Ivan A

I am using a 97 4WD Tahoe with a factory tow package for my tow vehicle. My trailer is a pretty heavy steel open trailer with tire rack and storage boxes, etc. The problem is when hitched to my truck the rear sags more than I would like, even with a weight distribution kit on the hitch.

I know there are full time helpers available and I can get my stock leaves resprung but.......my wife is the primary driver (for now) and I do not want to subject her or my two kids to the increased ride harshness I know a full time helper will give the truck.

So my question is has anyone ever used Firestone air helper springs? They sell a resonably priced kit that looks like the best of both worlds, if that is possible. It can handle up to 5k lbs. according to the manufacturer.

What do you all think?

http://www.ride-rite.com/Ride-Rite.htm


Chris accidentally posting as Ivan.

jerome951

Hey Chris, feeling a little schizophrenic today???

I'm surprised you're getting that much sag from ~600 lbs of tongue weight, especially with the distributing hitch. Do you have the hitch adjusted properly??

I've never used the Firestone air helper springs, but do know there are helper spring kits available that (supposedly) only kick in when the springs are unbent a certain amount, meaning they shouldn't have an effect on the ride when unweighted. Sorry, can't remember the brand names.

RedlineMan

Hey Chris;

A common problem. The Tahoe is a marginal tow vehicle. Even though manufacturers claim they will tow "XXX pounds", that does not mean WELL or EASILY!

I think you need to look into your load balance. If you have load levelers and you are still sagging too low, I think your bias is off. Have you measured the amount of tongue weight you have? That would be where I would start. Break out the old bathroom scale, get a 3' length of 2x4 and rig up a cantalever scale. Multiply the scale reading by 3 and you've got your tongue weight.

My guess is you wouldn't want much more than 300lbs on that "toy truck."

You can never have too much brakes, HP... or TOW CAPACITY
Redline Rennsport uses a 2000 Ford E450 Super Duty Cube Van, 6.8L V10!

Mike Buck

Chris,
I may be in the same boat as your pretty soon. My Jeep worked fine for towing an open deck steel trailer to Mont-Tremblant and back. Just a simple Class III hitch and I had no trouble at all. Took a few tries to set the tonque weight, but it hauled nearly dead level while pretty loaded. New trailer is closed deck steel with a tire rack. Have yet to load the car up to see how it looks, but I'll most likely need a weight distributing hitch at the least. Those air-springs might be just the ticket, as it's tough finding heavier duty springs for a "quadra-coil" suspension.

Tahoe's/Yukon's are fine tow vehicles. If I had the cash, that's what I'd be using right now. Might get one next year or two. Available 6.0L 345 hp mill should be plenty of HP.

Jimbo951

I went through this two years ago.

I have a Jeep Cherokee and pull a 944 Turbo on a steel trailer. The 944 is about 2800 lb, and the trailer's in the 1600 range, for a total of 4400 lb. Tongue weight was about 450 lb, and add in tools, parts & stuff I carry in the Jeep, and there was quite a bit of weight on the Jeep's rear axle. The Jeep's specs are 5000 max tow weight and 500 max tongue weight.

My solution was to add an Air Lift (www.airliftcompany.com) Ride Control kit for the springs and an on-board compressor kit, Load Controller II. The AirLift kit did two things, it raised up the rear end the so I don't have to worry about bottoming out the springs. But more importantly, it stiffed up the spring rate so the Jeep/trailer doesn't porpoise when I hit a bump or pot-hole.

The on-board compressor isn't required, but it makes life so much easier. I load up the trailer, jump in and hit a button and pressurize the air lifts with 38 lb of air. If I want to trim the pressure while in transit, I can add more or bleed some air out while driving. When I get to the track, I release the air, and unload the trailer. Without the onboard compressor, it would be much more difficult to manage the air lift's pressure.

One thing to realize about this is that it doesn't get any more weight on the front wheels of my Jeep. Because the Jeep in underpowered and the brakes are under-sized, I usually tow in the 60-65 MPH range. If I were to go much faster, I'd probably want an equalizing hitch to get more weight on the front wheels.

rsrdan

Yea,thats what I use on my Ford f150. The air bags are nice and you can taylor them to your vehicle,and weight your carrying.They were easy to install.I got mine from www.summitracing.com

Mark in Baltimore

I had the Airlift on my 4Runner and was fairly happy with it. It certainly gets the job done and allows a heavy load to be carried without rear sag. The onboard compressor works quickly and and the release valve allows fast bleed downs.

