So how many of you use the manual shifter on the automatic?

[brianinca]

Ran Raybestos brake pads for decades on little Ford trucks, 25K was the norm. Depends on how and where you drive. Know a Taco owner who claimed 125K on his front pads, never want to be stuck behind him on the road!

Should get 80-90,000 on brakes anyway. I've gotten that much on almost everything I've owned.

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[brianinca]

I've used it to force upshifts while towing, it seems like the transmission gets really aggressive about keeping in a lower gear than needed.

Same as many have said here, down hills for better engine braking and sometimes to hold a gear going up.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Ran Raybestos brake pads for decades on little Ford trucks, 25K was the norm. Depends on how and where you drive. Know a Taco owner who claimed 125K on his front pads, never want to be stuck behind him on the road!

Yeah, it does depend on where you live - mountains are a different animal. But around here, hilly roads, interstate grades of 4%, county roads with grades of 5 to 6 in places, parts of the state sort of flat, but nothing like KS or NE.
The original brakes on my Eagle went 154,000 miles. They were shot but not down to metal. The brakes on my F250 went over 80,000 and were still fine when I traded it. My flat bed trailer at that time had NO brakes and empty weighed about 3,000 pounds. I drove it to Reading, PA and back with no trailer brakes, only the truck brakes in the hills and mountains of the area. I was pretty happy the truck brakes went that long - even longer. I estimate that there was easily another 10,000 miles or so on them.

Now when you say "Raybestos" that can mean a lot - ceramic or organic or other? Each brand has several levels or types to choose from. The higher the CoF, the more sticky they are, the shorter life they have as a GENERAL rule. Lower CoF, longer life, not as sticky.
My 73 Javelin was an abused car in an earlier life and it had 100,000 on the original brakes - I replaced them simply because they were old and I changed the front drum brakes to heavy-duty Kelsey Hayes disk brakes. Surprised at how long those brakes went as the engine was built for racing, a high-stall converter, ratchet shifter, etc. and found evidence the previous owner broke the driveshaft as the bottom side was ripped up pretty good, big dents and the brake lines had been ripped off the floor and redone.

My 70 Chevy was used as farm truck and prior to that, hauled my antique gas engines around to shows and pulled a very heavy trailer - no brakes on it. Traded it at 100,000 miles, brakes still ok but needed to be replaced.

I suspect I'll use the manual mode when I start hauling as these aren't exactly strong trucks when it comes to towing and mine is constantly shifting and will eventually burn out the transmission. Manual shifting should help it live longer.
I've never had to change brakes on a truck I've owned.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

People pay a lot of money to get reverse linkage like that in drag car transmissions

You simply install a reverse pattern valve body........... the only cost is that of the valve body. You do the switch yourself. They are bolt-in changes.

One reason fast car drivers like the reverse pattern is because of the natural forces holding you from moving forward as you speed down the track and are shoved back in the seat. It's easier to pull back, it's a natural force. You don't reach or push forward easily when in a drag car. It's why buttons for nitrous and other fun stuff aren't clear ahead on the dash but are typically on the shifter or next to the seat -
I don't think that's a concern in a Gladiator!.These might do a fraction of that force on a great day.

Still the fastest AMC I am aware of (as far as I know, the world's fastest AMC) is a stick and Kevin shifts that thing so fast you'd never know it was a stick. He goes by stick-shifter on our forum last I knew. (just shy of 200 mph in the quarter with his Gremlin last I knew)

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Really want the manual but it has no towing capacity and the clutch was designed for limp leg weenies. I will probably get the manual anyway. Having fluid connect the engine to the gearbox is wrong.

You can fix that of course - switch disk and pressure plate.........

 

[rafaelsmith]

I use it often out on the highway when the "auto" insists on keeping it in 7th when it really should be in 8th. When I am trying to do my best on MPG.

 

[Klutch]

I agree the UP and DOWN shift is backwards, but it does work well. Yeah, we have some SERIOUS mountain roads in Colorado. It's very common for people to warp their rotors and glaze the pads by riding their brakes down a long, mountain pass. I just drop it a couple gears and cruise down while I'm watching the non-stop brake lights and smelling the cooking pads of the car ahead of me.

