When I was ‘on the buses’ we had some MAN’s with Voith 4 speed auto’s… what a bloody disaster. They had retarders that must have been set up to the max. No way could you drive the buggers smoothly. Taking off, the up shifts were neck snapping and slowing down was even worse. To make things worse, we had some where the retarder would let go before you were expecting it when slowing down, then you had to hit the friction brakes a bit sharpish. Bloody menace.