I’ve just had the misfortune of a fortnight driving a XF Daf with an auto box why on earth do these thing exist is it really that difficult to change gear manually.Half the time i have been over riding the system and changing up or down myself so whats the point.I used the exhauster the other day and nearly broke my noseonthe windscreen .If this is the shape of things to come get me outta here… and dont even mention reversing uphill loaded into a tight spot
In the early days of exhaust brakes, they were mostly ■■■■, offered little in the way of retardation.
Now they really do offer some sort of braking, blokes are still complaining, someone says he almost broke his nose , on another thread someone said the exhaust brake on the Mercedes MP4 was “Too noisy!” WTF?
Some of you really are in the wrong job!
Ramone I take you have never heard a jake brake on a ■■■■■■■ working hard as they would set alarms off rattle windows and made more noise than concorde it is wonder that the drivers never got done for disturbing the peace when using them at night in residential areas as a lot of lights would come on in the early hours allegedly 
cheers Johnnie 
P S if the new ones are that good do not use in damp or slippery conditions otherwise you will lock your drive axle up
bestbooties:
In the early days of exhaust brakes, they were mostly [zb], offered little in the way of retardation.
Now they really do offer some sort of braking, blokes are still complaining, someone says he almost broke his nose , on another thread someone said the exhaust brake on the Mercedes MP4 was “Too noisy!” WTF?
Some of you really are in the wrong job!
Maybe i didnt explain the reason i nearly broke my nose mr booties , when you press your foot on the exhauster going downhill the autobox immediately changes down at least two gears throwing the rev needle into the red , all i wanted to do was hold the thing back a little without using the brakes much the same as you would with a manual , as for being in the wrong job i think youre right , ive just over 30 years in the job and before anyone mentions im just wet behind the ears i know theres many with much more experience than me on here but like i mentioned before if this is progress i think its the begining of the end for me
sammyopisite:
Ramone I take you have never heard a jake brake on a ■■■■■■■ working hard as they would set alarms off rattle windows and made more noise than concorde it is wonder that the drivers never got done for disturbing the peace when using them at night in residential areas as a lot of lights would come on in the early hours allegedlycheers Johnnie
P S if the new ones are that good do not use in damp or slippery conditions otherwise you will lock your drive axle up
To be fair Johnnie the exhaust brake was very average , it was the the totally unexpected dropping of a couple of gears that was my point.I think the best exhauster i have used was on a 360 Turbostar back in the late `80s maybe it was because as Mr Booties mentioned most were pretty crap at that time one that worked stuck with me.
Looking back I loved driving my old F10 with the dash-splitter etc, I was lucky enough to drive a F88 with the same, I really loved the Seddon Atkinson Strato & ERF s with the Twin-Splitter, no need for the clutch other than to stop/start, up/down through the box like a knife-thru-butter 
real drivers box , but didn’t I play some tunes on it until I got it sorted 
. Even the AEC Mandators that I sat for miles watching Dad drive, then drove myself just after getting my Class 1, just before they scrapped them! And all the others, full of nostalgia & memories 
. But after 30+ years, I certainly enjoy/appreciate the automatics, more now I think because of another change that has been forced on us all, the dramatic increase in Traffic volumes 
, queuing here there & everywhere, on Motorways/A-roads/ in Towns/Cities, its a ■■■■ site easier to just push the pedals than keep shifting up/down while you try to get somewhere! The bit I don’t get about my Auto-Scania, is why the ‘F’ has it got a Clutch? If you are going to have a Manual, then have a Manual! If you are going to have a Automatic then do so, just brake & throttle! But I just don’t get the half-way crap on mine, the way it will stall at roundabouts etc if you don’t use the clutch??!! & its other annoying trait is its insistence on selecting 1st gear every opportunity it gets 
. you can be rolling slowly in 2nd/3rd & you just give the brake that little jab just to let something clear & the ‘■■■■■’ seizes the day, the computer says we’re stopping & click-click down to gears & any momentum you have got no matter how small has gone 
. Regards Chris
Believe it or not Adr, but that clutch pedal is worth its weight in gold when reversing into tight spots or trying to reverse onto a loading bay gently or worse still reversing uphill loaded. I didnt mind the Scania opticruise too much but the ZFs in the Dafs imho are very poor.This morning for instance i set off fully loaded and it was A roads from Bradford to the A1 , i tried evey method i could think of to try and make smooth progress with no success. First gentle acceleration which worked for the first few gears then when i was in 8th it didnt want to change to 9th , i let up of the accelerator … nothing … i put my foot down … nothing apart from running up into the blue , answer change up myself defeating the object . This was much the same all day long and trying to keep it in the green in auto mode is nigh on impossible. Some drivers love them some hate them i`m in the latter group.I was talking to a driver i know who is much older and more experienced than me on saturday and he has had a Daf XF auto from new doing Germany every week it is now 3 years old and he was saying he was having the same problems as me.
