I’ve been driving a DAF CF rigid fitted with the single stage retarder brake on the gearbox mode selector stalk on the right of the steering wheel. Normally you pull it towards you and it engages the retarder and shifts down a couple of gears to put the engine speed in the blue. However sometimes it just stops working - you pull the lever and nothing happens, no downshift, no engine braking, no retarder. It makes no difference whether you are in Eco or normal Auto. If you stop and switch the engine off then on again all is miraculously restored.
I get the feeling I’m doing something which is switching it off but can’t work out what on earth that could be. Any ideas?
I haven’t driven one of these in a while but I’m pretty sure you have to pull it downwards, as in pull, not push. back and forward if for gears in manual mode I think
You’re right, I explained that wrong - if it were an indicator stalk, you’d be pulling it down as if to turn right. Push away drops a gear in manual or non-eco auto, pull towards your face (as opposed to your nuts!) goes up a gear.
What’s the mileage on the truck? Might need the stalk replacing. On the fleet I’m driving we’ve had a few go dodgy around 600,000km - usually it’s when pressing the button on the end in to select eco/normal/manual it’ll throw up a gearbox fault for a fraction of a second, same for the windscreen wiper control on the indicator stalk…they have been packing up around 600,000-700,000km.
There are actually three identical trucks, all about 150,000km, and they all do it, so I don’t think it’s a stalk fault. And there’s nothing on the dash when it happens.