- Hey there, it is Trucker Wayne
with Driver Solutions.
Somebody on YouTube asked a good question
because of Ask Trucker Wayne a Question.
I was talking about gear shifting,
talking about working your gears.
Do you like manuals or do
you like the automatics?
We have that on my Trucker
Wayne Facebook page,
a poll that closes in like two days.
Over 200 people have gotten
in and it's been about 64/36,
64 manual, 36 automatic.
It was going up and down, 63/30, 67/33.
But it looks like the
manuals are gonna win.
But here's the thing, here's the thing.
If you're an automatic fan,
let's just say 33% land on automatics,
and we have 200 people that voted.
That's 66 people outta
200 that would rather
go with an automatic than a manual.
That's where I think
companies get in trouble
when you try to dismiss
those kinda numbers.
That's a pretty high number, 66 outta 200.
For anybody just to dismiss that number,
it's pretty high up there.
So a lotta people are
liking the automatics,
man and I keep hearing they're
getting better and better,
so good for that.
He wanted to know about gear shifting,
what works for me, what
makes things easier.
Well here's the thing.
Gears three to five,
that's a splitter down,
six to 10, splitter up.
Now I mentioned three to five
because that's where I usually
go and start out at third.
A load I got right now
is 79,500 with fuel.
Three times coming out west
I have started out in second.
You have to a few times, I try not to.
We're talking about fuel
mileage here and everything,
but there was a few times
I started out in second,
but most of the time I try to start out
in third if possible.
So here's the thing, here's the thing,
and my first trainer and then I told you,
I should say the second trainer I had,
he was very on me all the time
about shifting, all the time.
Making sure it was good,
well I was pretty good,
and in my second year
I mentioned I met a guy
who was teaching me about
the Intermodal in Chicago
and I said that's how I want to shift.
It was almost like he was in an automatic.
It was sweet man, learned a
lot from him, always learning.
That was in year two.
One of the things when you're in a manual
is the speed and the RPMs work together.
If you're not paying attention,
if you're now I will say, early on,
you're gonna be searching for gears.
You're gonna be grinding the
gears, hopefully not too bad,
to get it into where you need it to be
so you don't panic.
I stalled it in Chicago
when they didn't have
all the open road tolling and everything,
and you know nothing bad happened,
but I did stall it, felt stupid,
and I kept okay I gotta stop doing that.
That was really early on in my career.
But one of the things is
the RPMs and the speed,
they work together.
So let's talk about speed
when you're upshifting
a lotta times in the Internationals and,
now my Kenworth is a little bit different.
You have Freightliner and Internationals
seem to have a lotta
the same characteristics
with transmissions.
So basically let's say you
wanna get into sixth gear,
you're going 15 miles an hour, sixth gear,
how would I know that?
One plus five, 15 equals six.
That was a good guide for
me early in my career,
especially if I lost a gear.
I could look down if I'm going up,
I could look down, look
at my speed and say okay,
I gotta get it into seventh
right and give it a shot
of fuel, get it into seventh.
If I was going 25,
25, two plus five equals seven, 25.
Really really helped me a lot.
My Kenworth I'm in, three,
four miles an hour lower,
so if it was 15 miles an hour,
it seems to be 11 or
12, but you learn that.
You learn that as you
go, you learn what works
in the truck.
But early on it's a good gauge
say okay I need to do this.
So one of the things is if
you're constantly grinding gears
you're not working hard
enough to figure out
the sweet spots.
You're not figuring out where the RPMs are
and your speed is at.
When you're going up,
it should be like a drum beat.
It shouldn't be grinding
gears, it's a boom,
boom, and you hit certain gears.
Don't get too high in the gears.
If you're pushing 2,000 RPMs,
that's way too much.
They do recommend a lotta
times to get 1,400 RPMs.
On my Kenworth man, you go 1,400,
you might as well, you might
even go downhill sometimes.
But I try not to get much over that.
Yeah let's say you got 15,
1,600, get it into gear,
get what you need, and lay
off the fuel and take off
and that works pretty well.
The Internationals, the
Freightliner a little bit different.
Find the sweet spot man.
Start figuring it out.
Start looking at your RPMs,
start looking at your speed.
Always work on that so you're
not continuously killin.
That's part of our job.
If you're in a manual
and you like a manual,
which seems 64% of the people do,
if you're always grinding gears,
you're not doing something right.
You're just not.
So big thing is,
let's talk about downshifting.
Downshifting is the same
thing when you're getting down
six, seventh gear, you
can still use that 15.
You can still use the
25 miles per hour thing
for seventh gear, especially
if you need to downshift,
you lost it, you look,
then you get that bigger shot of RPMs up.
Now I will say,
I will say I man I gotta bug
round here bout to bite me.
But one of the things is really this is,
it is a pretty big deal
when you're downshifting,
trying to find it and
you're giving shots of fuel,
giving shots of fuel, RPMs
are super super important.
You couldn't get more important
than the shot of fuel.
You don't wanna go up to 2,000 RPM
when you're giving it the shot of fuel.
It doesn't work that way.
You gotta figure out
okay I'm gonna hit my,
see there's that bee, I found the bee,
got outta the wind right there.
You got to you know what you gotta do is,
when you're downshifting,
figure out is it 1,400, 15,
is the sweet spot for 1,300
RPMs when you're downshifting.
That way if you're not paying attention,
if you're just shooting it up there
and trying to find that
gear, you're gonna grind it.
But if you find the sweet spot,
if you find a sweet spot with the RPM,
13, 14, 1,500 when you're downshifting,
or even when you're upshifting,
get it up to that RPM,
go in, it is smooth.
That's what I learned about
the guy in Chicago man.
He knew those RPMs.
He wasn't just working with speed.
He was working with the RPMs,
getting the RPM every time he
hit that shot, muscle memory.
You start to remember when
you drive long enough,
you just hit it and it'll get
up to where you need to do
and you push it in.
If it doesn't hit it the
first time, do it again.
Don't do it too many
times, wastes the fuel.
But those are the kind of
things when you're talking
about manuals that are really
important for fuel mileage,
not constantly kicking
it up, kicking it up,
kicking it up, trying to find it.
You know start working on
trying to find that sweet spot
and pay attention to your RPMs and speed.
Lot going on there isn't there?
But when you figure it
out, it's pretty easy.
Get in mind now and no
problem whatsoever man.
This bee's found me again.
All right so I'm gonna hang it up,
and this is Trucker Wayne
with Driver Solutions,
with a positive path to trucking success.
If you wanna become a truck driver,
check out Driver Solutions
at www.greatcdltraining.com.
Whoever you talk to you tell
'em Trucker Wayne sent you.
Talk about me, tell 'em you
saw me on the manual video.
(laughing)
And then you can check me out
@TruckerWayne Facebook page
or www.truckerwayne.com, and I am out.