Safe to use engine brake on slippery wet roads?

I have no Jake in my truck, apparently it was an option in 2004 and that box wasn't checked, I have done the mountains in it loaded and it is completely doable with no Jake, I generally start at the top slower than what is posted for decent speed and choose the gear that puts me right at max rpm for that speed, if I need the brakes I use a stab braking technique to slow myself down and let off when I am back at my desired speed to let them cool down, if things go sideways with the trailer I will use the Jonny bar to slow the trailer down, I have never had to but my right hand is always on it just in case. With all that said I stay the f out of the mountains in the winter and stick to good old MN and Nd in the winter where things are easy.....lol this winter has been so far anyway

 

The truck won’t have reduced stopping ability. The bakes can handle the heat. Even if you need to stop. Look at I-15 downhill going into LA. There is scale house basically at bottom of hill. You can stop at the scale if needed. Unless they change I was told all the drivers pulling double like UPS use the light steady pressure. You can use both. In snow and ice you would not want to use engine brake. If you needed to stop going downhill you just push on brakes and truck will stop. In the winter you get benefits of more cooling on the brakes.

 

Freightliner and our safety critters want the gentle, steady pressure all the way down. I don't agree, but I also have only had disc brakes for 2,000 miles and never on any kind of a hill, so I've got nothing to back up my disagreement except "gash darn it, I've always done it this way!".

 

You really don't understand braking systems. You can feel cool brakes start to fade from a single emergency stop from highway speeds. If you've already used a substantial portion of the braking systems heat capacity and have to make a sudden stop, especially downhill, those brakes are almost instantly starting to fade, and often explode into a cloud of smoke early in the stop.

It's the old adage, just because you can doesn't mean you should. I've seen things go sideways often enough in 40 years that I'm not trading stopping ability for a few extra mph of downhill speed.

Disks are a different animal. You don't get the dramatic loss of breaking power as the drum heats up and expands, which happens long before overheating. You have to get right up to the point of overheating the pads before the outgassing starts to affect disk braking power.

 

TikTok - Make Your Day

Mistakes were made here, but it's still an enlightening video about when Jakes lock the drives.

 

You don’t need the drums to be ice cold to stop going downhill. We are not testing the stopping ability and looking to see how they fade as they get hotter and hotter. We are not trying to push them beyond their capabilities. You just need the truck to stop if needed.

if you believe you can’t go downhill without using engine brake, what do you do if they not working? This is something they trained us on. They did not want us stuck at top of the hill. It’s also the same thing you do in snow or icy. You don’t rely on the engine brake to get you down the hill.

You could, not touch the brake on dry roads and go slower and just rely on engine brake.

You could also combine the engine brake with the brakes using both together and go downhill faster and be just as safe on dry roads.

I use both, every thing the truck has available on dry roads. That video you posted shows exactly why you don’t use engine brake in snow or icy.

 

The biggest hill I go down is Monteagle in TN, we don’t venture out west. I don’t always accomplish this, but I try to pick a gear where the Jake will hold me all the way to the bottom, without ever touching the service brakes. Every single time, other trucks will be blowing my doors off flying down the hill with the smell of caramel filling the air and smoke billowing off the brakes.
Not only is it dangerous, apparently those drivers aren’t the ones buying the brakes.