[jcp123]

While we’re at it, I do have to plug the other side. First time going over the Appalachians in a while, and the automated manual in my truck really goes from “eh, it’s sorta ok” to a freaking superstar here. It takes most of the work out of navigating the ups and downs. I’m not really enamored of its shift logic, but it can apply engine braking and downshifts automatically and keep a steady pace without burning brakes or making you worry about the hundreds of shifts you’d do in just 100ish miles here.

Granted I’m pulling only 33k lbs, about 10-12k short of the max they’d normally like to send over the mountains, but I reset my tripmeter to see what happened, and I was kinda delighted. 107 miles of mountains resulted in 8.3mpg average, with a 54mph average speed.

Both are better than what I think I did with a manual. I think. Especially MPG, that would have been closer to 6.5 or 7mpg before.

EDIT: hell, 8.3 is better than the 8.1 I had averaged in this rig since I started driving it last summer. Either at 110k, the engine is finally broken in, or pulling a moddleweight load over mountains gives some strange advantage to pulling loads of any weight over flatter terrain.