You may know this already but if you push the gear selector stalk down and hold it there with just the ignition on and click it a couple of times and hold it in place this may cure your problem of going into 1st gear all the time . You can reset the gearbox starting gear from 1 to 3 by doing this, it may work it may not
Hi Ramone, yes it is good for shunting etc I agree, we have DAFs & Mercs too & they are a pain to shunt, had the same problem with Auto-MANs when on the Beer for Budweiser (before anyone jumps up shouting, ‘You call that Yank crap beer?!!!’, I am a Real Ale man myself!). Also I have found that it best on some hills to switch to Manual shift especially when part-loaded, I have a Tanker & can do 4-5-6 drops a day, so as the load comes off, sometimes on a hill the slop of the liquid can confuse the gearbox-computer, so it can detect a forward/rearward surge & quickly try to select up/down, only to have to correct itself, bloody nuisance trying to keep up momentum! No, I wasn’t aware of that being able to reset the gearbox like that, I will try that tomorrow . Thanks, we are never too old to learn! Regards Chris
adr:
Hi Ramone, yes it is good for shunting etc I agree, we have DAFs & Mercs too & they are a pain to shunt, had the same problem with Auto-MANs when on the Beer for Budweiser (before anyone jumps up shouting, ‘You call that Yank crap beer?!!!’, I am a Real Ale man myself!). Also I have found that it best on some hills to switch to Manual shift especially when part-loaded, I have a Tanker & can do 4-5-6 drops a day, so as the load comes off, sometimes on a hill the slop of the liquid can confuse the gearbox-computer, so it can detect a forward/rearward surge & quickly try to select up/down, only to have to correct itself, bloody nuisance trying to keep up momentum! No, I wasn’t aware of that being able to reset the gearbox like that, I will try that tomorrow
We did it with some rental Scanias ,hold the gear stalk down ignition on the click 1 ,2 or 3 and hold it there it should reset it to start in the on you choose i would go for 2 personally
As a former none automatic gearbox truck driver can anyone tell me if any manufacture is fitting the Alinson Auto Box to UK Trucks? If so what’s been the experience?
The reason I ask is that an American RV we owned, powered by a ■■■■■■■ Pusher, did have an Alinson and it was great
ramone:
bestbooties:
In the early days of exhaust brakes, they were mostly [zb], offered little in the way of retardation.
Now they really do offer some sort of braking, blokes are still complaining, someone says he almost broke his nose , on another thread someone said the exhaust brake on the Mercedes MP4 was “Too noisy!” WTF?
Some of you really are in the wrong job!Maybe i didn
t explain the reason i nearly broke my nose mr booties , when you press your foot on the exhauster going downhill the autobox immediately changes down at least two gears throwing the rev needle into the red , all i wanted to do was hold the thing back a little without using the brakes much the same as you would with a manual , as for being in the wrong job i think youre right , ive just over 30 years in the job and before anyone mentions im just wet behind the ears i know theres many with much more experience than me on here but like i mentioned before if this is progress i think its the begining of the end for me
I soon found out on our MP4’s that pulling the exhaust brake stalk back to position 3 while cruise control was engaged, did tend to drop down too many gears resulting in too much retardation too quickly.
By experimenting, I found that thinking more ahead, (Which is what we should be doing anyway), when cresting a down slope, before the 'box goes into Eco drive, (Neutral!), knocking the cruise control off, then pulling the stalk back to position 3 the retardation is not so severe and
you can change up or down manually to regulate your downhill progress.
Also, I find on the Merc that the box will not change down to a lower gear if there’s a chance of over revving the engine, but again, thinking ahead, I don’t let it get that out of hand as to risk that situation.
I’m sure most of you will agree that truck technology has come a long way in 40 years,(For those of you that go back that far!), and driving with all the latest gizmo’s is a totally different ball game to how it used to be.
Some of us are lucky enough to have a session with a works driver to instruct you how to get the best out of your new motor, while others are given a new motor and be expected to get on with it, only finding out how to get the best of it by getting a few miles under your belt and making your own judgements and altering your driving style to suit.
