Do truck drivers bother using retarders or exhaust brakes any more? Doesn’t look like it the way you say most drive. Approach lights or roundabouts and slam brakes on as late as possible as they would in a car. Car drivers with class one licences. Scania and Volvo at least show brake lights with secondary brakes so you can tell they aren’t being used.
I run full loads of fruit so use the engine brake quite a lot on my FH4 when loaded…can also say the brake lights do not come on when using it
I always use the jake/retarder/exhaust break when driving (except in ice and snow) as it saves brakes from cooking on those long hills (cooked my brakes once running over the Peak District and scared the hell out of me). . . Saying that though, in my early professional driving days, many moons ago (7 years 
) I drove an 8-legger Scania and the exhaust brake only kicked in when I touched the brake pedal, not enough to apply the brakes but just rest my foot on the pedal which I hated because I never truly knew if I was actually riding the brake or just using the exhaust as the brake lights came on too.
My truck after that, a Scania Tractor unit, that thing had a button on the floor in front of the pedals which was awesome so used that lots. Some trucks, like the one I’m in now have a switch that automatically engages the exhaust when I let off the throttle which I also like and use that all the time too.
Don’t see the point of not using them when they are there and add comfort and are just handy to have and saves brake wear and if one is looking down the road instead of 5 feet ahead then they save the need to use the brake at all sometimes
A truck I drove had the brake lights on with jake brake, my mate had one and he would switch the jake brake off as he didn’t want truckers behind thinking he was putting the brakes on all the time. 
Yes I do use the engine break all the time…probably more than I should but it has become an instinct by this point. Only use foot break in emergency, to come to a complete stop or to help slow down on a very steep decline. This probably does ■■■■ off other drivers who are behind me as my stopping/slowing distance before a roundabout is usually at least 300m but I rarely care these days.
Drivers are actually taught on the principle of brakes to slow gears to go.
Which totally contradicts the use of engine brakes because they are totally reliant on the use of the principle of gears to slow for them to be able to work.
Throw blind auto transmissions into the mix then all bets are off anyway.It’s anyone’s guess how the thing will approach a hazard.
One of the last trucks I drove you could switch the retarder to work automatically. I agree though they are not used properly by some drivers.
Carryfast where do you get your ideas from? 
The clue is in the first sentence of the OP, at least in Britain where trucks are lorries.
Truck drivers don’t use auxilliary braking, wouldn’t have a clue what this thread is about and could not care less.
Lorry drivers do, regarding the service brakes as ideally being used only to bring the vehicle to a final halt or for unforseen stopping.
Sometimes when off i’ve seen 3% vanish from the brake pad wear reading in a couple of days, front wheels caked in thick brake dust, if they were owner operators they’d be wondering why the job don’t pay .
Juddian:
Sometimes when off i’ve seen 3% vanish from the brake pad wear reading in a couple of days, front wheels caked in thick brake dust, if they were owner operators they’d be wondering why the job don’t pay
When you leave a truck at 78% ‘driving score’ at the end of your shift and then find it at 42% score next day.
DickyNick:
Do truck drivers bother using retarders or exhaust brakes any more? Doesn’t look like it the way you say most drive. Approach lights or roundabouts and slam brakes on as late as possible as they would in a car.
When you use the retarder brake it doesn’t always bring on the lights. The ones on the DAF and Mercs I drive can brake almost as well as a footbrake, they’ll certainly hold 44 tonnes down Windy Hill, so you may be complaining about people who are actually doing what you’re asking if they do.
RIPPER:
I run full loads of fruit so use the engine brake quite a lot on my FH4 when loaded…can also say the brake lights do not come on when using it
O yes the do. Didn’t on the Old FH, but do on V4, position 1,2,3 on Auto, depends how much it’s retarding.
On the old FH, put it on 3, lift off, car traveling to close behind change of pants.
biggriffin:
RIPPER:
I run full loads of fruit so use the engine brake quite a lot on my FH4 when loaded…can also say the brake lights do not come on when using itO yes the do. Didn’t on the Old FH, but do on V4, position 1,2,3 on Auto, depends how much it’s retarding.
On the old FH, put it on 3, lift off, car traveling to close behind change of pants.
Well mine doesn’t…it’s an old FH4 on a 64 plate, maybe the newer ones do, but when i’m dropping down the hill on the A20 through Roundhill Tunnel fully freighted i do not see my brake lights come on with the engine brake on Auto
Use the exhaust brake all the time on our Volvo’s and depending on how hard its slowing down they do illuminate the brake lights as already mentioned. They are 69 plates, the old Volvo’s I don’t think did so. But they were the old shape 63 was the newest.
simcor:
Use the exhaust brake all the time on our Volvo’s and depending on how hard its slowing down they do illuminate the brake lights as already mentioned. They are 69 plates, the old Volvo’s I don’t think did so. But they were the old shape 63 was the newest.
Mines a 64, FH4,
Juddian:
The clue is in the first sentence of the OP, at least in Britain where trucks are lorries.Truck drivers don’t use auxilliary braking, wouldn’t have a clue what this thread is about and could not care less.
