279K.

My last Mack w/10 spd Eaton Autoshift was only in the shop once for trans. issues that we couldn't fix inhouse and that was the clutch. When the X/Y motors went out we did them ourselves. It was such a problem for about 2 yrs that he was able to swap one out on the roadside in under 20 minutes. That problem has since been fixed by Eaton. My '09 has had zero trans problems, well, I take that back, it had one problem and that was an assembly issue, the screws holding the clutch brake in place backed out.

Occasionally it will give me a fault or no-shift error. If going from D to R without coming to a full stop, or if I shift from D to N before the truck is fully stopped does this happen. Shut the truck off, let it sit for about a minute, restart it and it's fine. I run the Rockies withit almost daily without problems.

 

That they are, drove another one yesterday. I really do not care for the automated manuals, but the ultrashift plus is nice. Much smoother take offs. Alot better than the ultrashifts.

I drove a autoshift through the mountains in CO. All I had to do was put it in M and select the gears as I would in a stick shift. It was so easy to drive it. I kind of liked it truth be told. If you get the settings right in the ecm you can set the truck on cruise and not have to worry about speeding down any hills less than 5%. You need to try to get some seat time in them so that you will know what they are like because they are getting better every year.

 

i had 2 ultra 1st gen trucks with less then 220k miles on them both blew there clutchs from the crappy centrifugal clutch they have. along with being impossible to back up smoothly.

 

Sorry to disappoint you but No. According to IH it's the programming that is causing all the problems, but they can't seem to fix it. Both the 2010s and 2011s share the same problems. We've had IH engineers camped in our shop with all their fancy computer s--t for weeks with no appreciable result.

Apparently the programming just cannot work with the slosh from the liquid chemical loads. Whatever, it's been such a PITA that the company is gonna unload ALL the IH's in the fleet within 6 months. Going all Mack and Volvo.

From the sound of it you need to FO. We'll match our drivers against you or anyone else and kick your butt. The "youngest" driver involved is ME and I have 8 yrs in with this company and 38 yrs approaching 4 million miles accident and claim free. Next "youngest" has 12 yrs on tanker and 35 years.

In my experience "driver abuse" is the cry of the incompetent shop who has no clue how to cure a problem.

Like I said, the Macks don't seem to have the same issues but they're equipped with the Mack 12 spds; shift a little higher rpm than I like but acceptable I guess. No idea what the Volvets will have, we don't begin seeing them until March.

What I DO know for sure is Give me back my old '88 WS with a 425 Kitty and 13OD and I will not only outwork your ### but get better fuel milage to boot.

 

i run an ultra shift--its a love hate relationship--sometimes i do beieve it is the only way to go--other times--like i find the rate of deceleration when you get off of the throttle no where the same--but that is a driver issue not the shifter--it has screwed up a couple times--but after a couple key cycles it is ready to go--one thing i do like is that there is a place for my left foot--the same truck but with a clutch pedal--my poor left foot has no place to go--not sure if kw made the cabs narower in the last few years--but i cant remember having the problem before