Snackbar is chillin'....at Shaffer

Came thru WV with this Freightliner Slug yesterday. Coming out of NC into VA up Fancy Gap...30ish mph. Flat Top, almost the same.

I did find out that there is an additional mode to the E-coast mode...I call it the O-#### mode. It decides to E-coast at the top of a long hill, then when it hits 68-69 mph it goes into O-#### mode, jams the tranny into 10th gear, and goes to High on the jake almost red lining the engine....Go ahead truck, blow yourself up...I have a dashcam with audio...that way I can prove it wasn't me.

 

On a funny note...my new Garmin GPS has voice recognition...one of the 4-letter names I call this truck triggers it. Haven't figured out which one yet.


But, things could be worse. A friend of mine that left Wy-Moore and went to Frayley Shilling says his camera system reads speed limit signs...but not words, just the numbers. So when going thru these construction zones that have a reduced speed limit only 'when flashing' triggers his camera, and his truck tells him he's speeding. Plus, on normal roads, he does like many of us do, and pushes up to 5 mph over the posted...he gets dinged there too. It also picks up frontage road and scale speed limit signs (when he's on the interstate)...and all this gets sent to their corporate safety department.

 

Big G's newer trucks had that system when I was there, they were getting so many drivers on the 'call' list, they were going to have to dedicate a bunch of office space just for the review and call team to work. They opted to turn that part of the system off instead.

 

With ours, the only way to do 65 is on cruise. On the pedal it's 61.5, so I keep it on cruise as much as possible. We can still force an upshift or downshift as long as the engine speed is within acceptable parameters (geez I sound like an instruction manual). So I have found that cruise uphill is ok, but I force a downshift earlier than it would like, and my hill climbing is less of a snail's pace.