Volvo fh12 420 i-shift

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

Well, the day has loomed and yesterday i was out in the new wagons, nice to get into, nicely set out, but man driving an automatic takes some getting used to.

It’s funny ain’t it, they kinda put the truck in control rather than the driver, smiles, if that makes sense. It decides when to change up or down and if you don’t like it’s basically tuff! laffs.

Anyway had a nice little run up to high wycombe, was on the m4 and doing 56, had the cruise control on, when all of a sudden (and it was on level ground) it drops itself into neutral. First time i didn’t batter an eyelid, but when it kept doing it i thought ok, take the cruise control off and try keeping me foot on the accelator fooling it basically. Nah still did it.

So, my question is, is this a fuel saving economy thing?
Surely cruising in neutral is kinda like loosing even more control?

I mentioned it to a couple of the drivers when i got back last night and they looked at me wierd and walked off, and transport haven’t even been out in one, so i couldn’t really get any advise/help from them either.

Perhaps they haven’t set the ecu up right and it’s not doing what it should be doing?

Even looked in the manual to see what it said about the i-shift gearbox but the manual is for a manual! d’oh… makes sense i guess if your an alien from outer space trying to drive one upside down. hehe

Overall by the end of the night, i had kinda settled into the way it was driving and i felt quite comfortable in it. Even tried the manual side of the gearbox out, and my left foot didn’t even reach for the clutch pedal once!!! hehe.

ARH one more thing… reversing… why do you need four gears? laffs, and believe me r4 is like reversing at 60 in a car… feels that bad anyway. You’d never keep control of anything going back that fast. wierd, can understand it for the race track, but actually in the real world… :unamused:

ok, rant over, if anyone can shed any light on to anything i’ve mentioned or has first hand experience get in touch yeah and thanks in advance

tiggz

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hi tiggz

yep the i-shift box is designed to do that , its a function called ECO roll, and it’s to get a little more MPG out of the truck.

there are 2 ways to activate the ECO roll function.

1: if the auxcillary brake stalk is in the A position every time you lift your foot off the gas and your in 9th gear or above, it will go into ECO roll.

2: you set up your cruise control say 50MPH in this case, you then set your Overspeed setting to 6 mph or above( this is done via the rocker switch at the end of the auxcillary brake stalk, the MPH for the overspeed will be shown on the dash display)

So your cruising at 50 mph, when the vehicle doesnt need the engine to maintain the cruise speed and isnt picking up enough speed to exceed your overspeed setting (in this case 6MPH)for the auxcillary brakes to pull you back, it will go into ECO Roll.

IF your overspeed is set below 6MPH Eco Roll will not come in, all you will get is the auxcillary brakes cutting in if you start to pick up speed and reach the overspeed setting you have set.

If you need any other advise on the volvo i-shift i would only be to happy to help. i have plenty of notes and tips that i can e-mail you should you want them as i was trained by vovlo at warwick as a driver trainer for the company i work for now

Regards

Manny

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Cheers for that Manny, any further advise that you could send me would be greatly appreciated… again thanks :smiley:

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I think tiggz experience shows a major failing in the UK haulage industry.
They buy a new expensive truck with all the lattest gadgets, no doubt sold at to them on the fact that it would save money in fuel and downtime and then they fail to spend a few extra quid on teaching the driver how to use it.
Be great if the airlines did it. “Yea it just like the old 747, but has the fly by wire and glass cockpit, by the time you land at JFK you’ll have got the hang of it”

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tiggz

your have to e-mail me ( my addy is in my profile) so i can send you some info.

Manny

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■■?
:question: :question: :question:
That post confused me. It’s my age.
I want a stick I can wobble around
I dont want a brain that is trying to
be intelligent.

HELP!

EcoRoll?? who dreams these up?

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I did get some training before i took it out, but obviously in defence of the trainer, without actually being out on the road with me wouldn’t have known what i was on about. I haven’t seen him to explain yet, but i wonder whether he’d come up with the same answer… hhhhmmmmmmmmm afterall he too has been to warwick and had the training.

the longer i spend in it the more i’ll learn, sometimes it’s the only way to learn

Tiggz