What if it Snows?

13 is better because it kinda has middle gears. So, if you're loaded heavy and trying to climb an on ramp, and you're in 7th or 8th and you want to grab that next gear but you can't because you're going too slow, you can in a 13. Its like having half gears.
Otherwise, a 10 is plenty for 99% of what you do.

 

My company ordered three trucks with auto transmissions as an experiment. As soon as they reach 500,000 miles they will be sold and there won't be anymore automatic transmissions in the fleet.

Unfortunately I was assigned one of them when I hired on in April. I have 30,000 miles to go and can't wait.

Pulling up a hill from a standing start or backing uphill or downhill are a challenge. Think rodeo.

Another safety problem is descending a hill in low range. In stop and go traffic or descending a hill in tight quarters you WANT to ALWAYS be in gear, RIGHT!!!??? Well autos aren't built to handle the "abuse" of shifting. Therefore they are designed to kick it into neutral in situations like that. You have to be on guard for sudden acceleration toward the stopped car in front of you when it kicks out of gear!

 

You can skip gears by not using the splitter in high range. I often will wait until 12th to split up to 13th.

 

That's what I was thinking, he was kinda asking a bunch of us our opinions and it seemed to be split. I kinda like dropping a gear or two and letting the Jake drag the trucks speed down when I'm getting off the highway at 70-75mph and I just feel like I'm gonna be on the brakes constantly with an auto. My only experience with a automated trans was in a Freightliner package car at UPS and they were awful. You would be in sixth gear by the time you were doing 11mph and then the #### thing couldn't get out of it's own way and the xy solenoids would go bad a lot and then it would start chasing and grinding gears before giving up and locking itself in neutral so you would have to #### the truck off and turn it on again to get it to go back in 2nd to take off. It seemed like the half that were all for the autos were the guys that probably shouldn't be drivers, I work with quite a few that just got the gig because they knew someone lol.

 

Normally I would say steak because I don't eat a lot of fish but that salmon you cooked last time you put a pic of it up looked delicious.

 

Sounds like a surf and turf dinner.

The best of both and no hard decisions.

 

Both....surf and turf

 

Whuuuut?

You can drive a 13 like a 9 or even an 8spd. You dont have to split every gear on the high side on every shift.

And a 13 keep the engine in its optimum rpm range better, thus consuming less fuel because the engine isnt working as hard.


Next you're gonna say that you think the International Maxxforce is a great engine.