If you think your DAF, Scania, Iveco or whatever with auto-shift is enough to make you quit, you haven’t spent time being frustrated and defeated by a Japanese truck with an automated manual box. The depot where I work has two new-ish Isuzus (one 5 months, one a year old) that are paradoxically the spare trucks. Why should that be when the rest of the fleet is 8-12yo clunkers? Because the old nails (including the 11yo Hino I regularly drive) have three pedals and a big lever you move around. The new auto things are utterly hopeless - they take weeks to change gear, which makes a nonsense of getting up hills - you go for the next ratio up and by the time it’s shifted it’s too late so back down you go. Rinse, repeat. In the time it takes to get them into and out of reverse entire species have developed and gone extinct. There are (all too frequent) occasions when it can’t make up its mind what to do next and strands you on top of a roundabout in heavy traffic, or halfway across a junction. Then there are all those numerous times when I won’t duck across a busy road in a break in the traffic because I have no confidence the thing won’t have a hissy fit and stop.
This is bad enough on relatively long inter-urban work, but in my current job I’m doing multi-drop in heavy urban traffic all day, and these Isuzu things drive me up the chuffing wall. Only yesterday I got the old Hino back from having a service and faults fixed, and I’m a much happier bunny today - three pedals and a lever, because even I know better than a black box. I don’t mind electronickery when it actually helps (ABS, load-sensing kit, reversing cameras) but these infernal electronic manual boxes are a curse. And don’t even start me on backing into/ out of tight/ uphill spots with the stupid thing making beeping warnings at me because it’s having to slip its clutch, or the fact that even in DIY mode you can’t over-ride it so it starts downhill in 3rd or 4th instead of 2nd, or…
If this is the near future of truck driving, you can shove it up your diesel particulate diffuser.
ParkRoyal2100:
If you think your DAF, Scania, Iveco or whatever with auto-shift is enough to make you quit, you haven’t spent time being frustrated and defeated by a Japanese truck with an automated manual box. The depot where I work has two new-ish Isuzus (one 5 months, one a year old) that are paradoxically the spare trucks. Why should that be when the rest of the fleet is 8-12yo clunkers? Because the old nails (including the 11yo Hino I regularly drive) have three pedals and a big lever you move around. The new auto things are utterly hopeless - they take weeks to change gear, which makes a nonsense of getting up hills - you go for the next ratio up and by the time it’s shifted it’s too late so back down you go. Rinse, repeat. In the time it takes to get them into and out of reverse entire species have developed and gone extinct. There are (all too frequent) occasions when it can’t make up its mind what to do next and strands you on top of a roundabout in heavy traffic, or halfway across a junction. Then there are all those numerous times when I won’t duck across a busy road in a break in the traffic because I have no confidence the thing won’t have a hissy fit and stop.This is bad enough on relatively long inter-urban work, but in my current job I’m doing multi-drop in heavy urban traffic all day, and these Isuzu things drive me up the chuffing wall. Only yesterday I got the old Hino back from having a service and faults fixed, and I’m a much happier bunny today - three pedals and a lever, because even I know better than a black box. I don’t mind electronickery when it actually helps (ABS, load-sensing kit, reversing cameras) but these infernal electronic manual boxes are a curse. And don’t even start me on backing into/ out of tight/ uphill spots with the stupid thing making beeping warnings at me because it’s having to slip its clutch, or the fact that even in DIY mode you can’t over-ride it so it starts downhill in 3rd or 4th instead of 2nd, or…
If this is the near future of truck driving, you can shove it up your diesel particulate diffuser.
Are you sure it doesn`t say DAF XF on the front ■■?
bestbooties:
ramone:
bestbooties:
In the early days of exhaust brakes, they were mostly [zb], offered little in the way of retardation.
Now they really do offer some sort of braking, blokes are still complaining, someone says he almost broke his nose , on another thread someone said the exhaust brake on the Mercedes MP4 was “Too noisy!” WTF?
Some of you really are in the wrong job!Maybe i didn
t explain the reason i nearly broke my nose mr booties , when you press your foot on the exhauster going downhill the autobox immediately changes down at least two gears throwing the rev needle into the red , all i wanted to do was hold the thing back a little without using the brakes much the same as you would with a manual , as for being in the wrong job i think youre right , ive just over 30 years in the job and before anyone mentions im just wet behind the ears i know theres many with much more experience than me on here but like i mentioned before if this is progress i think its the begining of the end for meI soon found out on our MP4’s that pulling the exhaust brake stalk back to position 3 while cruise control was engaged, did tend to drop down too many gears resulting in too much retardation too quickly.
By experimenting, I found that thinking more ahead, (Which is what we should be doing anyway), when cresting a down slope, before the 'box goes into Eco drive, (Neutral!), knocking the cruise control off, then pulling the stalk back to position 3 the retardation is not so severe and
you can change up or down manually to regulate your downhill progress.
