It's a Team's Life

Traitor....

By Linda Caffee
Posted May 17th 2013 1:17PM

While in Las Vegas waiting to pick up our next load we headed over to the Las Vegas Speedway for dealer event sponsored by Freightliner. Many of the dealers as well as Freightliner employees have asked about our truck and Expediting and this was a great chance for them to get a close up of our 2012 Cascadia as well as our Bolt Custom Sleeper.

We always have fun showing our truck and we enjoy the look of amazement on people faces as they get inside. Most of these people are used to the OEM sleepers and they wanted to wait for one person to look and get out before they got in, they are a little confused when I say "go ahead get on in there is room for more". Sometimes I laugh as they get settled in at the table and they are reluctant to get out. Now they know my problem, the sleeper in comfortable and it is easy to stay inside and enjoy.

The questions are always varied and once they get over their awe of the sleeper the questions turn back to the truck and how we have our Cascadia set up. They want to know about Expediting and how the Cascadia fits in with our business plan. Once we start talking about our fuel mileage, the ride of the Cascadia, the DD13, and the automated Ultra Shift transmission the conversation could go on for hours.

I were finally able to drive the new Cascadia Evolution with the DT12 automated transmission pulling a 48' trailer with a gross weight of 78,000 pounds. First my nerves were a little on edge wondering if I would remember what it was like to pull a trailer. I am glad to say I did not embarrass myself and had a lot of fun.

I slid in behind the wheel of the 2014 Evolution and placed the transmission in drive. We were on flat ground and as I accelerated the DT12 started shifting gears upward at a quick rate. The transmission senses what gear it needed and skip shifted upwards easily and without any help from me. We are used to our Eaton/Fuller auto shift and as it climbs through each and every gear we feel the shift, the DT12 had almost no feeling as it skipped gears and we smoothly went down the road.

I was able to get the truck quickly up to speed and then use the jakes to bring the truck back down so I could make a right hand turn. The jakes are very powerful on this truck and it quickly dropped speed. The next test was to go up a 5% grade and bring the truck to a complete stop. I let off of the brake and the accelerator and the truck went into "creep" mode and we slowly started climbing the hill. There are 5 gears to "creep" mode and I was able to speed the truck up. What a bonus this would be when stuck in a traffic jam and also when backing into a dock. I had visions of myself backing down a steep dock smoothly and effortlessly with this truck.

Next I drove a T660 Kenworth and then the VNL780 Volvo and while there were a few things I liked about these trucks, I did not feel as if they would fit our needs as well as the Cascadia Evolution would. Both trucks had automated transmissions with the Volvo having the I-Shift. It was fun to be able to drive each of the trucks back to back and compare notes about what we liked and what we did not like. These drives were short and were designed to give everyone a small taste of what the competitors trucks were like; to see as well as to drive.

We were happy to get back into our truck but we are having dreams of driving an Evolution with the new DT12 transmission....