Auto boxes and baffleless tanks - not a good combo

Unlike our resident A66 Chipboard Champion Expert on the overnight Lockerbie Express I don’t claim to be a Driving God and like picking up new tips and tricks along the way, either through experimentation with various techniques myself or from people that have been doing the job all their life. I’ve done a lot of different stuff but relatively limited on liquid tanks; enough to get it safely from A to B without any drama or rolling it into a ditch (not sure about straight and level roads yet, this may be a challenge too far ) but those have been compartmental and/or with baffles. Baffleless is not hard, but requires more caution and extreme smoothness in one’s driving to prevent the yoyo-ing pendulum effect of the milk racing up and down the tank.

I remember being told years ago (by a tanker driver) that the trick was to time the gear changes just as the liquid goes from the ebb to the flow after it hits the rear of the tank, the theory being that while you’re mid gear change the flow is helping propel you a little. In reality I’ve found this makes absolutely no difference whatsoever (on a manual box) . What I’ve personally found to be key is to not get to the situation where the liquid is moving at all . I’ve found it’s not the timing of the gear changes, nor the speed or them, just simply that you do it all as smoothly as possible so that you can’t even feel you’ve done it. This is easy enough to do driving down a slip ramp, building up speed to join a motorway (for example), but easier said than done when you’ve started from a standstill and are pulling up a fairly steep hill where you need max throttle. A very slight easing of the gas, grease the clutch out smoothly, silky smooth change, quickly grease clutch back in, and progressively back on the gas without any harsh inputs seems to be the key to keep it all calm in the back and momentum going, at least with a manual box anyway.

So I have the manual boxes down to a tee now. The problem is the trucks with auto boxes . As good as auto boxes are, they don’t work well with liquid (Scania auto 3 pedal opticruise), especially not when you’re 3/4 full. The gear changes are too snappy (no smoothness, just on/off) and impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy so you can’t prepare to come off the gas a little for the change to keep the liquid calm, you end up with it racing up and down the tank, driving like a nodding donkey . I’ve tried less gas, but that just confuses the box as it thinks you’re not on a hill so changes up, doesn’t have the torque to pull you up in that gear, so changes back down, each time creating a riot in the back. I’ve got that ■■■■■■ off with it that I flick the box into M when pulling away and do the changes myself then once up to speed, flick it back to auto for sorting itself out at junctions, roundabouts, hill descents etc. Another pet hate with them is they can’t ‘see’ the terrain ahead and I do a lot of hills and valleys with many small crests and dips in between. In a manual you’d just leave it in the same gear as you’d know you’d have enough torque in that gear to get you over the brow of the crest ahead even with the revs dying to nearly nothing, so the milk would stay calm, but the auto sees the revs dropping rapidly and “helpfully” drops a gear for you, only to change back up again a few seconds later as you start gaining a little speed into the next dip - each time creating havoc in the back. I suppose like all technology it has its limitations but just feels to me that this work would be easier/simpler with a manual box.

Any tips from the seasoned artic milk tanker drivers here, or is this just how it is with the auto boxes and you rock your way down the roads and just put up with it? I refuse to be defeated!

Auto boxes and liquid loads don’t mix, and 62 mph (Original max limiter speed) on the flat had less back and forth movement than 53-65 In my experience.

As Weeto, and as you are finding out, don’t leave it in auto, use M…note MH gives more rapid response from the gearbox on opticruise than M, and to be fair Scania’s auto boxes lend themselves better than any other to manual driving.

I had several years driving open artic tippers carrying offal (and yes we had to sheet them up, not easysheets either, the old method and try not to fall in ), and there were times when collecting chicken offal, or worse, leather fleshings, that the separation screens in the factory hadn’t been hosed down regularly during the night shift so the tipper was full of offally water near enough to the top of the body, this required some very careful driving.
When you accelerate the liquid makes a wave, its ok for about 2 gearchanges if you misstime the change, but by the 3rd change the swell was such that the load would spill over the back of the body ( i would wait a few seconds before resuming power every second or third upshift), with similar constant deceleration required, a panic stop was to be avoided at all costs or the load was coming over the front and no mistake, it happened to many but only once to me when some clown brake checked me.

The secret is to ‘feel’ the load, to visualise what the load is doing and to time every second gearshift to counteract the swell so cancelling it out, by the time you’re in the top 3 gears of a 12 speed box it’s no longer much of an issue.