You can always keep the air pressure to a minimum to keep the ride as soft as possible. When the bags are near medium to max inflation, they certainly increase the spring rate and degrade the ride to a significant degree. Still, I've never been too happy with the ride quality of the 4Runner, especially since I came from a car-like '95 Pathfinder.

I did have two problems with the Airlift. The supplied air bags were supposedly correct, but they kept on chafing the inner coils and then leaking. I replaced the bags twice and was charged by the installer for R/R each time. Airlift finally, on the third attempt, sent me two slightly thinner (diameter) bags designed for another vehicle; this solved the problem.

Airlift warrantees the bags for life but does not cover labor. My bag failures occurred within four to six months of install after each install. I felt that this was an unacceptably high and accelerated failure rate and thought it unreasonable that I had to beta test their product at my expense. Despite documentation, phone calls and letters asking Airlift to cover the costs of labor, they denied reimbursement. I thought this was incredibly poor customer "service" and was amazed that they wouldn't adequately deal with this issue. It's not like I had a leaking bag two years after they were installed.

Since Airlift finally supplied me with the correct bags, I have had no leakage issues.

On another note, my system is supposed to have a sensor that maintains a minimum of 5 lbs of pressure in the bags. This feature no longer works, but it's not a big deal to me.

That said, I have an Airlift system waiting to be installed in the Sequoia. I'm actually not really sure I'll need it, even with the towing. I'm going to have to hook the car and trailer up, load it with my stuff and see how much it drops.

Jimbo951

My airbags require 10 PSI in them at all times. There's a small air pressure switch that's needs to be tee'd into the air line somewhere. My guess is that one of your two electrical contacts on the switch has come unpluged and that's why your 5 PSI minimum isn't being automatically maintained. Another possibility is that the air pressure switch has failed, but an unpluged connector is more likely.

Chris Prack

Thank you all for your input. I have not measured the tongue weight yet but the PO had the same wheel base vehicle (only a PU) and had the same issue. He added full time helpers. I will measure the tongue weight but believe that the real problem is the 1/2 ton leaf springs.

I spoke to a place yesturday that sells the Ride-Rite kits and they were steering me toward the Air Lifts (they prob. have a better margin). I am going out to their place on Sat. to see what they have. I looked at Air Lift's website and think that the set up jimbo has is the one I will go with.

Between the air bags and actually connecting my trailer brakes I will probably forget the trailer is back there.

RedlineMan

Hey Guys;

This will likely tweak a lot of people, but that is not my intent at all. I am just offering solid advice for miles and miles of safe towing.

I will offer two very basic rules of thumb.

1) If your tow vehicle does not outweigh the load by at least 50% you are in a marginal situation. That means the minimum standard for what I would term an average load (4-5000lbs) is a 3/4 ton chassis.

2) Anything less than the wheelbase of a standard full size 1/2 ton pickup is marginal, ESPECIALLY if you also failed the first rule!

As is evidenced by the vehicles listed in this thread, it is "possible" to tow with any number of different vehicles. I do not feel it is SAFE.

I have towed with all manner of vehicles, and I'll list them in order of "suitability." ExplorerV8, Grand CherokeeV8, Chevy C1500 4x, Durango, 73 Olds Custom Cruiser Wagon, Navigator, 3/4T Camper Special Ford E250/460V8, GMC/HD 3/4T 4x/6.0L, Ford E450/6.8L V10 Cube Van. I consider the first four unsuitable.

I know that it seems impractical to the average guy to have a real tow vehicle, but to trailer with anything less than the standard I have set is to put oneself in a tenuous situation. I have seen many of the lower rated vehicles listed in this thread (Explorers, Jeeps, Blazers, 4Runners, even Tahoes) wrecked and totalled from hauling loads MUCH LIGHTER than we are typically hauling.

If you do not have the weight and wheelbase to dampen out nasty yaw moments, truck wakes, humpy bridges, high winds, etc, you are in a bad situation. If you are using load levelers to absorb more than 15% of the tongue weight, you are under-suspended and/or chassied. If you tow enough miles and tear up enough equipment, you will learn this is true sooner or later.

My only intent is to keep all my track friends safe. I hope this at least makes everyone think about towing carefully. Just like driving at the track, it is NOT a no-brainer!

Chris Prack

I don't think anyone's gonna be "tweaked" by what you said, it makes perfect sense.

