Whats the right way to take a hill as i very nearly came to a stop after changeing down a few gears i was able to keep going at a snails pace. Was on the A303 after stonehenge…
Dan
Dump it and run like ■■■■ 
mickyblue:
Dump it and run like [zb]
You have lost me 
Wonder if it was the same hill I got stuck on last week? 2 lanes up, 1 down, about 30 minutes from Yeovil? Hit at just under 50, came to a halt about 2/3 of the way up. Every time I tried to get going again, either stalled or spun the wheels, had to reverse all the way down and start again in 2nd and plod my way up very slowly!
Looking at Google Earth, I think it was the one coming out of Chicklade…
Gary
Very steep hills can catch you out, trying to change down only 1 or 2 gears very often the speed will drop off faster than you can re-apply power.
Assuming you have a 12 speed box you might need to approach the hill in 10th or 11th at high revs and as the speed drops be ready for a block change down to 8th, then maybe 6th, then maybe 3rd or 4th as the hill reaches its steepest section though experience at the time will tell you if 5th would have coped or you might need to drop to 2nd…you can have these examples or any particular block changes pre planned in your mind, but if you miss a gear you have to keep your head, replan and go for an appropriate lower gear quickly.
Don’t worry about what happened to you, we’ve all been there and we’ll all do it again at some point when we miss a gear or misjudge a hill even if we’ve been doing the job since the year dot, once you’ve lost gears its simply astonishing how quickly the lorry slows up.
When climbing really steep hills forget the need to keep in the green, it might pay to change down at say 1400rpm where in normal driving you might let it lug down to 1000 rpm.
Think in reverse of how quickly the vehicle would accelerate if you were going down the hill, you’d only use about 4 gears going down (ignoring engine braking for this) so the opposite will be true generally.
edit…if the road is slippery be ready to dump the mid lift axle air or raise it (if fitted) as the speed drops to about 20mph or so as the hill steepens, that valuable little bit of extra grip sometimes makes all the difference…AND switch off the bloody traction control if slippery whilst going up a steep one, if one wheel slips slightly the engine power will be cut, at precisely the wrong moment…this applies equally to automated manual satan boxes.
Sounds like the one i was doing about 50 aswell and i was only in a 18t lol, turned off just after for tisbury.
Dan_1986:
Whats the right way to take a hill as i very nearly came to a stop after changeing down a few gears i was able to keep going at a snails pace. Was on the A303 after stonehenge…Dan
Is it that one thats just after the 40 zone?
I always just keep her in the green band or maybe little past as thats where the power is, i keep gear changes to a min and let it lug down if im nearing the top, always try and get a good run up and knock the gears down before i start the hill so i can carry as much speed up it as possible.
Juddian: Looking back, that was my trouble, going down one cog at a time. If I’d dropped 2, or even 3, I’d probably have been OK. As it was, I learned something new then. As for the mid-axle lift, I tried using that to put some more weight on the drive, but I think I was past the point of no return once I’d stopped with 27tons of timber in the trailer! Funny how your eyes play tricks, it was late at night and I was convinced at one point that I was slipping backwards with the park brake on!
Saamon: - There was one of yours in a layby just off the M4 on the Melksham road Thursday afternoon about 430ish, wasn’t you was it?
Gary
I have been doing that area this morning. A little bit of rain and loaded to about 38 ton. I was glad of the auto box although they are sometimes a little slow to go between gears. Also coming up from Shepton Mallet to Bristol (A37?) very steep in parts and quite narrow. Fully loaded then. Oh it dragged… 
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Still love the challenge of a manual box though.
scaniason:
Juddian: Looking back, that was my trouble, going down one cog at a time. If I’d dropped 2, or even 3, I’d probably have been OK. As it was, I learned something new then. As for the mid-axle lift, I tried using that to put some more weight on the drive, but I think I was past the point of no return once I’d stopped with 27tons of timber in the trailer! Funny how your eyes play tricks, it was late at night and I was convinced at one point that I was slipping backwards with the park brake on!Gary
You never stop learning Gary, doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been doing the job, and theres always something that you hadn’t accounted for that throws another spanner in the works when you get complacent and think you’ve got it cracked.
You done well to get backed down and take another bite in the dark though, pat yerself on the back matey… 
Juddian:
Very steep hills can catch you out……this applies equally to automated manual satan boxes.
Don’t understand? I keep mine on ‘A with’ ‘E+’ and everything works out fine 
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Seriously though with the heavenly I-shift (other permutations are satan’s work), I let the electrickery do the work of coming down the box till it finds a gear that the engine is comfortable with and sit at that speed (revs & kph) till the hill eases off. No point flooring the loud pedal or letting the cc drive, all you do is use more juice & possibly lose more momentum as the box kangaroos up & down gears. One thing I was taught is that the important clock to watch is the one that shows RPM not MPH regardless of who’s behind.
