the maoster:
trubster:
I think they are [zb]They would rather crawl up a steep hill at 30mph / tickover revs than drop a cog or two and fly up it
You can’t “Kick down” if you need it for whatever reason without changing to manual
It takes the driving out of the job and makes your description more like “Steering wheel attendant”
I’ve never driven one so I have no relevant experience on how to get the best out of them, but I will ask; do they not give you the option to drive in manual? I can’t remember the last time I drove my Merc in full auto, it’s manual all the time. Incidentally it’s always in the top two or three for fuel consumption too.
The ishift does have a manual mode and also an economy or power mode which can be selected by a button, in the power mode it drops down a gear earlier and holds a lower gear for longer, it also has a kickdown mode.
But all these things can be either turned on or off in the software, so a company might decided to disable the kickdown mode, or the power mode, I suppose they could even switch off the manual option. So people sometimes complain that their truck won’t do this or that, but it’s not a design fault just the way it was specified.
No doubt a good driver who cares and is thinking about the drive can beat the computer by use of the manual, but the for the majority they probably wouldn’t and there are some drivers for whom taking the gear changing out of their hands probably dramatically extends the life of the clutch, gearbox and improves the mpg.
Big fleets buy trucks that will give the best average regardless what drivers is using the truck, and the few top notch driver are far outweighed by the average and less abile, so truck are made, specified and brought to suit the average.