Heck sometimes they'd pull a motor after just a couple of days use if the engineers asked, I even ran one truck that they installed the motor in the morning & then I was told to cut the route short & return about 3/4 of the way & to make **** sure I ran only a very specific # of miles & no error was allowed.

 

Now how are ya supposed to do that?????

 

The engineers would print out one of the standard routes & then tell you that instead of say 586 miles that you had to return at 356 or what ever # they needed so you had to figure where to turn or how many loops to do to match what they required & no excuses that you went 2 miles too far either.[duhhh

 

I guess you could make a few laps around Swan Island to get what you needed.

 

Nope they considered that to be out of route.

 

The company I drive for part time has an autoshift in a 08-ish International with a M11, and I had the misfortune of taking it one day. I nearly got into an accident because it couldnt decide which gear it wanted to go into at an intersection, so it stayed in neutral (for lack of a better word- did absolutely nothing). At warehouses picking up and delivering, it would take 3-5 seconds to shift into gear; other times it would stay in N and beep like mad, forcing me to kill the engine and restart from scratch. And I wasnt in the truck 2hrs total. I kindly informed my dispatcher that if he wanted me to keep driving for them, I was NOT going to drive that POS autoshift again unless I could dump it into the river- call someone else next time. So far, so good.

 

This fleet owner hasn't had problems . http://www.kenworth.com/6500_arc_pre_mor.asp?file=2518

 

Let me start by saying I know nothing at all about the autos, we've got 15 Freightliners in the fleet and just replaced 7 of them, 6 sticks and 1 Select Shift Auto. From the first few post saying they were faster this one isn't, my buddy got the auto and I about run over him 7 or 8 times till he got it up to about 40, I'd stone kill him in a drag race. But the boss' think there the way to go and went ahead and ordered 8 more new trucks with the autos, I guess I'll be getting mine in about 3 more weeks and then I'll come back and let you know what I think after driving it a few thousand miles.

 

The only auto shift ive ever driven is the 3 pedal autoshift eaton 10 speed variety, not all that bad to drive once i got used to it but i got bored really fast not having anything to do. it did seem hesitant to pick a gear when i started slowing down, almost like it was in a grey area and couldnt decide what to do

But if its a light GVW puller your after it wouldnt have been that bad of a rig to run, but I wont be buying one anytime soon

 

The new ones being tested for Detroit are doing fine at weights up to 140,000# & are 18 speeds the pause between gears is pretty well gone now & there is only 2 pedals in the cab.

 

I hate changing the centrifugal clutches in them. they weigh at least 150 lbs.

 

Could someone please describe the actual differences between all these? Not much knowledge on the real trucks, but I remember being in the front row of a coach bus down at Disney last year, watching the shifts. Was like looking at a 10spd going through the gears with a decent delay between shifts. Just curious, and thanks.

 

I just got a 2011 Freightliner Cascadia with a DD15 and autoshift 13 speed trans. I like the auto in heavy bumper to bumper traffic , but other than that I'd rather have my old manual 13spd. My old truck was a 2001 IH 9200 with a C12 rated @ 410hp . It was getting 9 mpg. The new truck with DD15 is rated @455hp and is getting a miserable 6.5 mpg .and doesn't even pull the hills as good as the C12 .The new truck also uses about 3 gallons of diesel exhaust fluid every 775 miles .Note that I haul really light loads , and usually gross about 31,000 to 41,000 lbs.

 

Be happy that you are getting 6.5 because the test trucks are sure not getting close to that. And IIRC your consumption of pig pee is too high we were running about 1 gallon per 450 miles with that being at 105,500#.
Some of the test DD15's that we were testing were putting out over 900 on the ground & grossing 135,000 for a 7 axle combo & the 18 speed auto shifts were doing a real good job though a good hand with a manual could make shifts quite a bit faster but I do believe that the companies will be going to the auto shifts in the near future in order to cut down on maintenance especially in slip seat operations.

 

That calculates to a DEF consuption rate of about 2.5%. That's about what you should expect.

It will generally be worse in colder weather than in hot. It should drop to 2% or so in the summer.

All else equal, heavy hauling reduces DEF consumption rate (lower engine out NOx).

JH