Ultra Shift with heavy loads

Shifts just the same as a manual, same thing but just computer controls the shifter and clutch. Some times you get electrical gremlins, or actuator failures. Some people have good and bad experiences with them. Make sure you test drive it first to see how you like it. Even with out a trailer or load, you will know how it will shift under load.

 

40K aint heavy at all...thats moderate for what you are wantin to do. The autoshift will be fine. We have alot of guys here using em to pull 8 axles @ 140K gross and they do just fine. The auto shift tranny is a basically a manual without a shifter. It uses electric or air actuators to operate the clutch and the shift tower on the tranny.

 

They are becoming more and more common. With my M-drives there is the odd time that it might get tricked into not shifting but its a simple as pushing a button and it will immediately shift. The quality has definitely come up in the last little while so while they are great now it might not be the same for a six year old model.

They shift much faster than a person is able to so you have less chance of missing your gear and crapping out when going up a hill. Not much of an issue if you are flat. There is one hill that my trucks have to deal with while loaded to 140,000lbs where you cant get a run at it coming out of the plant so you can only start going up it at about 50km/h and you will slow down to a crawl. Guys that drive a manual pick there gear from the start the automated can downshift and still catch the gear before you lose too much speed so you are able to go into it with some more speed. On their first time some supertruckers will try the smae thing but usually stall out and look like an idiot having to back down the hill and try again.

The other nice thing about them is they will skip gears when you are running empty as it knowns what the stress is being put on the drive train.

 

Its all in how you spec it. My current company has some 10 speed autos and they do fine with 48k loads. Back when I was working as a temp, I did some flatbed work for a steel company. They routinely pulled 80k+ loads (120k gross) and they had some 12 speed autos that were geared for that kind of weight and they did just fine.

 

On occasion I've seen the autoshift lose it's mind and stop working. Quick fix 95% of the time is to stop and remove the main hot lead from the batteries for 15 minutes. Then replace it and drive away and all is normal again. It's like re booting your computer, which controls the shifting.