spacemanZ10:
Juddian:
Gillberry:
Juddian I am only quoting what manufacturers will have you believe , personally I agree with you the correct forward planning will help economy , maintain speed etc unfortunately not all drivers use forward planning some just rely on the truck brakes and throttle rather than reading the road .
Sadly true, its quite shocking just how late some leave braking (don’t even think about using the auxilliary engine/exhaust brake the maker spent £millions perfecting 
), they must get through a set of pads between each service and a set of discs every other 
I thought in car world manuals are always more economical even by the manufacturer standards which is why many manuals pay no or lower road fund than licence than the auto equivalent. Plus I know on company cars you would pay more tax on auto due to higher emmisions.
Years ago I did the advanced. As you say Judd, good planning and looking ahead makes a helluva difference!
I think the automated manuals and twin clutch type boxes can be as or (assuming the same problem of idiot drivers) more economical as manuals, its the torque converter boxes that have transmission drag that uses some extra fuel.
Having said that all of our cars are torque converter autos (don’t get the idea i’m wealthy, they’re all bangers 
), and i’m happy to pay for the extra fuel because the drive is lovely, and when compared to car automated manuals and twin clutch jobbies they are completely trouble free, where the latter two horrid things will economically write off many cars that have them long before they should.
If DAF has spent millions developing their poverty spec exhaust “brake” there are a bunch of engineers who really need firing!
The thing can barely hold back an empty trailer down a gentle hill at 2k rpm, put some real weight on and you might as well wind the window down and hold your hand out. I still use it as much as possible, but compared to the Actros I used to drive where I barely had to use the service brakes, the DAF forces you to use them a lot.
slowlane:
If DAF has spent millions developing their poverty spec exhaust “brake” there are a bunch of engineers who really need firing!
The thing can barely hold back an empty trailer down a gentle hill at 2k rpm, put some real weight on and you might as well wind the window down and hold your hand out. I still use it as much as possible, but compared to the Actros I used to drive where I barely had to use the service brakes, the DAF forces you to use them a lot.
Handy to know if ever I drive a DAF! Cheers Slowlane
I passed my HGV test over 25 years ago, obviously it was on a manual a 6 speed box, (No range change, no splitter) but it had nothing in common with the trucks I went to drive, a combination of syncro boxes with range changes and splitters and the legendary Eaton twin splitter.
The truck bore little relationship with the trucks I went to drive, except that they were artics. The truck I trained on was a Ford Cargo pulling an empty 30ft flatbed trailer, the trucks I drove afterwards were F12’s or Foden with tilts, tippers or curtainsiders weighing 38 tonnes.
Ok so I did a 10 day course, but I, like many others went from driving cars straight to driving artics, most of those taking their C+E now have already spent 5 days on a course to drive a rigid.
Of course the test and training could be improved to take into account real world conditions as it could have been when I did it, but really the best way would be proper on the job training by companies before letting a new driver loose on the trucks, but this costs money in an industry that works to the lowest price.
Manuals are great .but pass your test in an Auto to make it easier .