Millis OTR journal

I will admit complete ignorance on Freightliner. Never had any experience with them. The one thing that this new experience has provided me with is a state of non-judgment on any truck. There are literally a million ways to change your truck straight through the factory. So any dissatisfaction a driver may have with their particular truck is most likely not a reflection on brand. It's a reflection on options and setup chosen by a particular company. If options were discussed with reasonablly experienced and savvy drivers, I'm betting that the typical company truck would behave differently. These trucks are pretty much all the same these days, minus obvious available upgrades like horsepower, turbos, cams and final drive ratios and such. It's just a matter of how they're programmed and what options are chosen. Like longer frames, air suspension vs spring, single drive vs dual, etc.

 

I'm still gonna hate Macks til the day I die, but other than that, no judgment on any brand of truck.

 

If I'm understanding it correctly, it'll be like a car. Like a semi with an Allison. Step on the gas and go, no delay. I could be wrong and probably am. But that's what I'm gathering.

 

Do you remember what the icon on the button was? Was it by chance a truck on an incline? There are two buttons on my dash that would supposedly help when backing. One is the traction control button. My experience with that is that it provides zero help. The other button with the symbol of a truck on an incline could in theory help, but I've never tried it. Drivers have told me it helps, but it doesn't make sense in my mind why it would. The purpose of that button is to temporarily hold the truck in place on an incline so that it doesn't roll backwards during the time you take your foot off the brake and push the accelerator. Just in case you have a vehicle nuzzled up in your hind quarters at a red light. I've played with it a little but it seems kinda pointless. I'm definitely not sure how it would help when your trying to do a gentle back. But some guys swear by it.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah....
Sorry, homie. With cars, I refuse to drive an automatic. With trucks, I refuse to drive a stick. You can keep it and make fun of me all you want. If manual trucks would get with the program and add synchros to the transmissions so it behaved like a manual car, I'm in. Until then, I'll keep my auto. And my noob trucker status. I'm good with that.