Lorry drivers do, regarding the service brakes as ideally being used only to bring the vehicle to a final halt or for unforseen stopping.Sometimes when off i’ve seen 3% vanish from the brake pad wear reading in a couple of days, front wheels caked in thick brake dust, if they were owner operators they’d be wondering why the job don’t pay
To be fair the land of the free and trucks is still dominated by Fuller transmissions and Jake brakes.
By definition US ‘truckers’ aren’t taught to drive on the basis of brakes to slow gears to go.
Brit ‘lorry’ drivers have been since at least the 1980’s.
I was proud to drive a truck ( and still my car ) the American way sequential downshifts on the approach using the gears to slow mantra and maximising engine braking and call myself a truck driver.
stopped using the exhaust brake because if takes you out the green and into the blue on the rev thing and when they do your performance figures it looks as if you have been doing too much harsh accelerating even though you haven’t and also they say your fuel economy is bad and your using too much
villa:
stopped using the exhaust brake because if takes you out the green and into the blue on the rev thing and when they do your performance figures it looks as if you have been doing too much harsh accelerating even though you haven’t and also they say your fuel economy is bad and your using too much
Your monitoring system has been set up by poorly, during retarding the system should allow anything up to a pre set max, usually at the top end of the green band,the green band shifting up several hundred rpm when exhaust braking, on some makes the rev counter doesn’t change colour and rev band when exhaust brake is in use but that doesn’t alter the fact it’s the correct method, the makers after all programmed their engines and gearboxes to make auto exhaust braking effective by revving the engine up for peak efficiency.
Real life fuel consumption improves by driving as a lorry driver, every yard covered with your foot off the throttle uses no fuel (save for the tiny amount to rev the unloaded engine for the next downshift), so allowing the vehicle to overrun for a good while then using retarding system for all the slowing up necessary to negotiate a moving junction or bends will not only see your fuel figures improved but you will have used minimal brakes and make better smoother progress all round…2+ mpg gain easily with only seconds or minutes in journey times and and easy life for the wagon.
Ideally your should be able to drive for many miles and negotiate numerous roundabouts etc without ever using the service brakes, by pre planning well half the time you never get below say 6th gear or 15mph at such junctions by timing your approach to flow through unrestricted, meanwhile tear arse billy with who flew past you moments earlier was pedal to the metal right till the last minute then braking heavily to a complete stop and having to power up all the way again till the next junction, rinse and repeat.
Take a look at the front wheels of tear arse billys wagon, if you can find the discs among all that thick brake dust don’t for crying out loud touch them or you’ll leave all your finger tips behind.
And yes Carryfast is quite right, sadly new lorry drivers are mostly taught ‘‘brakes to slow gears to go’’, which is car driving standard, but then the training system is all about test pass rates.
I’ve had a go at one DCPC trainer about this (a company my lot no longer use), reckoned he was a lorry driver trainer too, kept insisting BTSGTG was the new way to drive lorries, no wonder the bloody industry is going round the U bend with bods like him teaching the next generation.
Juddian there are very few who drive the way you describe these days. It’s a thing of the past unfortunately.
However I am baffled why you and Carryfast seem to think most lorry drivers are taught by gears to go brakes to slow.
Car instructors definitely use that method and I do know of a couple who went on to lorry training and carried it on but in
general I doubt you are correct especially as most training is carried out in auto trucks these days. (so how does that work??)
I would not trust most DCPC instructors as some are not trained properly and some seem to think it’s ok to tell others what they think is correct instead of the actual correct method.
Same goes for lorry instuctors who have not had proper training. They pass their bad habits on to new drivers. I would urge you to visit a training school where I am sure you will find your theory
is not quite correct.
Be interested to hear “Pete Smythes” view. I think that’s his name. Also be interested to hear of any new drivers who have just been trained almost probably on an auto how they use the method you describe?
Jake, i doubt training companies have the time to instill retarder only means of reducing speed into their charges, they may well have the exhaust set to automatic operation when the brakes are applied (which helps the long life of their vehicle as well) but i would be surprised if a trainee was taught to apply the automatic retarder itself (as opposed to it coming on when brake pedal applied) to aid slowing as good driving practice.
Certainly the DCPC trainer i encountered made a point of explaining how he teaches new drivers BTSGTG, my example to him after the umpteenth mention of his technique of the new driver he taught being handed a full weight tipper in the Derbyshire Dales utilising that method had him stumped (he trotted out some ■■■■■■■■ about Stobbies training their own new starters, whatever that might have to do with the price of fish), that tipper incident at Bath not so long provides a perfect example of a lad having not the first clue about preserving brakes by proper gear/engine speed/retarder matching to keep the vehicle under control without cooking the brakes constantly because he simply wasn’t taught to drive a piggin lorry…my old trainer, a chap who incidentally won lorry driver of the year three times before taking up instructing, would have had a blue fit if you used the brakes alone without going down through the gears at appropriate engine revs.