2005 Rough Ride

[RAPPAR]

I have a 2005 DSDP that suffers from a very rough ride. I have a coach with steel wheels and the chrome "simulators"�. I have tried everything to improve the ride. It still rides like an old shockless truck. It bottoms out on bumps. Is there any advantage to be gained by going to the aluminium wheels?

[RAPPAR]

I have a 2005 DSDP that suffers from a very rough ride. I have a coach with steel wheels and the chrome "simulators"�. I have tried everything to improve the ride. It still rides like an old shockless truck. It bottoms out on bumps. Is there any advantage to be gained by going to the aluminium wheels?

[Spoonman]

Changing wheels would not help the ride, unless a lighter wallet took some load off the front end.
Sorry, couldn`t resist.
I would contact Brazel`s and explain what you have done and see what they suggest. From all the posts I`ve read they seem to be very knowledgable.

[GaryKD]

RAPPAR,
Please tell us what you have tried to correct the rough problem. My signature coach had a very rough ride. Here is what I did:
1. got the coach weighed (each wheel)
2. took the tire air down from 120 (per dealer) to 95 in the front and 85 in the rear, based on Michelin specs.
3. Had all six tires spun balanced and thoroughly checked for defects at an authorized Michelin truck tire center.
4. All six tires were de and re mounted. Several were not mounted properly on the wheel.
5. All six tires were spun balanced. After balancing the rough ride was isolated to the front end.
6. Further checking of the front tires found them to be out of round.
7. Michelin replaced both front tires. They were spun balanced.
8. Coach rides very smooth.

[Brigadoon]

Here's the deal that a number of us 2005 DSDP had to go through.

Apparently Newmar specified a number of the Spartan Mountain Master chassis's with small front air bags and some fairly stiff shocks. This combined with the shorter sidewall 70 series, load range J tires made for an awful ride on the front axle. Our DSDP was one such coach.

To get this properly corrected, we made an appointment with Spartan and took our coach to Spartan in Charlotte, MI for service last September.

Spartan replaced the front air bags with larger bags (read softer bags), different shocks with 10% less compression resistance, and changed the front tires from the 275/70 series to Michelin XZA3 275/80 series load range H tires. This made a world of difference. The coach finally rode like an air suspension should.

Spartan would not do anything with the rear tires since there were no issues with the rear axle. We replaced the rear tires with XZA3's at our expense, which improved the ride on the rear axle also, although not as dramatically as the front. We had the opportunity to buy the tires for the rear at Spartan, but we saved $500 by buying the tires at a commercial truck tire dealer in Grand Rapids, MI.

An additional benifit to the 80 series XZA3 tire is additional load carrying capacity. We are able to run our front tires at 105 lbs pressure instead of the 120 lbs of the original tires. We also reduced the rear tire pressure to 95-100 psi.

By the way, the commercial truck tire dealer in Grand Rapids told us that in the case of a tire failure when out on the road, the 275/80 series tire is much easier to locate than the 70 series tire. That may equate to less down time in the case of a flat.

If you go this route you will most likely greatly improve your ride.