RE: traction, on the FH press the TCS button when it gets a bit greasy, this lets the wheels slip a bit more before cutting power, and if your mid-lift is down press the bottom of the mid-lift button briefly (dumps air only), press again to re-inflate. If you come to a stop use the diff-lock to get going again, it should automatically disengage at (iirc) 10 kph.
MADBAZ:
Juddian:
Very steep hills can catch you out……this applies equally to automated manual satan boxes.
Seriously though with the heavenly I-shift (other permutations are satan’s work), I let the electrickery do the work of coming down the box till it finds a gear that the engine is comfortable with and sit at that speed (revs & kph) till the hill eases off. No point flooring the loud pedal or letting the cc drive, all you do is use more juice & possibly lose more momentum as the box kangaroos up & down gears. One thing I was taught is that the important clock to watch is the one that shows RPM not MPH regardless of who’s behind.
Yep quite agree about i-shift, struggling to remember a single moment when it couldn’t cope, unlike the rest of the also rans.
We used to struggle with the Lidls buy one get one free baby wheeled mid lift fitted new but not by Volvo, done on the cheap for dozens if not hundreds of car transporter bodies, they came without any sort of dump valve, driver had no control over up or down unless completely empty when it would raise and once part loaded would drop and that was the extent of its repertoire, and no means to dump any air either.
Absobloodylutely useless, pulling out on a flat wet road was a suicide mission, eventually after several of us signed a letter warning of the inherant dangers, they reluctantly retro fitted dump valves.
We got used to pre engaging diff lock and or knocking the traction control off to give us a fighting chance.
I’ve bookmarked this page, loads of tips and info on here
I want to add a little bit about hill climbing in automated manuals, or at least my experiences of them.
Firstly Volvo box, select Power mode (for hills) and it will in 99.9% of cases do its own thing in full auto without the slightest bother, truly the king of auto boxes.
As for the rest, pah, satans work.
I drove a 3 pedal auto Scania for years, within 3 weeks of receiving it the bloody thing stalled on me whilst turning left from a steep hill onto a major road, luckily at traffic lights…London Road Stroud purely out of interest, just delivered to the Citroen dealer.
Spat me dummy out and from that moment learned the ratios and drove the thing in manual override permanently, i still do the same with the newer 2 pedal version…personally i prefer the 3 pedal as it leaves the driver in charge of manouevering clutch control, but thats only my opinion as are any of our posts.
Have had MAN, DAF and Iveco with satans standard autobox and IMO its dreadful, ruins otherwise decent vehicles, but seeing as vehicle buyers have followed the sales patter hook line and sinker we’re stuck with them…as are they cos they need the main dealers to fix and program 'em, kerbloodyching.
Righto, so you’ve got a non Volvo auto, and you drive it in auto mode all the time, thats great nothing wrong with that at all, but when it comes to severe hill climbing (junctions etc best taken manually too IMO but not for this discussion) you are without doubt better off DIYing, and if you haven’t learned the ratios by driving the thing manually at least some of the time then in the heat of the moment as a hill steepens to a 1 in 7 is not the time to learn, you need to know and have the feel for what will be needed as the speed drops rapidly.
The computer can’t possibly see what you can and will not be able to fine tune the change timings and revs required like a real live driver, so in auto you are likely to to end up very slow indeed may well come to a complete halt.
As i said in the previous post, be ready for the hill, if its slippery knock off the traction control before the hill, then when speed has dropped enough (learn this now before you need it) dump tractor tag axle air, help the truck as much as possible to maintain its grip for as long as possible…practice this ready for winter, it might help you up a slippery hill where you’d otherwise get stuck.
Diff lock use…thats not so easy to answer, sometimes it helps, other times it causes the vehicle to slip badly out of line when it might have been better to let one wheel slip a bit (traction off) to maintain a straight line (snowy hills mainly), learning when and not to use diff lock is for the individual and every circumstance is different, just remember not to turn the vehicle on a grippy surface with diff lock engaged, severe damage can result.
Just out of interest if you have an auto Scania, by selecting MH the gearchanges are faster than in normal M mode.
MAN i notice from a very recent post on Trucknet (which i can’t find now typically*) is going to remove the manual override facility on their auto option due to ‘‘poor quality British drivers’’ abusing the box…words of the linked article not mine so don’t shoot the messenger… 
…and offer the retro fit to owners of existing fleets…drivers of such should carry food, warm clothes and bedding, getting stuck in winter will be de rigueur… 
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*Found it…thanks to poster DAFMAD for the link in his post…found in Mrs Muckaways autobox thread.
commercialmotor.com/latest-n … l-override