If you’re getting a new(er) wagon the chances of finding a manual are slim at best, thankfully the new gen is just as good as your opticruise at manual shifting and the clutch operation isn’t such an on/off device as the older models can be, Scania manuals never were much to write home about anyway…be thankful you haven’t got a bloody Daf with arsetronic and auto only gearbox, Jesus wept .

One thing is still true, no matter how bloody clever these new vehicles might be, they don’t and never will match the forward planning competence nor progressive smooth driving and resulting better fuel economy or vehicle longevity of a proper lorry driver who actually gives a toss and learns how to get the best from the vehicle.

Course don’t forget to add in side swell to forward/back, don’t let that pendulum build up too much on roundabouts especially

I’ve never had any major issues with my scania r450 except lack of power on hills.
my tank has one baffle and I deliver liquid animal feed and occasionally dairy produce.
If your in auto just check the terrain through your windscreen and flip it to manual if you come to something like a hill or dodgy junction, choose your gear and keep it until you get your speed up.
Using the engine brake is helpful when slowing to stop the product sloshing fore and aft.
Just keep using your eyes looking at the terrain and you should be fine.
All that said there is always a time you will get caught out and feel the product thump the front of the tank and roll back just as you want to rush forward at a junction and bugger up your gearing as you couldn’t be bothered going into manual

I never found a problem with lift tanks or single pot barrels, twin splitter and iShift, they never missed a beat.

R420:
Unlike our resident A66 Chipboard Champion Expert on the overnight Lockerbie Express I don’t claim to be a Driving God and like picking up new tips and tricks along the way

So I have the manual boxes down to a tee now. The problem is the trucks with auto boxes . As good as auto boxes are, they don’t work well with liquid (Scania auto 3 pedal opticruise), especially not when you’re 3/4 full.
Any tips from the seasoned artic milk tanker drivers here, or is this just how it is with the auto boxes and you rock your way down the roads and just put up with it? I refuse to be defeated!

I’ve also done plenty of milk tankers with auto boxes driving on an Arla contract hauling condensed milk and various creams from Meadow Foods in Holme Moor. Certainly with the Volvos there wasn’t really any issue due to it being an auto. As with anything when you’re doing that kind of work it’s about the general smoothness of your driving, how well you control your right foot. Accelerate smoothly, anticipate what others are likely to do and act accordingly. If you’re planting your left foot to the floor when setting off or accelerating away from a lower speed then you’re going to get a more jerking gear change. When you’re going up a hill slowly feed in more throttle. You’ve figured it out with manual boxes, it’s just learning to achieve the same using the right foot that you were doing with the left on the manual.

Drift:
I’ve never had any major issues with my scania r450 except lack of power on hills.
my tank has one baffle and I deliver liquid animal feed and occasionally dairy produce.
If your in auto just check the terrain through your windscreen and flip it to manual if you come to something like a hill or dodgy junction, choose your gear and keep it until you get your speed up.
Using the engine brake is helpful when slowing to stop the product sloshing fore and aft.
Just keep using your eyes looking at the terrain and you should be fine.
All that said there is always a time you will get caught out and feel the product thump the front of the tank and roll back just as you want to rush forward at a junction and bugger up your gearing as you couldn’t be bothered going into manual

I was out in the R450 today and with some practice and deft foot work in M mode I’ve seen the initial pull-away gear change harsh thuds much reduced to more of a ‘soft blow’ as the milk hits the end of the tank. Once rolling and into the higher gears it becomes much easier to ‘grease’ the changes when you have the momentum to help you. Difficult to do when pulling away as you can’t be too slow otherwise you miss the lights and people behind get ■■■■■■ off at your glacial rate of acceleration.

R450 lack of power on hills, you say? Yes! I have discovered hills on the M6 today that I didn’t even know existed as no other truck I’ve driven has lost speed on them when full. Never even noticed any reduction in the Mercs in the same places and Mercs are notorious for having [zb] engines with no guts.

Juddian:
As Weeto, and as you are finding out, don’t leave it in auto, use M…note MH gives more rapid response from the gearbox on opticruise than M, and to be fair Scania’s auto boxes lend themselves better than any other to manual driving.

MH? What is this sorcery?

