Why do most of the trucking companies have 10-speed trannies in their trucks ? What advantage does it give over a 13 or 18 speed ? Since I've driven only 18-speeds ever since I started driving trucks 2 years ago, how easy / difficult is it to transition to a 10-speed ?
The only advantage I can think of for the big companies would be the lower cost plus not having to train the new drivers how to work the extra gears.
10 speed compared to an 18 is easy. You have 5 lower gears, flip the range selector and you have 5 upper gears.
I was told that less gears = less parts to wear & break. I have a super 10 with 1.2 mil miles & nothing ever done to it except fluid change. still has original clutch in it.
The 10 speed trannies tend to be a little more durable, they are easy to learn, and give you one more gear over a 9 speed.
They are not hard to learn at all. The BIG thing you have to remember is that when you come out of the low side and into the high side you come clear over to your leg and back.
It depends on what you need. The only training I've had is on 8, 10 and 13 speed. Most of my time has been on a spent on 10 speed. Malaki86 has good point about ease. A good 10 speed is easy, of course splitting the top gears on the 13 is a nice deal to. I am sure cost has a lot to do with what companies buy.
When I started driving I was in a 9 speed for quite awhile. Then they put me into a 10 speed. The 10 speed had no label indicating that it was a 10. So, for about a month I kept thinking to myself - wow, there's a lot of "room" between 5th and 6th gear.
