Mountain Driving Tips

Works better if you put a little more on your drives... lower fuel consumption.

 

Lower gear, Jake brakes, And engage cooling fan, the last step will suck as much as 100 hp off the engine. And like the others said you only get one chance to go too fast, Where you can go too slow forever.

 

A couple of things that have been said on here have me puzzled.

First, "go down the grade in one gear lower than you went up" This will only work if you have gone up the grade with the identical load. There are hills I have never gone up loaded and others I have never gone down empty and vice versa.

Second "come to a complete stop at the top of the hill" I have never in my life seen a truck completely stop at the top of a hill before going down. Who here has ever done this, more than once.

 

that is why it is a "General rule of thumb"

 

Stop up at the top to adjust your brakes. Stomp 'em hard a few times, and let the air build up before you go...

 

"In response to Jack Smithton, I am not trying to be a smart as but try balancing the load between the trailer tandems and the drive tandems. I mean if you are going to slide the trailer tandems anyway - - why not. Experiment for yourself and see what you think.

In my limited experience, a balanced load rode a little smoother and gave lower oil consumption on heavy loads. When going uphill on small rolling and steep grades, the temperature gauge did not go to 210 degrees as often and the cooling fan did not kick on as much. To me this indicated less strain on the engine. When going downhill, it did not seem to pick up speed as quickly. I would have thought that fuel economy would improve at least slightly but I never saw any change.

Look I am no engineer. I don't claim to be an expert. It just seems reasonable that when one end is significantly heavier than the other end, the heavy end is either pulling or pushing the lighter end down the grade. It may not be scientific but based on what I experienced that seems a plausable explanation.

I would be interested in hearing your observations if you try it."

Can't say it is wrong, I just never heard of it. It seems hard to compare oil consumption, temperature, downhill acceleration when every load is at least a little bit different, and the weather (temp, wind, humidity (FWIW)), and traffic is always different. I didn't know that oil consumption was even a factor any more. I would guess that the heavier end may push more, but the lighter end would push the same amount less. There may be more to it - You may have some more info than I do. Some engineer type may be able to enlighten us. Maybe the federal gov't will spend a few million of our dollars to do a study. We'll see.

 

I went thru some mountains for the first time in my life on I-80 westbound bout a month ago. It was in the middle of the night. My butt was puckered the whole 11 hours. And I'm used to doing 140mph+ in my car in my teen years. Hitting 85mph downhill in a truck with doubles is waaaaay scarier. DO NOT DO THAT! Trust me. I was a nervous wreck the rest of the night. I will never get that ####y ever again. I was in too high of a gear on my first downgrade and immediately regretted it cuz the jake brake didn't do squat in that gear. I didn't wreck, but I very well could have. I'm so glad I learned my lesson before winter.

 

Quinid, glad you made it. You can official join the club of 'that was stupid'
otherwise known as experience!

Amazing how puckering onto the seat will make you learn real fast.
I'm glad you had a scarey night, then came on here to learn more about your situation.May you never have to go thru that again.
But wait..... there's still more experiences to find!!!!!LOL.

Be safe!

 

Yes I'm sure my ####iness will find me some more experience.... I'm sure the next one will involve snow and ice.

 

"snub" braking. We're told best if only used 3-5 seconds to bring speed down 5 mph, then repeat when "safe" speed is reached again. Yeah, I know, it's one thing to recite classroom material and quite another to be out there doing it. ...soon.