SRW or dually.
I'm thinking of a life change. Come March of next year, I'll have 40 years at the company I work for. I don't plan to retire completely but sort of semi-retire. I'm looking at RV trailer transport. I ...
Forum Discussion
Cummins12V98 wrote:FishOnOne wrote:mkirsch wrote:ol' grouch wrote:
Automatic transmission are a weak link for pulling loads. RV's will be lighter than I normally work with but I've seen automatics fail under medium towing. Add in the lack of a dip stick anymore and failures are becoming more frequent.
Do you have data to back up this assertion?
You've been in the business for 40+ years so you've seen automatic transmissions in heavy hauling go from being a joke to nearly universal. GM hasn't put a manual in a pickup truck in 10 years. It's been 8 years for Ford.
If these transmission failures were "more frequent" how come we hardly ever hear of them on this forum?
Really, I think you're basing this bias of yours on pre-2000 automatics, mostly the feeble early attempts of the '70s and '80s.
I believe the only reason Ram has kept their manual transmission is because they don't have a really good automatic and most of the hot shotters know it.
That's just not true. Anyone that knows Automatics know the Aisin in the RAM 3500's is a true Medium duty transmission, Same trans ran in many other applications such as the HINO Medium duty trucks.
Also the 68RFE has proven it's self to be very durable behind the CUMMINS in "STOCK" configuration.
And I would never go longer than 30-40K fluid change on any Auto I planned to keep.
The Aisin transmission will only be proven to be a medium category if one can go a couple hundred thousand miles without any issues and having to have the transmission fluid changed every 30k miles is not impressive and hot shotters are not going to service them every 30k miles. A neighbor down the street had a Ram 4500 company truck and had to have the aisin transmission replaced. This was the previous gen truck, but was suppose to be a medium duty like you claim, but it's durability fell short.
And the 68 transmission is Chryslers last designed transmission in service and it's time they let it go. It's not proven to be a durable transmission and the torque management required to keep it in one piece has frustrated many Ram owners and some have even sold their truck because of this weak transmission. Again the reason the manual transmission still exists.
BTW... My transmission fluid is still the factory fluid and at 81k miles my transmission is performing flawlessly. I plan on changing it at ~100k miles which is a bit early.
Don't be so butt hurt... It's ok!
