Hi folks went over the a54 the other day 44.tonne i was 80 kg over, the thing died for death on most hills i understand it aint a good road for class 1 but the biggest hill i hit the truck just gave up tryied crawl and everything,it just stalled, so i dumped air out the axel applid diff lock traction control lifted middle axel just a waste of time the thing was dead so do you think the truck is just under powered or just wrong road.
Presumably this lorry has satans auto gearbox?
These boxes are only meant for easy running, give them some work to do and they simply can’t cope.
If it is auto the only way to climb severe hills is to drive the thing in manual override, and i don’t mean just when you need it, but continually so you know exactly what speed each gear covers instinctively…remember in MH the gearchanges are faster than in M.
My 420 when approaching a severe hill i would usually plan to drop two or even three gears at a time in order to keep the revs high enough to take it, if you leave it to the box, even in AH, it can’t cope with 1:10 or worse, dropping one gear at a time the thing will never keep up with an increasing ascent.
Regardless of gearbox type, you must remember as speed drops to about 25k’s, dump the tag air, this lessens the chances of wheelspin.
Similarly if the hill looks steep AND slippery, knock TC off before you start the climb.
Even the slightest wheelspin will cut the engine power if you’ve left TC on, so hedge all your bets to prevent this happening.
As you found, you really don’t want to come to a stop as restart isn’t fun and may prove impossible requiring a re-run, so avoid that at all costs, but also remember there is a very low crawler on the box so keep dropping gears in manual mode, long time since i had mine so hopefully one of the other lads will remember exactly how to get the lowest crawler gear.
When there’s snow/ice on the ground in such hilly conditions i’ve also locked the diff before the start of the climb, but this must be done only when both wheels are turning at the same speed.
There, simples… 
So i can tell by what you say you know the gearbox well, because what you explained is so true im a new driver but i was in manual up the hills and reving the boll ocks of it we got a wrecker to it got us up one towing then stalled so he drove and said it was a piece of s h+t so we had to tow again maybe scanias are to weak for the bulkers.i no there are some lovers on here,but in my short experience any sort of hill they give up forget the auto box because your down to 30mph on a slight hill on the motorway, you can down change but it will lose you speed if anything and try blowing it up.
sweeper1gg:
So i can tell by what you say you know the gearbox well, because what you explained is so true im a new driver but i was in manual up the hills and reving the boll ocks of it we got a wrecker to it got us up one towing then stalled so he drove and said it was a piece of s h+t so we had to tow again maybe scanias are to weak for the bulkers.i no there are some lovers on here,but in my short experience any sort of hill they give up forget the auto box because your down to 30mph on a slight hill on the motorway, you can down change but it will lose you speed if anything and try blowing it up.
Yes i knew that box well, had a new car transporter in '05 with that poxy box, i’d only had the thing three weeks, delivered a couple of cars to the Stroud Citroen dealer, left there to turn left on the steep hill at the lights onto the Cirencester Rd back into town, well the bloody thing decided to change gear and stalled on me right in the middle of the bloody road.
I went ballistic, suprised they didn’t send the yellow van complete with white coated attendants to take me to a place of safety.
From that moment, and still now, i drove that and every single loaded auto lorry since in manual override (Volvo excepted, no need).
Don’t think its just Scanias, its nearly all modern lorries, the engines are too bloody small and strangled by so much emission crap that you now need around 500hp to put as much useable torque down down on the road as a 290 would 30 years ago (not in figures but as workable torque), and at stall revs this modern junk is simply gutless, they’re motorway lorries in most cases, meant to tow a shopping trolley from RDC to supermarket on open easy roads, no more use than a chocolate teapot if you ask 'em to do some serious work.
A 14 litre non turbo 250 ■■■■■■■ would have romped up those hills you talk about, a 320 blown version would go up 'em with two down changes, never found a hill that needed crawler back then unless you had some foreign tat like a Volvo F10/Scania 110.
