Skip gears upshifting in a 13 speed?

That varies in every truck. Depends on many factors

 

That's impossible for anyone on this forum to give that information to you. It depends on the rear ratio and the gearing in your transmission. My truck has a 13 speed and cruises nicely at 70 mph at 1550 rpm's. I can drive another truck with a 13 speed at 65 mph (governed speed) and the engine is wound up to 1850 rpm's. Very different setup.

My word of advice to you is FORGET about trying to figure out how to shift a truck based on speed. LISTEN to the truck. Some shift easier at higher rpm's than others. Just listen.

 

Yes, ride it out longer. Bit higher RPM and skip to the higher gear.

 

I suggest forgetting about road speed for a gear. There is a thousand variations.

You do not shift by speedometer in heavy trucks, you shift by tach.

Sometimes she will nose down and buck on you, take the next gear or two down quickly before you stall her lugging that hard. You wont have time to be eyeballing your speedo.

 

Unloaded, start in 2nd and shift every whole gear after that. Start splitting at the end of the upper range if the shifting is rough or it is working hard between gears.

Loaded, don't bother skipping any gears unless you have a light load or a truck that pulls hard, or you are starting off downhill.

I was told once that slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. In other words, don't try and rush the gears. If you shift smooth, the truck is going to smoothly accelerate.

On my 18 speed empty I don't split until the last couple gears, and I start out in 2nd. But loaded (129k) I split all of the top gears and if there is a hill I'll split 4th gear too, and I start in 1st. I've never skipped whole gears on the way up except in an old 15 speed (RTO), it has just never seemed to be worth the extra hassle of winding up the RPM's and letting them fall long enough to skip a whole gear. I'm sure it works for some people though.