Stupid auto shift or stupid driver.

And I still hear the grinding of manual gears on a daily basis, what does that say about manual transmissions?

 

In 1.6 million miles, between two trucks, it cost no more to replace the clutch in my first auto shift, than it would in a manual. Combined between the two trucks, can't say the boss spent anything extra on either one of them, the first one went 670K on the original clutch, and even then, the only reason they replaced it was the clutch break disintegrated, the trans had to come out to replace it, so the boss told them to do the clutch, mechanic said the clutch would have gone another 100K. Second truck, the clutch springs broke and caused the clutch to fail, IIRC, Mack and the company split the cost on that one, as the truck only had 400K on it. The biggest issue of failure items is the X/Y shifters, depending on the truck (or the day of the week it was built), they had a good long life or a short one. Some of our autoshift trucks would puke out an X/Y assembly once a year, other trucks might not have a problem for 3 or 4 years.

 

This is what happens when a company cares more about cost efficiency than (true) safety. A skilled driver would never have missed the gear on that hill with a manual. You even said yourself that you were trying to downshift.

I will never trust 137,700 pounds to a computer.

 

A student driver at the wheel.
I'm a city driver, I shift, turn, and corner more in one day, than most people do all week. Now do go to Prescott and Flagstaff which aren't hills, they are friggin mountains, I want nothing to do with an auto.

I drove an 11 yard mixer for 3 years. Now in that game, I liked the auto. Just because you creep inches at a time, sometimes for hours. That being said, I drove the BEAST old Pete manual for over a year, people would go home before they drove that, it wasn't for whiners holding that clutch in sometimes for 2 hours or better.

 

Sorry gents, but I see (and hear) guys with 10, 20, 30 yrs exp. grinding gears every day, and these are the trucks they are assigned to. Stopped at the Limon T/A for Brunch today, Landstar driver, with a 1 million mile sticker, ground 3 of 5 shifts as pulled out of that parking lot. I haven't driven a manual in 2 yrs, if I grind it, that's to be expected, if you drive a manual everyday and still grind it, that's unacceptable, especially if you have more than 10 yrs exp..

 

I will say this though, the top knuckle on my middle finger is sore in the joint from slapping that dude into high range so often. Now I'm going to be over burdened by having to use a different finger.