I won't quote flyingmusician, but post #8 gets it all pretty much. I'll add that one of the ones I drove also would lock up coming to a red light. It would downshift until it got to 7th and stay there. Then ? .... shut the truck off, turn of the main battery disco and sit there blocking traffic for 15-20 mins while it reset. That's a treat sitting in Detroit on a 6 degree day with Police asking WTF ???
This is the state of the art........Check out this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUZgVgNtlkU&feature=youtube_gdata_player Nice........
1) Modern 13 speeds don't whine in 13th. They're pretty much as bullet proof as they get. 2) I leased to a company that had a bunch of these auto shifts. One ride in a company truck was enough to send me running. Rougher than any rookie I've ever seen. 3) if you gear right, a 13 will seem like an auto on rolling hills.
I drive now 350k with my columbia07 with c 13and smartshift,never have troubles and i have a clutch.i loved is good to my knee,my mpg go from5.7-8.4 depend ,load,weather,my next truck only with automatic
I only had occasion to use one auto shift, and it was the 3 peddle variety. Generally, I liked it. I did use the manual overide quite a bit and hit the button when I wanted it to shift. Under a lot of situations, I didn't like the computer's choice of when to shift, so in those situations, I would just flip on the manual and button shift when I thought it was right. When you do it that way, you overcome the downsides to an autoshift. Not sure how that plays out on a clutchless autoshift, I am not sure. I would think it would be the same concept though. Get the rpm's right under the right conditions and I would tap the upshift button in manual a quick two times and the tranny would skip shift. I really never saw that much difference between standard shifting and the auto shift when you are a little creative in how you use it.
i drove an auto for 6 days as a loner truck while my truck was in the shop, it #### near pushed me to the point of quitting, it shifted rough, would not let me start in any gear but 1 and 2 (i normally start in either 3rd or 5th empty), pulling a grade it just shifted up and down, repeatedly, and in traffic, while coasting in 3rd it would randomly decide to put it in 1st, i hated the IDEA of a computer shifting for me, but the experience made me come to the conclusion that i will NEVER do it again, especially in bad weather. you should NEVER sacrifice control for comfort, the "old schoolers" had it right on that one.
I love it. Don't care what anyone else thinks. I don't spend all day sawing on it in heavy traffic. Anyone can learn to operate, backing isn't an issue, but I drive flatbed. Feathering the throttle is key to find the right engage point without slipping the clutch too much ( think centrifugal clutch) and allowing it to find the gear it wants when coming back into power in traffic situations. I don't slam hard when doing D&H changing trailers. I had troubles when I first bought it. It had 778000 and was throwing codes. Changed trans. harness, vehicle speed sensor and found a wire that kept shaking loose behind the dash. Have not had one single problem since with it. It's like anything else, you have a learning curve but once you learn it, why would you ever want to drive anything else? Unless you're one of those guys who thinks doing things the hard way makes you better. I'm more the kind of guy who likes doing it the easy way and putting just as much money on the bank without flapping my arms around telling everybody what a b a d a s s I am. Bottom line: If you can't like this tranny, it's because you don't want to. Or your not old enough to understand what rheumatoid arthritis is. lol. I also get 6. mpg to 7.5 mpg with a 102 x 45. On rare occasions, I seen 8+. Running 3:73's
My only reasoning for choosing to avoid the auto shifts is reliability over time. Sure, there are anecdotal stories of reliability, but the trucking wide averages are not that stellar. It really comes down to a Scotty on Star Trek saying... the more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain. I am actually more partial to the Allison TC10 as they have been making automatics longer than anyone else and have a good track record. Problem there though, they are expensive and add a lot more weight. I am in full agreement that one should try to work smarter, not harder. Just depends on the situation as to whether an auto shift is a good choice.