As a side note, is there a way to make the cruise control stay on permanently, leaving it up to ME to decide when I want to cancel it? I went into the settings and changed it from eco mode to normal mode, but it still cancels it when it feels like it, usually in the dumbest places where you’ve got zero chance of overruning down the small decline even fully loaded, so it’s never going to happen when empty. It’s like being back in the 80s with my foot permanently flat to the floor to keep it going.

Can only echo other posters , had I-Shift and tanks for just shy of 4 yrs , never had an issue . No rush to go back into a manual now

R420:

Juddian:
As Weeto, and as you are finding out, don’t leave it in auto, use M…note MH gives more rapid response from the gearbox on opticruise than M, and to be fair Scania’s auto boxes lend themselves better than any other to manual driving.

MH? What is this sorcery?

As a side note, is there a way to make the cruise control stay on permanently, leaving it up to ME to decide when I want to cancel it? I went into the settings and changed it from eco mode to normal mode, but it still cancels it when it feels like it, usually in the dumbest places where you’ve got zero chance of overruning down the small decline even fully loaded, so it’s never going to happen when empty. It’s like being back in the 80s with my foot permanently flat to the floor to keep it going.

Once you select M, if you twist the gearlever selecter clockwise it should come up with MH on the dash readout, its the manual version of AH or AP…forgive me if i’ve got the wrong letters now it’s been some time since i drove Opticruise.
Can’t help on CC.

Juddian:

R420:

Juddian:
As Weeto, and as you are finding out, don’t leave it in auto, use M…note MH gives more rapid response from the gearbox on opticruise than M, and to be fair Scania’s auto boxes lend themselves better than any other to manual driving.

MH? What is this sorcery?

As a side note, is there a way to make the cruise control stay on permanently, leaving it up to ME to decide when I want to cancel it? I went into the settings and changed it from eco mode to normal mode, but it still cancels it when it feels like it, usually in the dumbest places where you’ve got zero chance of overruning down the small decline even fully loaded, so it’s never going to happen when empty. It’s like being back in the 80s with my foot permanently flat to the floor to keep it going.

Once you select M, if you twist the gearlever selecter clockwise it should come up with MH on the dash readout, its the manual version of AH or AP…forgive me if i’ve got the wrong letters now it’s been some time since i drove Opticruise.
Can’t help on CC.

Perhaps I should RTFM as I wasn’t even aware of that. Is that essentially Scania’s equivalent of the P button on the I-shifts?

Yes, in practice it’s about as much use as teats on a boar in auto, all it does is rev higher in each gear thereby losing the lugging ability of the engine, it sounds faster purely due to the revs, but in MH (or MP) you can make good use of those faster changes pulling away out of junctions but keeping the revs low where Scannis pull like buggery, and steep hill climbing is a peach using MH…there were a couple of hills on the way out to Hereford/Leominster where if you left it in auto the hills steepened so rapidly the autobox couldn’t keep up with downshifts eventually leading to stall out, carefully executed block downchanges via MH (and dumping the mid lift air at 19mph) saw the motor romp up.
It was such a stall out in Stroud when i first got the 3 pedal in 2006 that saw me spit me dummy out and i’ve never driven a Scanny in auto since, to be fair i like the 3 pedal version otherwise because you keep control of the clutch for maneuvering.

You can select 3 modes in the new gen via the dash as you know, eco normal and power, eco is painful, normal is fine, power does the same as the old P or H mode, all revs and no better progress…three guesses which mode 90% of the usual suspects leave it in

Whilst in H(or P) in manual mode the gearchanges are faster in the 3 pedal version especially, i never noticed a similar faster change in the new gens in power mode in manual.

There, clear as mud

Too tired to read all that R420. But just had to beer you for your first sentence. Needed that laugh, big time. [emoji481]

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Juddian:
If you’re getting a new(er) wagon the chances of finding a manual are slim at best, thankfully the new gen is just as good as your opticruise at manual shifting and the clutch operation isn’t such an on/off device as the older models can be, Scania manuals never were much to write home about anyway…be thankful you haven’t got a bloody Daf with arsetronic and auto only gearbox, Jesus wept .

One thing is still true, no matter how bloody clever these new vehicles might be, they don’t and never will match the forward planning competence nor progressive smooth driving and resulting better fuel economy or vehicle longevity of a proper lorry driver who actually gives a toss and learns how to get the best from the vehicle.
Amen to that Juddian,Amen!