And, oh good golly, do I hate those stupid flappy paddle shifters. My wife's Subaru has those and, if the steering wheel is turned, they're useless. I'm sure they work fine on a Formula 1 car where you never turn the steering more than a few degrees, but on a street vehicle, forget it.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I agree the UP and DOWN shift is backwards, but it does work well. Yeah, we have some SERIOUS mountain roads in Colorado. It's very common for people to warp their rotors and glaze the pads by riding their brakes down a long, mountain pass. I just drop it a couple gears and cruise down while I'm watching the non-stop brake lights and smelling the cooking pads of the car ahead of me.

And, oh good golly, do I hate those stupid flappy paddle shifters. My wife's Subaru has those and, if the steering wheel is turned, they're useless. I'm sure they work fine on a Formula 1 car where you never turn the steering more than a few degrees, but on a street vehicle, forget it.

I recall the roads we took going up to Pike's Peak years ago - imagine having the wheel turned sideways much of the time and trying to use those wheel controls.
I noticed that some people when turning the wheel - those get in the way. My wife was one of those people. With her handicap any protrusion on the wheel was a bother. She even asked if I could "take those stupid things off".
I came really close to getting the Dremel out with a metal cutting wheel..........

I had my AMX up in the mountains of the Denver area years ago - was glad it was a stick and glad it had disk brakes. Engine compression was good so it had great engine braking.
Traded it in at about 80-some thousand on the new 84 Eagle wagon we bought back then. That car stopped nice, but wish it had anti-lock brakes. It was easy to slide it.
But that car took the mountain roads like nothin'. No problems at all, steep grades, high elevations, it did great.

 

[NC_Overland]

I’ll use it more when I’m on trails requiring 4lo... it works great in conjunction with hill descent control

I’m pretty sure that’s how the low speed crawl control is designed to work. You plus/minus and it shows in the dash what speed you’ve set it to.

 

[remlemasi]

And, oh good golly, do I hate those stupid flappy paddle shifters. My wife's Subaru has those and, if the steering wheel is turned, they're useless. I'm sure they work fine on a Formula 1 car where you never turn the steering more than a few degrees, but on a street vehicle, forget it.

Lol, that’s the issue: flappy paddles on a CVT...

 

[Klutch]

Lol, that’s the issue: flappy paddles on a CVT...

The CVT is irrelevant. The paddles are useless with the wheel turned no matter what transmission they're connected to.

 

[wannajeep]

Forward is up, backward is down - why did Jeep do it backwards?

It's a Jeep thing?

 

[remlemasi]

I dunn

The CVT is irrelevant. The paddles are useless with the wheel turned no matter what transmission they're connected to.

I dunno, I have a great time in my BMW and a Lotus Evora I rented last month. Both have flappy paddles that turn with the steering wheel, as do all Porsches with their excellent PDK. I also keep my hands on 9 & 3 (relative to the wheels) and I don't shift my hands around when I'm driving aggressively, so the paddles are always right where I need them.

That being said, I agree that it wouldn't be a good match for the JT, but to generalize *all* steering-wheel mounted paddles as useless is reaching a bit.

What I wish the JT had was the ability to manually shift the transmission without needing to put the shifter/transmission into manual mode. I often need to downshift or upshift just to get in a certain gear (passing or force into 8th) but don't want to stay in manual mode after the single shift. Paddle shifters are great for this as they allow you to make a single manual shift, but revert back to automatic after a set amount of time.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Nudge the shifter back to the right - ain't that how it works? One more move. That puts it back in auto mode, no clutter on the steering wheel, nothing in the way.
AND it can be done while crawling around mountain passes with the steering wheel up-side-down half the time.
Shifting via the shifter is a natural thing for all but those under 25 years old - then they simply want to tell it to go forward after putting up a pic of themselves driving on instacrap or whatever.

 

[bastage]

I use it often. I am undergeared so I will use it to force the truck into 8th and on the trails I use it a lot to force into 1st.

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