From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Ford says leaf springs are maintenance items - refuses warranty 
	replacement
Message-ID: <lioe7vgb9pivr59igo6j5dcj7tfpb1if9i@4ax.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 13:26:13 -0500

On Tue, 18 Mar 2003 11:37:00 -0500, Idwaem <Idwaem@charter.net> wrote:


>The dealer checked it, and determined that the right leaf spring was
>sagging, and not holding the weight as it was designed to do. Ford
>wanted the coach weighed, for which we provided the weights showing
>the coach was under all allowable weights, including having an
>additional 1100lbs capacity available.
>
>Finally, Ford said they would not cover the leaf springs, since they
>were not 'broken'. Had they found it was broken, cracked, etc, they
>would cover it. But since they could not find any cracks or other
>obvious broken parts, it is considered a maintenance item and not
>covered under their warranty.
>
>I fail to see how leaf springs fall under maintenance items much like
>shocks, tires, brakes, etc. I also find that since its very rare for
>people to replace leaf springs as maintenance items, expecially at
>13,000 miles on a basically late model coach, I find it hard to
>swallow that its not covered. If the coach had say 90K miles on it, I
>could understand their position.

Mileage is irrelevant.  Yes, springs do sag, sometimes very quickly.  I've
either replaced or boosted the springs on just about every vehicle I've ever
owned including my MH, my 68 Fury and (when I get around to it) my 94 9C1 (cop
car) Caprice.

Is it a warranty item?  Depends on the language of the warranty.  Springs ARE
maintenance items, especially on heavily loaded chassis.  Ford will probably
say that for them to have sagged this quickly you overloaded the chassis at
some point (given the weather this year, did you compute the weight of snow on
the rig? could well have been over a ton.)  You could say that the sagging is
caused by a bad batch of springs.  Finding out whether that is true or not
would cost more than the springs' value.

I'm sure that if you bitch enough Ford will capitulate and warranty the
springs.  What is your time worth?  And the aggravation.  Since it is highly
possible that the snow really did overload the springs, why not just let your
secondary warranty cover it and go forward?

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Ford says leaf springs are maintenance items - refuses warranty 
	replacement
Message-ID: <u89g7vgq9vp1oi758ciih3j38f8lo1gsfa@4ax.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 03:29:55 -0500

On Tue, 18 Mar 2003 17:33:52 -0500, Idwaem <Idwaem@charter.net> wrote:

>On Tue, 18 Mar 2003 13:26:13 -0500, Neon John
><johngddontyoudare@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>Is it a warranty item?  Depends on the language of the warranty.  Springs ARE
>>maintenance items, especially on heavily loaded chassis.  Ford will probably
>>say that for them to have sagged this quickly you overloaded the chassis at
>>some point (given the weather this year, did you compute the weight of snow on
>>the rig? could well have been over a ton.)  You could say that the sagging is
>>caused by a bad batch of springs.  Finding out whether that is true or not
>>would cost more than the springs' value.
>>
>
>I didn't compute the weight of the snow. However, it would have to be
>at least 1,200lbs just to equal rated capacity, and then a lot more to
>cause a significant overload. The motor home had approximately 4" of
>snow on the roof, and it was a 36 monochrome. I suppose someone will
>take the challenge and come up with some figures based on average and
>heavy snow weights. All the other leaf springs were fine, except the
>right rear. I don't know what that factors in.

This is going to surprise you.  It did me.  I knew it would be heavy but not
this much.

Your RV is 36 ft long.  I'll assume 96 inches (8 ft) wide.  That gives an area
of 288 sq feet.  If you had a foot of snow on top, the volume would be 288*1 =
288 cu ft of snow.  Water has a density of 62 lbs per cu foot.  Therefore 288
cu ft of water would weight 288*62=17,856 lbs.

Now snow and ice isn't as dense as water.  A quick google for "density of
snow" turned up this page:

http://astro.uchicago.edu/cara/southpole.edu/flaky.html

Here are some measured results:

http://astro.uchicago.edu/cara/southpole.edu/data.html#flaky

Looks like nice wet snow has a density ratio of about 2.5:1.  If we divide
17,856 of water by 2.5 we get 7,142 pounds of snow!

But I suspect that this is light.  If your snow was like what I saw in
Dearborn a couple of weeks ago, with many freeze/thaws and some freezing rain
mixed in, the base looked more like solid ice several inches thick.  Let's be
a little conservative and say the ice/snow mix is 2:1.  That would yield
17,856 / 2 = 8,928 pounds of snow.

These numbers could vary widely depending on how much snow you had and what
the freeze/thaw cycle was.  Given that 2+ feet of snow was common all across
the northeast, I think this might be representative.  I've given you the
numbers you need so you can play around with them.  I doubt that you can come
up with any snow scenario that doesn't overload the springs, given less than a
ton of head room.

In any event, your springs were grossly overloaded.  Probably lucky it didn't
do more damage.  This was the kind of snow that caves in roofs.  I think I'd
be looking for other damage like a sagging roof.  I'd probably also have the
frame checked to make sure it isn't bent.  That may very well be most of your
handling problems.  I know that my rig didn't handle particularly badly when
one side was about 4" lower than the other from a sagged spring.

>
>>I'm sure that if you bitch enough Ford will capitulate and warranty the
>>springs.  What is your time worth?  And the aggravation.  Since it is highly
>>possible that the snow really did overload the springs, why not just let your
>>secondary warranty cover it and go forward?
>
>It is easy to let the secondary warranty cover it. And if the opinion
>is such that this isn't uncommon, and most agree it isn't a warranty
>issue, then I'll just ignore the whole matter. However, if most agree
>that it really is a warranty item, then I'll try to work it with Ford.
>If they still refuse, I'll let the secondary warranty cover it. I'll
>just vote in the future with my pocket book and pick anything but
>Ford, and make sure I bring up the issue whenever its appropriate to
>get the word out.

I think the math shows that this isn't a Ford problem.

Just out of curiosity, where do you live?  I had a buddy near York, PA send me
a photo of a tape rule buried up 40" in the snow in his front yard.  A friend
in NJ near NYC had 38".

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Help with older motorhome suspension
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:56:00 -0400
Message-ID: <tc17j0pu74mkps1tqhmjbqc4fjmqg9p1c0@4ax.com>

My 81 Itasca had a similar problem.  I took it to the local spring shop that
specializes mainly in respringing commercial trucks.  They recurved the main
spring and added a heavy leaf to get the rig back on the level.  Cost was
about $300 as I recall.  Best thing I ever did for the handling of the rig.

After you get the springs worked out, play around with front tire air
pressure.  If your rig is like mine it will be very sensitive to air pressure.
Just a few PSI turns it from a pleasure to drive to a darting demon.

I'd stay away from air bags and other items of high maintenance.  It's hard to
beat a good old steel spring for reliability and zero maintenance.

John


On 29 Aug 2004 16:15:58 -0700, mjdriley@yahoo.com (Patrick) wrote:

>I own a 1978 dodge motor home that seems to have lost most of the
>spring in it's suspension.  In addition, it wanders quite a bit at
>freeway speeds.
>
>I've been investigation three areas
>1.	Re Arcing the leaf springs in back
>2.	Adding air assist
>3.	Adding an anti sway bar
>Does anyone have any experience with any or all of these options?
>
>Thanks