Hey I'm Wade with Crete Carrier.
We're here today to talk about the 2018 Freightliner Cascadia.
It's our new automatic version of the truck, and this is what we're getting for this year
in 2017 for deliveries.
So to start off here, we've got our key in here, by your left knee, we'll turn that on,
we'll let the gauges do there business, they're doing a system check - there's a lot of system
checks with the dash.
Once everything is stabilized, we can go ahead and start the truck.
Alright.
So, we're up and running.
We're ready to start driving.
Actually, the main thing we want to check is our air gauges here.
Make sure we have enough air to run the transmission.
It needs to be at 100 psi or the transmission won't go into gear.
So our gear selector is right here on the side of the column, and it's just the dial.
We have a drive, neutral and reverse.
It's in automatic already.
We'll just dial this switch and we're in drive.
We're ready to go right now.
We can release the brakes, and as soon as the brakes release, which takes a few seconds,
we can take off.
For reverse, we still foot on the brake, put it in neutral, roll it back to reverse.
There are several reverse gears so in this case, we're in reverse 1.
We can go to reverse 2.
And that's all it's going to let us do while parked.
We go back to neutral, apply our parking brake, and we're parked.
So the 2018 Freightliner has adaptive cruise control.
It's a system set up so that the transmission will automatically predict where we're at
in the road, what the terrain ahead up to about a mile is, and it'll accelerate as necessary
to get in the right gear if we're going to climb a hill.
For example, if we're going to crest that hill it predicts that ahead of time because
it's looking at a mile ahead of us, predicts that hill so it slows down the amount of fuel
given to the engine so that we don't crest the hill to hard.
We get up to the top of the hill and it may even do what's called an E-Coast a little
bit as it crests the hill - where it's not really given a lot of fuel, but it's not running
the engine brake either, it will crest the hill and then engage the engine brake as it
needs to and manage our speed down the hill.
So we use the correct amount of fuel, we're in the correct gear, we don't overate our
speed too much, then as we get close to the bottom of the hill it's automatically going
to predict that we're near the bottom of the hill and it's going to let us coast down that
hill a little bit and then start engaging - it's going to go from engine braking into
a smooth transition and an E-Coast into applying fuel to the engine again to maintain our speed.
This keeps us from using excess fuel, over running our speed, which we don't want to
do and also running engine brake longer than we need to.
Okay, that system only works if we're in cruise control.
So we have to be in cruise control for that whole system to work.
This will automatically watch us as we're going through a dip in the road so it predicts
a dip, sees a dip in the road, it will let us coast and get it a little bit, it will
speed us up a little bit down the slope, give us some momentum to go up the slope, so we'll
make that dip in the road and it will keep on going with a smooth transition, okay.
It's a great system, but again, only works if we're in cruise control so that cruise
control is important to us.
So let's talk about the Opti-Idle System on this truck.
It's got a system set up so that the truck can maintain it's batteries, maintain it's
own system, and maintain the temperature in the truck.
Okay, it's a lot like your air conditioner or your heater at home.
For the Opti-Idle, that's the air conditioning piece of it.
So the truck will automatically start-up and get the temperature in here to where you set
it and then it will shut itself off to maintain that temperature.
We'll look in the back in a moment and there's a range we can set the temperature so if you
set it at 70 degrees, for example, you get set it to got up to 4 degrees higher than
that or you can set it to go 7 degrees higher than that or 10 degrees.
So you could have it 70, it might get up to 74 before it turns on or it could get up to
77 before it turns on, or it could get up to 80 before turning itself on.
But the system's set up just to maintain itself.
For the heat system, that's a Esper System, which is all in the back and we'll take a
look at that too.
But the run the Opti-Idle System, the trucks' running, and we said we hit our cruise control
button.
Now, we're parked, you're brakes applied, we're in neutral, we hit our cruise control
button.
I'll see our idle management light start to flash.
We'll go over here to our temperature controls, we'll turn it all the way to 8 on the temperature
fan, and turn the cold all of the way to cold.
In the back, this is the bunk area of the truck of course.
And in the back here, to set our Opti-Idle System, we're going to set this dial also
to 8 and also to full cold mode.
We go up here to our Detroit Diesel Opti-Idle screen, hit the mode to turn it on, we'll
hit our down arrow to select our temperature, we're at 71.
I'll put our mode and it flashes to 4, there's the 7 or the 10 and that gives us the range.
We'll set it at 4, click mode, and we can click mode through a couple of other screens
here that don't mean anything to us.
We'll see if says 95 degrees here and we have the little snowflake.
We want that snowflake to be flashing so that the air conditioning is running.
That's all there is to it when the air-conditioner, when the temperature gets to where we want
it in here, the truck will shut itself off.
Then when the temperature gets to a point where it needs to kick itself on the truck
will start back up, run the air conditioner, just like it is now and cools off until we're
in that range again.
So to turn our Opti-Idle System off once we're up in the morning, we're ready to go to work,
we just hit and hold this whole button mode button, until the screen goes dark and then
we're all set.
We also run an Espar Heater System to heat the truck in the winter time or the cold climate.
It's a pretty straightforward system.
Our truck is parked, we're off, we're not running, and go back here.
We hit the simple on button and you can see that it says stopped.
Hit the button again and it says enabled, little green light comes on, and you can set
our temperature here for whichever we want.
Hotter or colder.
That's all there is to our S-Bar Heat System.
It's set until we turn in off.
We'll get ready to turn it off, let's just hit that simple green button again, should
say stopped there with a little red light on.
The blue light may stay on for a little bit until it's cooled off, but if it says it's
stopped it's off.
So this is the heat vent for the Espar System.
This is at the base of the bunk right along the floor on the right-hand side if you're
facing the bunk.
You'll want to make sure that's clear of objects because it's going to blast the hot air out
of that to heat this entire cab, so if you have something there it will get hot, it can
melt it.
We don't want to set anything on fire, but we don't want to melt your gear either so
you want to keep that clear.
A couple of things to look for when you get into your 2018 Freightliner Cascadia, just
above us here in the cabs are the, like the books and the owner's manuals and so forth.
Look for this card and this Opti-Idle book.
This is your guide for the Opti-Idle, and this card can give you some hints and tips
on using the transmission.