Driving an automatic on icy roads and taking off on hills?

Discussion in 'Experienced Truckers' Advice' started by OldeSkool, Nov 21, 2024.

  1. LTL Bull

    LTL Bull Road Train Member

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    The ecm wasn’t programmed to allow much manual control. It was a Ryder POS and you could put in manual mode all day long and it still would over ride your input.
     
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  3. tscottme

    tscottme Road Train Member

    I learned how to force a downshift or prevent an upshift on the auto in the hills. It really helped from slowing an extra 20 mph on a hill just because the computer wanted to maximize MPG and interpreted the surge coming forward and making the tranny work less hard for 1 second as the hill flattening out and it's now time to upshift 2 gears. When the RPMs are nearly at the point to cause an upshift or downshift manually push or pull the paddle shifter AND HOLD IT FULLY IN THAT DIRECTION. The manual command and the holding it in the up/down position overrides the MPG shift schedule and puts in into the Power shift schedule.
     
  4. LTL Bull

    LTL Bull Road Train Member

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    I appreciate the info but that’s my point. Whoever owns that truck may have it set to do it like that but get into the exact same physical setup that another owner has altered the software it may not do what the other does.
     
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  5. tscottme

    tscottme Road Train Member

    Yeah, I spent 6 months in a new Freightliner identical to my last new Freightliner and kept trying the exact thing the book said to do, which worked in the last truck, only to learn it was turned off in the ECM and NOBODY in the company understood what I was asking them to turn on, so they said "we can't do that" even though they have dozens or hundreds of trucks with the setting turned on. 99% of the world is lucky to notice there is a sun in the sky, but they know every boyfriend of some garden tool on TV.
     
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  6. snowwy

    snowwy Road Train Member

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    There ain't no adapting. Not in mine.

    It's programmed and there ain't nothing to make it work decent.

    A manual can run circles around what I've got.

    At one point and time it actually had an improvement. i could have been happy. But the clutch was slipping so the shop put it back.

    My non Volvo had fairly new rubber but because it was empty. It spun out. All 4 axles.
     
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  7. snowwy

    snowwy Road Train Member

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    There's no such thing as normal or standard pressure on mine.

    It either moves or it don't.

    Hammer down makes no difference in acceleration. Light throttle isn't even recognized.

    All i can do is push the gas. It does whatever the F it wants.
     
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  8. tscottme

    tscottme Road Train Member

    So pushing a half pound more force on gas pedal than the amount which causes no RPM increase still causes no RPM increase? How about a half-pound more pressure than that, so on, and so on until you get the first ever so slight increase in RPMs. If it's a road vehicle the throttle cannot be an all or nothing throttle unless those came out this year.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2024
  9. snowwy

    snowwy Road Train Member

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    Varying speed once you get there. sure.

    But from a dead spot. Makes no difference.
     
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  10. tscottme

    tscottme Road Train Member

    So stopped, brakes set, out of gear or neutral, you can't cause the RPMs to increase by 1 tick mark on the tach? if you gently press the gas pedal, attempting to raise RPMs by 1 tick mark above the idle RPM the RPMs stay exactly at idle RPM or RPM increases a lot or to red line? We must be misunderstanding each other.
     
  11. RockinChair

    RockinChair Road Train Member

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    That little thing that says M A is what lets you switch between manual mode and automatic mode.
     
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