Manual or automatics?

I am not sure about tanks, but am betting it is like military trucks and other equipment and has a true allison fluid transmission, not to be compared with what is generally called an auto in a truck. True auto trannies are still available in some trucks though, you just will not be seeing them for otr trucks.

 

It's about 30 gallons a hour vs a straight up 20+% grade. That was what it cost me to get up and over one time out of 60 I had in that one side tank with a ATS tractor that only had one fuel tank. So stupid. Fueling two or three times daily.

Even today almost 30 years later Im angry about that BS. I would carry 600 gallons of fuel under there... just to have it.

 

If it's an Allison auto and cost, durability and driver retention is the name of the game, then yeah, automatic would be my choice to spec in a truck for another driver.

If I'm buying a truck for me, 18-speed Eaton Fuller and nothing less. They are million+ mile transmissions built for big torque, heavy pulling and won't ever leave the driver stranded in the middle of an intersection completely locked up with no way of getting it out besides a heavy wrecker.

I've always been curious as to how the fuel economy numbers for the autoshifts are calculated, because in real-life applications, they don't make much of a difference, because most drivers put behind the wheel of one only believe in two pedal positions, "on" and "off". There is no "smooth and gradual acceleration". It's, "get to the governed truck maximum as fast as humanly possible".

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Granted, Mack's (and by extension Volvo's) new "adaptive loading" 6x2 setup with the new "turbo compounding" engine (MP8HE+), bringing one of their guinea pigs Joel Morrow of Ploger over 9-12+ mpgs on a daily basis running anywhere from 50-80k gross in a van (find him on Facebook, he's posting the data sheets on a weekly basis), I'd be hard-pressed to turn my nose up to those numbers. That's not a miniscule increase, that's a big jump. And if I were to be an O/O and not run old iron, I'd put up with the automatic for that kind of money savings.

 

Just curious, with everything else being equal, why would the same numbers not be very possible with a straight up standard transmission. I mean the auto is a standard, just computerized auto shifting.

 

If your auto is tuned to the engine, in other words it will shift upgrade when YOU are reaching for the non existent stick to shift yourself.

Computer works a hell of a lot faster than humans and probably more precisely.

If i needed to do a manual downshift vs a Auto Im going to be the one that looks sloppy.

 

Because you can't get the MP8HE+ motor or 6x2 adaptive loading drivetrain with a manual. The computer in the motor is tuned specifically to run lower RPM's and adjust ride height and stuff on the fly. Really complicated and likely costly if anything goes wrong, but 10+ mpg average could make up for that.

 

By 6x2 drivetrain, are you referring to the one drive axle that some have been trying?

 

A single in a dual drive set? No. I need both drives to be able to work. There were times too many to count that set gets me moving.

 

The Volvos I drive have a Ishift 12 speed, I pull a smooth bore tank, which will show bad shifting faster than any other trailer I have pulled. It downshifts climbing, It will hold on a down grade if you select manual, or I leave it in auto-engine brake, sio if its set on say 55, at 58 the engine brake comes in, and start slowing you down, it will down shift it needs to. But there are certain grade that I hit manual and select the gear and brake setting. It shifts very well, never misses a gear, get abut 7 miles per gallon loaded, 9 or so empty. I run a lot of traffic delivering mostly to cities through LA, OC and San Diego counties, occassional run to Morro Bay to break it up.
I have never been a cheerleader for auto's but these do a very good job, as far as longevity when I was driving USPS loads Alan Richie had lots of trucks over a million miles with autos in there freightshakers. And AJR was running them in there KW's. But the Volvo's seem to shift the best of the one I have driven. I have tradionally been a supporter of KW's, but these Volvos are changing my mind, There still ugly.

 

It's a little different than just a liftable pusher or tag. It's got an active suspension system that uses the pusher to shift weight forwards onto the steer axle. Joel runs a 14,600lb steer axle on his Anthem setup. With a light trailer load, it'll spread 28k total weight on the tractor out evenly between the steers and rear drive axle.



I didn't believe it when he first started posting about it in the Mack group on Facebook, but he's gone as far to measure tire circumference to prove the numbers are a fact.

These are his numbers from last month:



He's got an all-electric APU and solar trickle-charge system. This is even beyond the results of that "supertruck" program from last year. And this is real-world working deliveries.