Im tired tonight, forgot to ask, is this normal? and if it is, is there a work around for it?
Davy, I don't think this will help but there might be other videos in this channel that would. This video does say to only use level 3 on steep grades, FWIW. https://youtu.be/yP1kKwuj3TA
Scott with CFI drives a T680 and surely could help.
My son might also be he's asleep and only driven the T680 for two months.
On my truck, using cruise downhill is useless. I climb on the pedal as I go over the top I release the pedal and the Jakes will kick in. The noise is more like a whine. They are muffled engine breaks. Depending on my weight and the grade, will make a difference in whether I need 1, 2, or 3. My Jakes are very strong, however, sometimes I need to use my breaks to bring it down to a safe speed.
On steep grades with low speed limits, I put it in manual and get it in a low enough gear to hold me.
Hope that helps a little.
We are governed at 65. They don't want us above the speed limit. We are not supposed to drive above 75, tire rating, 80 can get you fired. Control your speed. You may also want to ask a driver at your company with more experience, your trucks should all be speced the same.
It's amazing all the different ways companies can order trucks.
That's just how some trucks are. International is the same way. I hated it. Wouldn't function with the cruise control on and a few second delay.
On my truck, using cruise downhill is useless. I climb on the pedal as I go over the top I release the pedal and the Jakes will kick in. The noise is more like a whine. They are muffled engine breaks. Depending on my weight and the grade, will make a difference in whether I need 1, 2, or 3. My Jakes are very strong, however, sometimes I need to use my breaks to bring it down to a safe speed.
On steep grades with low speed limits, I put it in manual and get it in a low enough gear to hold me.
Hope that helps a little.
We are governed at 65. They don't want us above the speed limit. We are not supposed to drive above 75, tire rating, 80 can get you fired. Control your speed. You may also want to ask a driver at your company with more experience, your trucks should all be speced the same.
It's amazing all the different ways companies can order trucks.
It does help. I sort of made peace with her today.
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I have very little experience and only the Freightliner that I trained in to compare to. With the freight liner, I could apply the jake and it would it came on very quickly and noticeably both in sound and speed. Very predictable on the levels. Also, if cruise wasnt doing it soon enough, I could do it on the handle and the cruise would resume where it was. Were governed at 63 on the pedal, 65 on cruise and the truck will phone home if were over 71 for a long time. It was really easy to gauge how much jake I would need on regular little hills and down grades.
The KW will apply jakes on cruise, but not enough if its a mildly steep hill, and certainly not enough if you have even a moderate load. If you try to manually apply them, without hitting the cancel button or braking, they wont come on at all. Even more frustrating is that if you apply them at the top of a mild hill, they wont really effect anything for about 4 seconds while the computer decides to getting around to dropping a gear or two and when they do come on, its not enough and ends up dropping you 5 mph at the start of a climb.
In areas that had lots of hills, the only solution I could find was to put the jakes on to level 3 or 2, leave the cruise on till before the top of the climb, then cancel the cruise a few seconds before I would actually want the jake on. It works for the most part, but really sucks in traffic and I feel like the guy on the Ed Sullivan show spinning plates.
On some of the sharp quick hills, it wouldnt even come on at all without apply service brakes to make it downshift first. I finally exerimented with putting it manual mode and discoveredt hat if I shift it too quickly it will default to neutral for some reason. Uggghh. It seems as if the engineers want you hit the service brakes to use the jake? I really am not a big fan of whaling on the brake pedal.