Also, I find on the Merc that the box will not change down to a lower gear if there’s a chance of over revving the engine, but again, thinking ahead, I don’t let it get that out of hand as to risk that situation.
I’m sure most of you will agree that truck technology has come a long way in 40 years,(For those of you that go back that far!), and driving with all the latest gizmo’s is a totally different ball game to how it used to be.
Some of us are lucky enough to have a session with a works driver to instruct you how to get the best out of your new motor, while others are given a new motor and be expected to get on with it, only finding out how to get the best of it by getting a few miles under your belt and making your own judgements and altering your driving style to suit.
The only way the exhauster can be used without causing excessive engine over revving is to put the box into manual and then use the exhauster and brakes when needed , it`s a shame the autobox spoils a very good lorry
The ZF box you’ve been enjoying immensely find its way into MAN and Iveco too, and if you think its pants in the DAF try a Stralis, words cannot express just how dire the experience will be, you could knit a wooly jumper whilst the heap decides what to do at a junction…as for the joke hill hold (actually WTF is a lorry doing with hill hold anway, isn’t controlling the thing a drivers job?) if you use it the thing releases about a second before the box has finished its second coffee morning and called the committee meeting to decide on the gear required, let along implement the bugger so if you use hill hold with satans gearbox in an Iveco you know what to expect.
I’ve got an MAN, but every single vehicle in our fleet is now automated manual, the Volvo’s also benefit from electric parking brakes, oh great joy.
I drive the MAN in manual mode when loaded, it does help to maintain some sort of progress but its also better on fuel instead of the engine revving its ■■■■ off for no reason when the bloody gearbox from hell can’t make its mind up and always, but every soddin time selects too low a gear at a moving junction so has to have a rethink etc etc, but you hardly need me to tell you how utterly crap that box is, quite apart from it insist on downchanging if it sees a hill on the horizon.
To be fair, driven manually you can control deceleration fairly well just on the exhauster and i only really use the brakes when i get down to 7th or lower, as such the linings have lasted fantastically well.
I’ve got 6 years to go now before i officially retire, unless that is we have to take in several million more boat people and cameron shift the goal posts re retirement age so we can keep those all buggers in comfortable idleness too, but i digress…i’m thoroughly disappointed that i’m going to see my lorry days out as a steering wheel attendant.
See Ramone, you aint alone in your suffering…i’ve had a poxy auto thing full time since 2005…apart from a too short 12 months of bliss with a 16 speed manual 460 CF…so about time some other blighter suffered too…
Juddian:
The ZF box you’ve been enjoying immensely find its way into MAN and Iveco too, and if you think its pants in the DAF try a Stralis, words cannot express just how dire the experience will be, you could knit a wooly jumper whilst the heap decides what to do at a junction…as for the joke hill hold (actually WTF is a lorry doing with hill hold anway, isn’t controlling the thing a drivers job?) if you use it the thing releases about a second before the box has finished its second coffee morning and called the committee meeting to decide on the gear required, let along implement the bugger so if you use hill hold with satans gearbox in an Iveco you know what to expect.I’ve got an MAN, but every single vehicle in our fleet is now automated manual, the Volvo’s also benefit from electric parking brakes, oh great joy.
I drive the MAN in manual mode when loaded, it does help to maintain some sort of progress but its also better on fuel instead of the engine revving its ■■■■ off for no reason when the bloody gearbox from hell can’t make its mind up and always, but every soddin time selects too low a gear at a moving junction so has to have a rethink etc etc, but you hardly need me to tell you how utterly crap that box is, quite apart from it insist on downchanging if it sees a hill on the horizon.
To be fair, driven manually you can control deceleration fairly well just on the exhauster and i only really use the brakes when i get down to 7th or lower, as such the linings have lasted fantastically well.
I’ve got 6 years to go now before i officially retire, unless that is we have to take in several million more boat people and cameron shift the goal posts re retirement age so we can keep those all buggers in comfortable idleness too, but i digress…i’m thoroughly disappointed that i’m going to see my lorry days out as a steering wheel attendant.
