I'm thinking of starting up with Melton this fall. Any Melton drivers know what my chances are of getting a standard transmission if I request it? If it helps, beyond truck school, I have some hours driving farm trucks on farm roads, so I can shift a truck without looking like a complete spaz. I have a year of experience driving small CDL-A rigs, but only with an automatic transmission. I'd just like to get a few years of solid experience driving standards, because most of the little truck companies around me drive standards and I might want to work for them some day. Most of my work experience is in outdoor hardscaping in New England, so I'm not too worried about tarping in bad weather. Any comments? I'd be happy with OTR, have no family responsibilities and don't mind being away from home.
From what I’ve been told recently, they have both standard and automatic trucks still. I was told that all the newer trucks will be automatic but there will still be older standard trucks out there until they are retired. I think you have a great idea and I’m sure any company would take that into consideration. But who knows what they would actually have when you got there and got your truck. For the record, I am not with them or certain on how they assign trucks or what they actually have. This is just what I was told when I talked to them recently. And the person who told me that might have no idea either but just wanted to give me an answer. Best answer would probably be from one of their recruiters. OH, but I did recently see a YouTube video of a driver that just got a truck from Melton and I’m pretty sure it was a standard...
We will have standards for another two years or so, roughly. Your chances? Depends on where you go through orientation and what they have sitting in the yard at that specific point in time. I’d say roughly half our fleet out of 1400 trucks is still ten-speed automatic. Best of luck.
I’m in orientation at the moment and all the trucks in the yard at Masury are automatic. Except for the old beater that we took our road tests in that was a manual.
