Eaton coast mode

Is this what you are talking about?
http://www.eaton.com/Eaton/OurCompany/NewsEvents/NewsReleases/PCT_1228662

If it is when the truck decides that no power is needed and you are going down a slight grade, one that you may not even be able to notice it will shift the transmission into Neutral. You will coast down the highway at an idle RPM. Once the speed of the vehicle goes below the set cruise speed by an allowed amount it will shift back into gear and resume going down the highway in gear until the next event.

For the second question can you give me a better idea of what you are asking?

 

I did not know about that. Would one of those malfunctioning explain why a friend of mine went a 100+ MPH ride? He knew where he was and chose to ride instead of ramp. Or electric range control?

 

As far as I know the transmission takes inputs from the engine which receives it's commands from your foot. The farther that you press the accelerator pedal down the more fuel it gives you. The engine will rev higher. The transmission sees this and will adjust its shift pattern. If you use less throttle the shifts will happen at a lower speed, most of the time. I say most of the time because with the new fuel economy features on some of the trucks it still will not let you rev above a certain point. Seeing how I do not know which engine is in your truck and what year it is I can not say for sure if your truck will have some of these options on it. Now if you are asking about if there is a difference in the shift points on a truck that may have 500 hp vs 400 hp, I would say yes based solely on the torque available from the engine and the drivers habits.

 

So how does shifting to neutral save fuel? Sure the RPM is lower but when your foot is off the throttle, there's very little fuel being injected anyways. I can't argue and say its reduntant because if it didn't work, they obviously wouldn't have designed it. Just curious as to how much of a gain it equals in real world conditions.

 

In other words let 'er drift.

There are certain downgrades in which you discover that gravity has you moving at 35 or so without engine power or braking, what you are doing drifting (Not the going around the corners skidding... this is different...) downgrade is preserving your brakes and cooling what you did use before the next set of downgrade. Usually going so slow in a mountain pass the locals understand what you are doing and do not give you a hard time.

The transmission function you referred to would be handy with that. However to let her drift means literally no hammer at all. She will idle in whatever gear and if she starts to buck you shift the next one down and let her idle down. You will be setting up the Jake Brake soon enough if not also your thermal braking as well when you reach the next side of the downgrade.

 

That is what I was arguing with the engineers about. For the average fleet driver it will save them fuel. For a skilled driver with a manual transmission there is no benefit switching to it. What it is doing is taking away the power train loss. you are no longer coasting with the engine rotating with the transmission. On one hill it may not save you any fuel but over the course of a day it will add up with all of the little hills that you never noticed before. At first I was against this feature. Now it doesn't bother me. It does what it does. The fuel gains are noticeable against older versions of that transmission without the feature.

 

every driver at our company some with 30 years experience has seen increased mpg with the Mercedes auto
over the 13 speed with trucks still governed at 75