Driving Mountain Grades With An Auto Trans

Turns out this is fairly easy. I've traveled through Wyoming into Utah and then through Northern Nevada on 80. There were some pretty good grades. The truck handled it fine. I used the Jake to modulate the speed. I kept it pretty slow because I'm so new at driving. I think it is wise to be cautious at this point.

I think it is wise to be cautious at this point.

It's a best practice to always handle all driving situations with caution, no matter the experience level.

100% agree.

I think it is wise to be cautious at this point.

It's a best practice to always handle all driving situations with caution, no matter the experience level.

One thing I will never understand is why some companies disable the manual control on the auto shift transmissions. It seems they want to steer people towards using the cruise control function more and more and people forget when to use and not to use it. If and when the cruise function fails (and they definitely do) it doesn’t make sense to me for a driver not to have complete control over the shifting at that point. I had an instance winter before last where the roads got bad quick and the road I was on had no options to pull off, so the only real option was to take my time and make it to the next town to find a spot to shut down. One downgrade required going extremely slow and keeping proper distances between your vehicle and the one in front. Those of us who took our time made it just fine and the ones who got in a rush wound up in the trees waiting for the hook. I was able to toggle between 3rd and 4th just creeping along and rarely using the brakes to keep control but without being able to lock that transmission into gear, I can’t imagine what a horrible ride that might have been.