Got my CDL A. Auto or manual truck Jobs?

It's whatever job fits your needs as far as money, home time, benefits, etc. Don't let a truck judge that unless you prefer one or the other, they will both get the job done.

 

I will die with a manual in my hand. You can stop the earth with one of those long enough to get out of a cliff without falling. Thats off roading a big truck like a cement mixer on a couple inches of shale rock or slate as they call it back east; Slippery.

A good auto that is tuned to the engine and shifts when I want to shift is perfect. Anything else on that auto from that to today is engineering fantasys bolted on. For example using a satellite to shift down for a hill that is supposed to be "Here" to save money on fuel. (Ya right....) or god only knows what else. I have yet to meet a auto that did not turn a tractor into a bounce house trying to dock a load. Thats why I got good at one move backing. Once moving back with clutch all the way out she aint stopping or slowing until in. Otherwise you bounce bounce bounce.

The early auto is hard to argue with when you consider we did not touch the clutch, touch the tires, brake pads or engine related issues for around 210,000 miles from 15 or so on the ODO in 10 months as a Team truck. What the auto did do against the manual (In a sec) is brick. Or fail. Needing a tow. The manual says that the auto needed to be shut off with dead truck for minimum of 30 minutes to dump it's computer buffer. Otherwise it bricks with a sort of a blue screen of death familiar to windows users. Dispatchers were ordered to allow us 12 hours or a day every 7th or every time we run out the 70 hours each on the 6th day so that truck will sit off while we lay around a hotel getting waited on and resting. The other things it needed was a alternator every 3 months as we had a inverter in it installed by freightliner. It did good but electrically was a problem. We usually got new suit of all 10 tires about this time of the year prior to winter which is already knocking on our western passes before long.

As long your auto has a manual where you can push that M button and stay in gear all the way downgrade to the bottom and shift only under your decision to shift you will be fine. It's real nice to have it working for you on the crossbronx. Just kick back and stay slower than the traffic. No work needed to shift etc.

However. Thats where i draw the line. You will either have a good tractor trailer able to run the speed limit anywhere in the USA and Canada and me in it or you will have to buy a robot. Because todays vehicles are getting excessive with technology. Beeping at you for everything, forward radars slamming brakes you should have been on a block ago etc. (On ice that trailer or tractor is coming around and there you are. possibly dead...) I prefer to push back with much older vehicles that hardly has anything in it.

 

Go for the pay, benefits, freight lanes you like.
Do you live in Hawaii? If so, didn't the school give you job leads in Hawaii?
Do you have a Hawaii CDL?
Where are you located now?

 

My opinion is manual is far better but you have to consider that almost all companies are now going to automatics... I think the most important thing is that you get good pay good benefits and run the area that you want to run in that is what you need to be looking at

 

Unless your going to lease,you really have no choice.
They can give you a stick and a month later, get rid
Of it and give you a automatic.
Then what. Look for another job.

 

I would never turn down a good paying job due to what transmission the truck. Focus on the job, not the truck.