New Shocks

[nutensteve]

Nita and I went to a small RV show this past weekend to look at different flooring. We wanted to replace the carpeting in the coach and wanted to look at possibly changing to tile or laminate wood. We ended up test driving an 07 Country Coach Intigue 45' with a 525 HP CAT. The coach was gorgeous and drove like it was on rails .... I won't mention the 2 stage jake...WOW. We came to our senses and walked away with a few good ideas on flooring. After driving the CC I realized that I needed to try to improve the handling of my coach. I have always had to fight the wandering to keep the coach in my lane. I have read a lot of comments on changing the shocks. I took the coach to Colton Truck and had them install new Bilstein shocks and do a front and rear alignment. I picked the coach up this afternoon and i have to say it made a HUGE difference in handling. There was a pretty strong wind blowing yet I was able to steer with one hand. I'm thinking about adding the front and rear stabalizers later....when my lottery winning come in...lol.

[nodine]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nutensteve Nita and I went to a small RV show this past weekend to look at different flooring. We wanted to replace the carpeting in the coach and wanted to look at possibly changing to tile or laminate wood. We ended up test driving an 07 Country Coach Intigue 45' with a 525 HP CAT. The coach was gorgeous and drove like it was on rails .... I won't mention the 2 stage jake...WOW. We came to our senses and walked away with a few good ideas on flooring. After driving the CC I realized that I needed to try to improve the handling of my coach. I have always had to fight the wandering to keep the coach in my lane. I have read a lot of comments on changing the shocks. I took the coach to Colton Truck and had them install new Bilstein shocks and do a front and rear alignment. I picked the coach up this afternoon and i have to say it made a HUGE difference in handling. There was a pretty strong wind blowing yet I was able to steer with one hand. I'm thinking about adding the front and rear stabalizers later....when my lottery winning come in...lol.

Hi,

If your 2006 Diplomat handled anything like ours did I am surprised you waited this long to make improvements on handling. You are going to love the sway bars and when you can put a steering stabilizer. After adding the sway bars and steering stabilizer along with the shocks you will be in heaven. Also make sure you have good tires that are not rivered and have 105 lbs in the front and 95 in the rears. Another thing that will make your coach wander is the front bearings not tight enough which allows the wheels to wobble slightly. After I had my front wheel bearings packed and the spindle nuts torqued to spec it reduced the wander of our coach.

Bob

[jeepsrule]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nodine Hi, If your 2006 Diplomat handled anything like ours did I am surprised you waited this long to make improvements on handling. You are going to love the sway bars and when you can put a steering stabilizer. After adding the sway bars and steering stabilizer along with the shocks you will be in heaven. Also make sure you have good tires that are not rivered and have 105 lbs in the front and 95 in the rears. Another thing that will make your coach wander is the front bearings not tight enough which allows the wheels to wobble slightly. After I had my front wheel bearings packed and the spindle nuts torqued to spec it reduced the wander of our coach. Bob

Bob are the Bilsteins the shock you recommend?

[Mike Canter]

Jeepsrule you might find this post interesting. Either Bilsteins or Koni are great. Doubt that you can tell the difference between them and both will last for 100K miles or more,

Monaco Factory Installed Bilstein Shock Information

[Mike & Nancy]

Mike....If factory Bilsteins are so great why do so many people replace them early? On our 04 Alpine we replaced factory shocks with Koni FSD's at 15k miles.....big difference. We have 10k on our 09 Dynasty and I feel switching to Koni FSD's would improve handling etc on MH......am I missing something. Additionally, I am considering MCU's and two different RV specialist (Sponsors) have given me different info. Both recommended MCU's for improved ride,etc....one said I only needed 4 or 2 sets (pair for front and pair for rear duals) the other said I needed 10 or 5 sets (10 airbag coach). What do you think???

[Perry White]

Just replaced my Bilsteins with Koni's. What a difference. Cheapest place for Koni's is Spartan's online shop=-RVCHASSIS.COM. $148/each. Plus I think they have a 10% off this month. I had only 30,000 on mine . I put adjustable on front and FSD's on drive & Tag. I should have done it 2 years ago.

[Mike Canter]

Mike, I believe that Monaco stopped using Bilsteins and switched to Monroe shocks on most MHs which fail at about 15 to 20K miles. Since Monroes are yellow people assume they are Bilsteins. In fact if the bottom cylinder is yellow and the top dust cover is yellow then they are Monroes, if the bottom cylinder is yellow and the top dust cover is blue they are Bilsteins. Both Bilsteins and Koni shocks will normally last over a 100K miles.

[jeepsrule]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Canter Jeepsrule you might find this post interesting. Either Bilsteins or Koni are great. Doubt that you can tell the difference between them and both will last for 100K miles or more, Monaco Factory Installed Bilstein Shock Information

thanks Mike, I'm going to check mine out closer before I do anything.

[Mike Canter]

I would be interested in knowing what you have. Other RVers on the forum have thought they had Bilsteins that were bad and found out they were really Monroes. I don't know what or when Monaco switched from Bilsteins to Monroes. I do know that my 2004 Signature does in fact have 10 Bilsteins on it and at 34K miles they are all still great. Most Monaco coaches with Monroes tend to have them fail around 15K to 20K miles. What is bad they seem to fail slowly and one get used to the difference in the handling so one really doesn't know they failed until one gets tired of the MH being all over the road. At that point installing either Koni or Bilsteins or Road Kings are going to make a large change to the way the MH handles and is going to be like a miracle. As the test report shows there is very little difference between what the driver can feel between the three top brands of shocks. We don't have the money or time to start swapping from one brand to the other to see if we notice any difference and again that is reflected in that shock test report. Either brand is going to work just fine and it is a matter of personnal preference.

Again for those who haven't read it here is the test report from Motorhome Magazine. Those shocks on page one are the yellow and blue Bilsteins, Koni FSD were gold back then and I think they are now red somebody can correct me on that.
http://www.irv2.com/forums/attachmen...5&d=1297008469

[nutensteve]

Mike,
The old shocks on my coach were definately Monroes. I only drove about 60 miles with the new Bilsteins and it was a pretty windy day but I sure did notice a big difference.

[Perry White]

I had Bilsteins on the front and drive axle and Monroes on the tag. Came that way from Spartan. Monroes and Bilsteins painted same color yellow.

[Mike Canter]

Perry the difference is what the top dust cover color is which is way up there and harder to see. Bilstein uses either a blue rubber or a blue hard plastic dust cover. On the bottom main shock cylinder they both look the same in yellow.

[nodine]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeepsrule Bob are the Bilsteins the shock you recommend?

jeepsrule,

Looks like a Ford/Chevy thread at this point. I choose the Koni FSD shocks for our motorhome because they self adjust (Frequency Selective Damping). Many have reported good results with the Bilsteins also.

Bob

[beaverjim]

nutensteve, i would second bob nodines thoughts on the sway bars! we left tampa today and drove up to dothan al. our first long drive with the new sway bars and it is unbelievable. we had quite heavy winds across i10 it truly ran down the road like it was on railroad tracks. we also have the koni fsd's along with a howard steeing stabilizer. the sways bars were worth every dime we spent on them jim