Everyone Should Get A Kick Out Of This!

The only issue is that is a photo of a 13 speed shift lever. You can tell by the color of the button on the side.

Grey button on the side with a high low on the front is an 18 speed Grey button on the side with no selector on the front is a super 10 Red button is a 13 speed and has a selector on the front also. Blue button is a is a 15 speed and also has a selector on the front.

Even if the shift pattern is worn off you can still figure out what you are driving. Except I have not driven a 15 yet and probably never will. I have driven all the others.

Yes Pat it is a 13 speed shifter but I posted it cause it was the best shift pic I found. 18 speeds buttons are grey in color. The pic is just an example.

Let me put this into perspective. In the video you see a 3 stick(Triplex) setup.

We still have the same thing today it's it's simpler than it use to be. The stick on the far right is the hight and low, just like on a 10 speed, like in most truck today. The stick in the middle is the actual gear shift the runs through all the gears. The stick on the far left is the splitter and is use to split each gear from 1st gear up to 18th.

This is a 18 speed gear shift head. 3 sticks built into one. Lol. See? Much simpler.

And here is the shifting pattern that today's 18 speeds have to do.

I have watched that video allot and cold not understand what all three shifters are for. Thank you for clearing this up for me. I would love to drive one. I am hoping that once I get out of school and get driving that I get a stick. I really don't want an automatic but it seems like allot of companies are starting to go that route.

I have watched that video allot and cold not understand what all three shifters are for. Thank you for clearing this up for me. I would love to drive one. I am hoping that once I get out of school and get driving that I get a stick. I really don't want an automatic but it seems like allot of companies are starting to go that route.

I'm curious as to why some people prefer manual to auto. I myself am cool with learning manual but if given the choice I would much prefer an auto transmission. One less distraction while you're driving. you can tell me all day long that with experience it becomes less of one and next thing you know 2nd nature, but you know the same could be said about using a cell phone while driving... hands free or not, it's still a distraction even if it's 2nd nature to you because you still have to think about what you're doing and that thought process makes the difference. with an auto as far as I understand you shift into gear and go, end of story...

I have been reading that autos have been more inclined to break and that may be true but how MUCH more than a manual. this guy i sub to on youtube has an auto in his truck and from all the videos I have watched and gone through I think he has had 1 problem with his auto, company got him towed to a repair shop and then got him a rental truck so he could still keep making money while repairs were done. hasn't had problems since so it's not like they break after a month or something and I bet the ones that do break are probably mostly due to driving styles.

To each their own I guess. I plan to get my cdl in a manual so I have all doors open but in the end if my choice is between a company with manual tranny vs auto i'm going with auto. If I can only go with manual, then so be it.

For a lot of people, shifting through 10 or 12 or 18 gears is part of the allure of being a trucker. It's part of the reason you're at the highest level as a driver. It's also a barrier to entry for others who would like to do this job. So to take that away is rather disturbing to a lot of people.

I drove standards for about 10 of the 15 years of my career. I drove an automatic for almost 6 years at US Xpress. Now those were the older style automatics which weren't true automatics. They were regular, standard transmissions with a clutch but they had a computerized shifting mechanism. Personally I loved em but they broke down about twice a year. And when they broke down you were usually dead in the water.

In comparison, for all the years I drove standards I never had anything break. In fact, I once had the clutch cable break but that was also in an automatic.

Standards thus far have been more reliable but the convenience of having an automatic is awesome. And the newer automatics seem to be far more reliable than the earlier ones.

I loved the automatics but shifting was pretty cool also. It does give driving a big rig more of a hardcore, old school trucker feel. So I can see both sides.

My great grandfather drove a truck like that. I forgot about those! I'd like to drive one just for the experience, but I'm fairly happy with my 13 speed.

I have watched that video allot and cold not understand what all three shifters are for. Thank you for clearing this up for me. I would love to drive one. I am hoping that once I get out of school and get driving that I get a stick. I really don't want an automatic but it seems like allot of companies are starting to go that route.

I'm curious as to why some people prefer manual to auto. I myself am cool with learning manual but if given the choice I would much prefer an auto transmission. One less distraction while you're driving. you can tell me all day long that with experience it becomes less of one and next thing you know 2nd nature, but you know the same could be said about using a cell phone while driving... hands free or not, it's still a distraction even if it's 2nd nature to you because you still have to think about what you're doing and that thought process makes the difference. with an auto as far as I understand you shift into gear and go, end of story...

I have been reading that autos have been more inclined to break and that may be true but how MUCH more than a manual. this guy i sub to on youtube has an auto in his truck and from all the videos I have watched and gone through I think he has had 1 problem with his auto, company got him towed to a repair shop and then got him a rental truck so he could still keep making money while repairs were done. hasn't had problems since so it's not like they break after a month or something and I bet the ones that do break are probably mostly due to driving styles.

To each their own I guess. I plan to get my cdl in a manual so I have all doors open but in the end if my choice is between a company with manual tranny vs auto i'm going with auto. If I can only go with manual, then so be it.

I just enjoy the shifting. I enjoy being able to do what allot of people today cant. I am only 26 but I am very much old fashioned. I like hard work and the payoff it gets me. The harder something is the more I like it. I take it as a challenge. I am still in school but I am trying my hardest to be the best or at least one of the best in class right now. Even at my current employer I am setting some personal record that no one else cares about lol. My truck and my car are manual shift vehicles and I love it. I actually took the automatic out of my truck and swapped in the manual. Clutching can get tiring in traffic but that is a small price to pay for me.