06 April 2010

Day 2

Very tired & this morning was close to be a disaster...transmission
issues this morning that fortunately was solved by finally finding a
place to park, shutting the truck off & allowing the computer to reset
itself.

Left out of Pulaski & the truck shifted just fine until it hit 10th
gear then it just wouldn't go into gear properly. Truck kept surging
where the automatic transmission kept trying to "find" the gear. I
could slow down, flip to manual & it would go into 9th but 8th was
same as 10th, grrrr. Actually when I limped the truck into the rest
area on the Alabama state line it was trying to 'skipshift' from 8th
to 6th to 3rd & this tranny just isn't supposed to do that. Like I
said though it was solved by shutting down for 5-10 minutes.

After that was a traffic backup with a detour by me that ended up
being a comedy of errors of sorts, due to construction on hwy 67,
etc.....

Then I finally make it to Falkville to fuel and the card reader on the
fuel pump is out which necessitates 2 trips inside to stand in line.
Boom, another 30 minutes gone as well as my shower time, yuck :-(.

So all should be well right? Nope. Had an Alabama based truck that
didn't like the fact that I was doing the speed limit in the city
limits so at the very last minute (before the road narrows down to 2
lane) he passes me. The issue? Well, on the curvy 2 lane sections
where I can't pass, he does BELOW the posted speed limits. When we get
to areas where I can pass, he sped up. ARGHHH!!!!

I finally arrive at Gadsden with 20 minutes to spare & my load has
been ready for quite a while....I could have had a head start towards
Laredo if it hadn't been for all the other delays, lol. Fortunately
the rest of the day went smoothly. And what a beautiful day it was,
yay!!

2 comments:

doomytunes said...

I have heard nothing good on those automatics yet more companies are switching to them. I was behind a small convoy of new Internationals that several drivers were delivering and they weren't happy about the autos either. Do you like them or do you prefer a manual?

Unknown said...

Hi DT! Honestly I love having an automatic & no it's not what I learned on :-). They're like any other transmission if you get in a truck where the previous driver has effed it up then you won't have a good experience. This is the 1st time this has happened with this truck & I've had it for over 2 years. I think it's because I just came out of International shop day before and the update on the system was a bit buggy.

I think a lot of people grumble because they've had one bad experience or haven't bothered to learn how one is supposed to operate. Like 9, 10, super 10s, 13s, etc they are all different & have idiosyncracies