Now having said that...........

1) I already own this Tahoe - for five years.
2) I can tow my car and trailer @ roughly 4k lbs. with no trailer brakes
without any kind of problem other than the sagging ***.
3) Even with the sagging ***, my trailer follows with no drama.

I agree with your statement but I have to make do with what I got or the wife is going to jump on me about selling my 951 and that ain't gonna happen. So I live with a less than ideal tow vehicle, oh well. I used to drive straight chassis GMC trucks with a split axle carrying a total weight of 25 tons full of grain. Fully loaded they have ZERO brakes. If I can drive those trucks (and I did for 5 years) and not bend a fender than I think I can manage with my rig.

It's not like it's the only situation in my life that's less than ideal!!

Matt Marks

Chris,

The "little blue pill" can solve that... (and NOT your towing problem)


Matt

Greg Fishman

I towed over 50K miles with a 99 ML430, which breaks all of the "rules" set forth. It really was a sweet tow vehicle, great power and very stable. It was no comparison to the F250 PSD I had but I never felt unsafe in the ML. I had a lot of people say I was crazy to tow with that but the few people that got to ride or drive the rig realized that it was probably better than their current ride.

I now have a 03 Yukon Denali and it really isn't any better than the ML except for the air suspension and overall room.

Mark in Baltimore

John,

I never knew about the towing criteria, but it's helpful; thanks!

As one who doesn't tow less than, um, 70 mph, I will say that I never had a single yaw moment or any other histrionics with the 4Runner, perhaps a testament to the balance of the Trailex. The Toyota pulled without drama and without much power, either.

RedlineMan

Hey Mark;

Heck, that's not anything official, just from where everything I do comes from. Right off the seat of my brain... er pants!

Lots of people are testament to the fact that my rule "doesn't hold water." However, as I mentioned, I have seen a few that would agree with me... with a familiar chill of incidents remembered running down their spine!

There were two other parameters I didn't include, and that is HP and transmission. Some vehicles I've drawn with were great tow-ers despite having little HP. Any car in '73 was a dog, but that Olds Custom Cruiser was such a barge and so long it was an outstanding tow vehicle. Probably what saved it was that wonderful old Turbo 400 tranny. Best autobox ever!

The tranny and a lack of HP was what made the 2000 Chevy K1500 an absolute POS. I've never towed with anything less suited except for the Explorer, which was DEADLY!!!!! The Chevy OD trans was a joke, and tow mode did nothing. If you used OD, you had to be going 75+ or it wouldn't pull OD. If it downshifted, even at lower speeds, 3rd was so far from OD that the engine SCREAMED... but went no where.

The most FRUSTRATING vehicle I ever towed with. Fortunately it was only 6mos till it was replaced with the 2002 GMC K2500HD/6.0L. EVERYTHING the K1500 wasn't. NICE tow vehicle.

The Gr Cherokee was just a fluffmobile. I only dragged an open Trailex (800) with a GT3 911 (2500) on it, and it just wheezed along like a four wheeled Jello bag.

The Navigator was decent in terms of chassis dynamics and power. A little short in wheelbase, but the suspension seemed stiff enough and it was heavy enough that it was OK. Once again, the trans was awful. With the high 1/2ton rear end ratio, overdrive was a PITA! When it would FINALLY shift out, it screamed! The seats were hard and small. I didn't like it much, but it did the job. However, it was only pulling an enclosed Trailex (1600) and the same GT3 911 (now a feathery 1900!).

The Durango surprised me. The power was adequate, but it was the trans that amazed. It shifted on demand and almost imperceptably. The gearing was also excellent. Again, only the above load, but it did surpisingly well. Quiet and comfortable. In the end though, it was still too short in wheelbase and too soft of spring for a "real" load.

The old Camper Special '78 E250/460V8 Ford was a workhorse. Size matters. You could drop 500lbs on the hitch and barely raise the headlamps! 120k miles - virtually ALL of it towing - before it just got too old, creaky, and rattly. It was still solid as a rock, if a bit tired, but truthfully I just wanted something more modern and comfortable!

Now, the current 2000 Ford E450 V10 Cube Van is a brute. I'm only drawing an open Trailex with my 2500lb "Fliegende '44," and it doesn't even register, except in the mirrors. THAT'S a chassis! Box trailer to come... some day!

To my Canadian friends, the Unibroue "La Fin Du Monde" is tasting mighty fine. For what it's all worth. Rambling on...