Coo, bugger me enjoyed that rant… 
edit for speeling, plus…funnily enough there is one modern lorry that pulls right down to 800rpm without a murmer and is as near to those old proper lorries in low revved engine lugging as i’ve found…its the one most hate, the (old shape) 430 Axor…but only if fitted with a gearbox, auto version is as crap as everyone else’s.
Thanks for that but i do hate auto,s now, and as you say about the thing stalling i was doing a sharp left turn coming out of a yard on a dual carriageway and the thing stopped dead on me, the trouble with these wagons they want to drive in the green mode but its not possible when you are fully loaded. I was getting worried driving upto a speed ramp lol. 
Opticruise is hopeless. I always drive the things in Manual (MH or MP mode for the faster changes) unless it’s a straight forward motorway drive or i’m crawling round an estate looking for an address etc. You can ‘train’ the more modern ones to your own driving style (ie. revs not through the roof) when in Auto by using the paddle to manually override it early in your journey, but I can’t be bothered with it and just do it all myself. An auto box shouldn’t require so much intervention, just gives us a gearstick.
this time last year,i was trawling around the garden centres of south wales with a g380 6x2 at max weight.
i let it come down the gears on it`s own…until you get to the lower gears,then switch to manual,and snick one on/off as required.
pull up owt in 5th,as long as you keep it moving.
Don’t know what you mean by reeving the ■■■■ out of it. But it’s never been any point to take them over 1500-1600 rpm. A 420 can cope fine with 60t so pulling 44t on some small hills shouldn’t be any problem at all.
I also drive the box in manual 99% of the time. Mostly because it changes down a gear for some small hills for no reason at all. A v8 you can let drop down to 1000rpm no problem at all, same with the sixes but with the gearbox in auto it feels the need to change down a gear and have the revs at 1600-1800 for no reason at all.
In the winter TC of and dump the lift axle but no diff lock, that’s the last save, usually you have that much speed left that you can let of just a second or 2 to engage the difflock if you risk of getting stuck. Driving with it on from the start is just going to destroy the diff.
This is a 580 pulling up a 10% hill ~50t gross revs around 1300, no point using more revs
youtube.com/watch?v=IBzeNFFraJ4
think yourself lucky you are not locked into eco mode.
Awful boxes! Thankfully, we rarely pull weight.
What is the difference between a G420 and an R420 ?
roughyed:
What is the difference between a G420 and an R420 ?
Going by our g- 400 and r420 it’s a smaller cab,but I can’t remember for sure,but I thought we had a g-cab in with a taller cab,but maybe my minds playing games
sweeper1gg:
Hi folks went over the a54 the other day 44.tonne i was 80 kg over, the thing died for death on most hills i understand it aint a good road for class 1 but the biggest hill i hit the truck just gave up tryied crawl and everything,it just stalled, so i dumped air out the axel applid diff lock traction control lifted middle axel just a waste of time the thing was dead so do you think the truck is just under powered or just wrong road.
Our g- cabs with the manual gearbox can’t be hard work when running heavy as they’ve no splitter on them( there 400,s), our 420 autos seem ok on 99% of our work!but they do seem to really struggle when I’ve a d/d on.
roughyed:
What is the difference between a G420 and an R420 ?
The size of the bump in the floor 
sweeper1gg:
So i can tell by what you say you know the gearbox well, because what you explained is so true im a new driver but i was in manual up the hills and reving the boll ocks of it we got a wrecker to it got us up one towing then stalled so he drove and said it was a piece of s h+t so we had to tow again maybe scanias are to weak for the bulkers.i no there are some lovers on here,but in my short experience any sort of hill they give up forget the auto box because your down to 30mph on a slight hill on the motorway, you can down change but it will lose you speed if anything and try blowing it up.
