[gsadmin]

So, here is the saga. I hope that many of you can take some of this info and use it to make your rigs ride better and safer. I own a 2004 Gulf Stream Ultra Supreme 30' Class A.

About six months after I bought my rig I noticed that it was listing to one side (The passenger side) and oscillating left to right a lot when I would go over large bumps on one side or the other. So, I took it into the Ford dealer, they worked on it for a day and it seemed fine for a while. It started listing again but only mildly at about 18 months after the "repair" at the Ford dealer.

Last month I drove down from SLC to St. George and I noticed some tire noise. Inspecting the tires I found large divots on the inside edge of the passenger-side tire. I had to buy new tires in St. George (a real pain btw) and the shop foreman told me to get it aligned as soon as possible.

Looking at the rig more carefully from the front, I noticed it listing a bit more to the passenger side.

I drove back up to SLC and after calling at least five places, I found one (alignment Specialists) that was set up to work on my rig. I took it in and the manager told me that it was way out of whack in the rear and a bit in the front. But, more importantly he said that the front springs were flat or, in the case of the passenger side, had reverse camber. Also, there was at least 5" of spacers on the passenger side front spring. (installed by Ford). I went to Ford later that day and their service manager said the spacers were normal and installed according to a TSB from Ford and that this TSB also said that flat or some reverse camber was normal. He told me that the coach manufacturers always misload these chassis.

He recommended, before doing any alignment, I go to a specialist here in SLC for springs called AAA spring. They basically told me that I needed to weigh each corner and then they could recommend a solution.

Now I had to find a scale. I first went to Flying J and their scale only did each axles weight as opposed to four-corner. I weighed it anyways and the front axle was 6980 and the back was 10280. The axle ratings for my rig were 7000 and 12000 respectively. The front was under the limit, but just barely, and if it was not perfectly balanced, it would be overloaded on one side or the other.

I had to find some place to weigh each wheel.

It dawned on me that recycling places might be the perfect place so I went to Redwood Recycling here in Taylorsville. The people there were real nice. I weighed each tire as well as left and right by simply driving the motorhome up on the pad accordingly.

The result was that my front passenger side was 3750 or 250 pounds over the spring limit. My right rear was 8150 or 2000 pounds over! I guess the fact that the entire kitchen, door assembly, bed slide out, frig, heater, stove, generator, storage bays, shower and additional cabinets make it weigh much more than the driver side, even though the driver side has the living room slide.

So, what to do. I called up AAA Spring and they said that by them pulling out the springs, making sure they have the proper curve in them (fixing if they do not) and putting in an extra leaf in front and back will bring it back into balance. The cost ~$600 and I am having it done next week. After that, I will take it back to Alignment Specialists.

I put in new Bilsteins last December and I have a SafeTSteer, so now I only have the Davis Tru-Trac to put on and I think things overall will be much better.

I will report back next week how things went.

One thing to take from this is to load up your MH with normal provisions and your family, and then go get a 4-corner weigh done. This is super important for your comfort and safety.