See Ramone, you aint alone in your suffering…i’ve had a poxy auto thing full time since 2005…apart from a too short 12 months of bliss with a 16 speed manual 460 CF…so about time some other blighter suffered too…
Well you have my sympathy sir, 10 years driving an auto maybe you should be knighted, i heard this week that you now have to pay more for a manual box than an auto , isn`t this the kind of arrogance that brought to the end some of the british commercial vehicle manufacturing
ramone:
Juddian:
.Well you have my sympathy sir, 10 years driving an auto maybe you should be knighted, i heard this week that you now have to pay more for a manual box than an auto , isn`t this the kind of arrogance that brought to the end some of the british commercial vehicle manufacturing
The problem being that too many modern replacements of real transport men and women, the sort found on the Old Timers forum, have bought fully into this auto box thing, they employed monkeys in far too many cases instead of drivers and they’ve wrecked the clutches if not the boxes as well on manuals, so auto is the new fail safe as being driver proof, the salesman told them.
We know its a load of cobblers, they still fail, the clutches still wear out, and these boxes cannot cope with some serious manouvering in tight especially uphill spots as you’ve already found.
I’ll tell you how bad it is now, now and again at one customers we have to blind side jack knife reverse at a full 44t up a hill into an even steeper entrance, we’ve had auto clutches fail there, we’ve had experienced younger drivers who can’t get the vehicle in at all, they’re getting wheelspin so the power’s cutting and the clutch is having to engage drive several times, bound to wreck the thing.
When you ask them if they’ve dumped the tractor unit mid lift air, to put some weight on the drive axle, they look a bit confused.
When you ask them if they’ve also switched off TC or ASR, to stop the vehicle cutting power if it senses any mild slip of one drive wheel, they look at you as if you’re a bloody alien.
I’m telling you now, there’s thousands of young, and not so young, HGV licence holders out there who haven’t got a bloody clue, its frankly frightening that they are allowed out in vehicles they do not know how to control.
As an aside, like all companies of a certain size we have driver trainers, isn’t it about time they taught these people to drive and not just tick lots of boxes.
This new breed need auto boxes, they are the future, that’s why us dinosaurs are stuck with them too.
Race to the bottom or lowest common denominator, could be either, just another small example of why this country is going round the U bend, we don’t recruit and encourage and train skills, we deskill and lower the standards to suit, it’ll all end in tears i tell ya.
I’m sure most of you will agree that truck technology has come a long way in 40 years,(For those of you that go back that far!), and driving with all the latest gizmo’s is a totally different ball game to how it used to be.
Some of us are lucky enough to have a session with a works driver to instruct you how to get the best out of your new motor, while others are given a new motor and be expected to get on with it, only finding out how to get the best of it by getting a few miles under your belt and making your own judgements and altering your driving style to suit.
[/quote]
It amazes me nowadays, that with the Modern wagons being so high-tech, with so many companies there appears to be so little actual Training on how to get the best performance/mpg etc from them . Wagons nowadays cost a fortune, not only to buy & put on the road, but to run, cost of fuel etc, but as long as there is a “bum” in the seat & it goes out the gate the Bosses are happy . Maybe it has to do with the fact that so many ‘Bosses’ have never driven a wagon, & most vehicles/fleets are bought by accountants , so these people are unaware of what it is like to drive them, & how much money they could save by driver training 
. So the accountants may be very proud of the deal they have done, but all that money is wasted over the following years by the wagons not being driven properly & not being as efficient as they could/should be . Regards Chris
Juddian:
The ZF box you’ve been enjoying immensely find its way into MAN and Iveco too, and if you think its pants in the DAF try a Stralis, words cannot express just how dire the experience will be, you could knit a wooly jumper whilst the heap decides what to do at a junction…as for the joke hill hold (actually WTF is a lorry doing with hill hold anway, isn’t controlling the thing a drivers job?) if you use it the thing releases about a second before the box has finished its second coffee morning and called the committee meeting to decide on the gear required, let along implement the bugger so if you use hill hold with satans gearbox in an Iveco you know what to expect.
Been there, suffered accordingly. The first time I jumped into one (a Stralis 8-legger with the 450 motor pulling a dog trailer) I thought “Well this should be a hoot”. At about 75% max GVW, for some unfathomable reason it decided to try moving off in 6th, then changed its mind and tried 4th, then changed its mind again - I can’t remember what gear it was in when it finally got going but at least I was out of the yard gates. From there on it all rather went downhill.
And yet, it’s still not the worst auto-manual out there. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but there’s these Isuzu things I’ve been forced into driving…
ramone:
If this is the near future of truck driving, you can shove it up your diesel particulate diffuser.
Are you sure it doesn`t say DAF XF on the front ■■?
[/quote]
Positive. I can tell it’s not European (let alone a DAF) because the cab is wall-to-wall crap plastics, the mirrors are rubbish, the seat/ pedal/ steering wheel relationship is all over the place and none of the switches are where you want them.
When I think back to the first DAF I drove way back in 1986, I wonder where the progress we’ve all been told about has been.