Manual vs Automatic Transmissions

Ohhh, ha ha. Yeah. Now I recall reading that bit of information about logs and elogs, ha ha. Thanks for the clarification, as I was being stupid for a bit!

 

Well, hopefully all goes well with your knee and trying to get back into the grind with driving a manual transmission! Also, hopefully all goes well with you jumping shift to go work with your buddy, and possibly getting a future truck out of the ordeal! I'm assuming his business is pretty good? In other words, you won't be losing too much money per week or per month, and your job won't be in any sort of jeopardy! Well, we all know how that can change over night, but still.

I see your point about the transmission part being a small aspect. I am a lot more worried about the actual driving part than I am with transmissions. The only reason I created this thread was to get people's opinions in regards to newbies, seeming how some people go to Maverick who are exclusively automatic (NO, THIS IS NOT TRASHING MAVERICK) and how it may affect their career if they go to a company and get issued a manual truck without having "proper" experience with a manual transmission. This has all been answered with people's opinions, obviously.

Thanks!

Best of luck to ya!

 

These two quotes reflect what my biggest problem is with automatics, they promote inattention and distraction. If you got one hand on the wheel and the other on the stick your more likely to be paying attention to your surroundings and less on your coffee or tuning your radio. I'm just as guilty in my automatic as anyone else and that point was driven home with force this week when my truck broke down (65000 miles and the def system when to hell I love technology don't you) and I used a rental for 2 days in Cali to get my del and p/u done. Even after a couple hours I noticed I was spending alot less time playing with the radio and drinking coffee and alot more paying attention to the road. When I realized that I was quite disturbed to say the least

 

I can see how that is. I mean, I understand from driving an automatic vs manual vehicle (not comparing CV's to cars or pickups, just using as an analogy). Thank you for the safety part of this aspect. That's always a good thing to consider, especially driving an 18-wheeler!

Thanks!

 

really, a 10 and 9 have the same pattern?

9:

R,R 1,5 3,7

L,L 2,6 4,8

10:

R,R 2,7 4,9

1,6 3,8 5,10

ON the 10 you need to do the wierd u shaped shift from 5th to 6th. The lower left gear isnt used on a 9 after your moving. A 9, 13, and 18 all have the same pattern, but a different rpm gap between gears. Jumping in a 9 after a 13 isnt bad, but a 10 is certainly different. (unless its a supper 10, which is different again) They all do use the h pattern, but the 10 uses the left part in both high and low sides. After gaining muscle memory for a while, it throws you off. In any case, I havnt seen companies care about shifting on driving test.

 

You have to know how to use the equipment your behind whether its manual or auto and ou need to know to out it in manual when on hills. Driver stupidity is no argument against autos. They just need proper trainign on how to use a higher tech system.

 

From my reading (not personal experience) the trans may upshift if you don't put in manual or low mode on down grade.

 

You can use auto all day unless you get on a real steep downgrade. Even if you use manual all day, the computer (if well maintained) shifts smoother and puts less wear ont he drive train then a human.

 

When it comes to downgrades, the Volvo had a "manual" position that was intended to be used with the manual shifting option, which the Volvos I drove didn't have. But if you put the shifter in to M, it would hold whatever gear you were at. I still wouldn't want to do any steep grades without having more control over shifting.

The Freightliner has two options. The shifter has (R)everse, (N)eutral, (D)rive and (L)ow Range settings. Additionally, there is a toggle switch you can use to put it in to manual or auto at your will. Option A: Put it in manual, select your gear and it'll stay that way unless you tell it not to either changing gears your self or switching to automatic. More control this way. The Low Range setting is redundant, I think, since you get better control out of manual. Unlike what the name might suggest, it doesn't limit you to the first 5 years, but simply tells the truck not to upshift at all, only downshift where necessary. This CAN be nice if you're trying to slow down in to a lower gear and stay in that lower gear, but it's still a bit more intuitive to swich to manual and cycle the gears yourself.

I took this thing down Parley Pass last week at 80,000 pounds. The only time I touched the brakes was the brake check at the top of the hill. No problem.

 

I've never driven a truck with an automatic tranny. The last large vehicle with an automatic transmission I drove was an M88 recovery vehicle in the Army.
I drove a truck with an autoshift for a couple of years. It was great in traffic, ok on the open road, but horrible when it was slick out. I got stuck in my driveway bobtail more times than I could count. The problem was that you couldn't start out any higher than 2nd gear, putting way to much torque to the drives to get moving.
I hear Allison makes a reliable auto for busses and garbage trucks, but I don't know if anyone even makes one for highway speed applications. Apparently they do after following this thread