Newbie question -manual vs auto at school?

Does Pam have their own school? If you go to a regular school you'll be shifting.

 

If I recall right, PAM uses an outside trucking school, then polishes you with a trainer in their trucks. You'll have enough experience to handle a stick, and probably get dumped from PAM for some imaginary sin before you lose the skill.

(I'm not really down on them, but they do have that habit....)

 

learn both cant hurt

 

I would say go with a school that you learn on a Manuel truck. Just for the reason that if you go to a company right after school or 2 years from now and they use Manuel what are you going to do?

I read some place starting soon in GA if you get your cdl using a truck with auto shift, They will put a Restriction your your cdl saying that you can only drive a truck with auto shift.

 

Doesn't matter, You need to learn how to shift if you go to a company that uses sticks. Lots of companies wont use autoshifts because they cost a bundle to repair and they are still unreliable compared to a Fuller Roadranger.

Don't think I have even seen an O/O using an auto either. I sure as hell wouldnt use one if I had a choice.

Don't let the fact that you need to learn to shift scare you away. Hell, after a year you wont even be thinking about it, you will know what gear you should be in. It just takes practice, that's all.

 

Ranger is right. I hadn't driven stick until 4 weeks ago and now I just breeze through, up and down, with no problems. It's honestly not that hard. It's just a timing exercise, really. If you can hear, you're fine. You hit the gas, the engine goes, it maxes RPMs for that gear and whines "I wanna go faster", push the clutch down, shift into N, push the clutch down again, kick into next gear. The whole process takes about a second. Repeat all the way up to 10. Once you learn where that whine is, you'll do fine. And then, later, after you're out on the road by yourself, you can use that whine and float em (I'm already floating, but only out on the range...).

Learn on a manual. It opens up more doors to other companies. All AutoShift companies are few and far between and they aren't really the best companies from what I've read. And you may go with another company that puts you in an Auto which then breaks down...and then your loaner truck is a stick...what are you gonna do? Don't choose a company just because they have Autos in the fleet or the entire fleet. Learn the stick. (Honestly never thought I would EVER be saying that...ctm*)


*ctm=chuckle to myself

 

I have a question about manual shift here, all the trucks i drove in Europe have synchronized gear boxes, so no need for double clutching (some guys still do though) why do the trucks here have crash boxes?

Fortunately for me i drove crash boxes in the military so i am hoping it wont be a problem.

 

Non-syncho trannys are cheaper. Once you start floating the gears you don't need them anyway.

I didn't know that european trucks had synchonized trannys. How many speeds do they have normally?

In the US it only light and medium duty truck that have synchomesh transmissions, most of them are 5 and 6 speeds, sometimes with a two speed rear axle setup, so you can still do a split shift like a Super 10.

 

Yeah most of the european trucks are synchro, i have driven 10 speed with high and low range and also fx 16 spd with high low range and half gears, like i said a lot of the drivers double clutch mostly on the way down anyway, more for the sound affect than anything else i think.