I take it you have never been shown how to drive an auto properly in manual?
truckers boy:
sweeper1gg:
So i can tell by what you say you know the gearbox well, because what you explained is so true im a new driver but i was in manual up the hills and reving the boll ocks of it we got a wrecker to it got us up one towing then stalled so he drove and said it was a piece of s h+t so we had to tow again maybe scanias are to weak for the bulkers.i no there are some lovers on here,but in my short experience any sort of hill they give up forget the auto box because your down to 30mph on a slight hill on the motorway, you can down change but it will lose you speed if anything and try blowing it up.I take it you have never been shown how to drive an auto properly in manual?
truckers boy:
sweeper1gg:
So i can tell by what you say you know the gearbox well, because what you explained is so true im a new driver but i was in manual up the hills and reving the boll ocks of it we got a wrecker to it got us up one towing then stalled so he drove and said it was a piece of s h+t so we had to tow again maybe scanias are to weak for the bulkers.i no there are some lovers on here,but in my short experience any sort of hill they give up forget the auto box because your down to 30mph on a slight hill on the motorway, you can down change but it will lose you speed if anything and try blowing it up.I take it you have never been shown how to drive an auto properly in manual?
Has anyone here been trained ‘‘properly’’, or have we all had enough close shaves that we finally spat our dummies out , or realised our lives were dwindling away whilst the bloody thing gradually oozed itself out of a junction/roundabout/traffic lights, or wonderedif we might die of old age whilst it lurched eventually from 1st to 3rd gears in its own sweet time we decided to DIY… 
I taught meself and expect nearly all others have too, not aware of any company that teaches manual auto driving as such, or have some companies finally woken up to the fact the things are crap so they’d better train their blokes how to overcome the tat…
I think its that in most cases drivers with abit of experience can pick it up when they know what the engine & truck should be doing, but new drivers imo like this one should be shown the best way to avoid the ■■■■ hitting the fan when the autobox doesnt know were it needs to be.
truckers boy:
I think its that in most cases drivers with abit of experience can pick it up when they know what the engine & truck should be doing, but new drivers imo like this one should be shown the best way to avoid the [zb] hitting the fan when the autobox doesnt know were it needs to be.
I agree, but unless there is a half decent or even interested driver experienced in these things where a new driver works prepared to go out with him, who by and when is the new driver to be trained? and in whose time and at whose expense…yes WE know it’s good economic sense for drivers to be able to manage all conditions (far cheaper than possible damage/recovery), but try and explain that to a college boy or equally disinterested transport office wallah…too many officious trainer types chant the bloody brakes to slow gears to go bollox as if they believe it to be true, and i wouldn’t bother asking anyone who believed that was the proper way to drive a lorry.
Couple of times i’ve explained steep, especially slippery, hill climbing (based on the Scania 420) in the forum when posts asking the right question have surfaced, but they soon get lost.
To explain all whats involved and how to get the best out of it would end ap a small book, and then that only covers one vehicle and one box.
I’ve taught meself manualese on the AS-Chronic as well, (to be fair the Scania lends itself to manual driving, very responsive to gearchange requests), the AS fights you all the way and doesn’t respond to input anywhere near as well, and in some fitments tries its damndest to default back to auto, in fact its such a PITA that unless on the motorway i resort to auto when empty…or maybe there’s some tricks i haven’t yet found?
How odd though, i’m racking whats left of me mind to remember ever having to overrule Volvo’s Geartronic/i-shift except in deep snow or stuck, the thing just got on with it, though to be fair the Volvo engine doesn’t die and stall out on you if the revs drop more than it can cope with like the others.
As i say i am a new driver, and never drove a auto before but just a slight hill on a junction if not in manual it would stall so what is the point of an auto because it was down to 30 on a hill on the motorway. and if you put your foot down they just spin so that wont help i just think there brill when empty but useless at 44t especially in quarrys
If everything was as it should be it would definitely pull away and not stall fully-freighted in the lowest gear available. However, just one change up might, even if you’re revving the ■■■■ off it, easily invoke a stall if the hill’s steep enough.