Trailair 5th wheel Air-suspension pin box

[richardcoxid]

This post is directed to the 5th wheel owners who are now using, or those owners that are thinking about buying a Trailair 5th wheel Air-suspension pin box.



The approximately $1100 purchase price plus freight, tax and/or installation is a fair amount of money. There are a lot of things that look good on paper and in practice might be “OK” but after using them for a while find that they really aren’t worth the cost.



Check out- http://www.trailair.com/



My questions,

Is the Trailair pin box worth the cost? With the lower base plate being moveable are they harder to hitch and un-hitch? You would certainly have to raise the front of the 5th wheel 2-inches higher to hitch/un-hitch. Is the 2-inch of up and down motion enough travel? Does the tow vehicle ride any better? Does the 5th wheel ride any better with less movement/breakage of “stuff” inside the RV? Do they tend to smooth out the jolts (to the tow vehicle and/or RV) when driving on a broken up concrete road? Do they render a hitch pin stabilizer almost useless? Do the models with 2 shocks dampen more and ride harder than the single shock models? I. E. is the same shock being used on both models? Etc.



The June, 2002 issue of Trailer Life had an excellent write-up about them. However, when a product that is being advertised in the magazine that is doing the testing I question how objective the evaluation is. I am asking for in-put from the real world of experience.



Thank you in advance for your replies

 

[TowPro]

My question was do I have to run the front of the camper 2" higher if I switched to this device.



I had a 96 4X4, When towing I used to be real high in the front, in fact the 5er would even sway it was so far out of wack. Then I lowered the hitch, and hit the camper onto the rear corner of the bed pulling out of my off camber driveway.



Now with the 2500 2wd I had enough clearence, and the camper is level, but if the hitch had the chance of moving down 2" of travel I would be back in the range of hitting the corner of the bed when going around off camber corners.



Now my new 3500 (also a 2wd) sits even higher then my 2500 was, but I have not installed the hitch yet to see if I need to change around the hitch hight.



I figure its a lot of money, and the truck rides great now.

 

[yogibear]

Richard, I have pulled 3 trls. with the TrailAir. All 3 were 40', triple slides +deck slide out. King of the Road are the only mfg. with the deck slide, they have a patent on it. They are offering the TrailAir as on option now, $600-$700 extra. Now these are heavy trls. , probably the heaviest on the market.

The first one I towed, I picked it up about 11:00 PM, was dark, and had trouble getting it latched up, has to be just right height, and towed it 1100 mi. , and was pi$$ed, it bounced terrible, especially on uneven bridge approachments,damn near bounced me out of the trk. ! But when I got to my destination, I found out it was not aired up properly, not enough air in bag. They have arrows on the shock absorber, and you are supposed to air bag up so arrows show below the plate, I did not know this. No one told me this, nor did I have instructions. The next 2 I aired properly, and they were OK. I don't have air bags on my 03 yet, but had them on my 00, and I really think with the air bags on the trk. it rides just as good. I always remove overloads springs when I put the air bags on.

Hope this helps.



Larry

 

[NVR FNSH]

check out www.irv2.com - there has been some discussion of the Trail-air over there.



yogibear - what's a deck slide?





Brian

 

[yogibear]

Brian, its a slide from under the entrance door, to the front of trl. that slides out about 3', its made of treated lumber that resembles a deck. Pretty nice, you can set chairs and your BBQ grill on it, especially nice if your in a sandy area.



Larry

 

[TBOB]

TRAIL AIR 5ER

THANKS FOR THE HEADS UP ON THE TRAIL AIR AS I AM THINKING ABOUT MAKING MY OWN. TBOB

 

[Dsl_Duo]

I looked at this product, but think that for the money I would rather run the Kelderman air ride set-up full time on my truck vs. about 25% of the time on the trailer.



My $0. 02.



Dsl_Duo

 

[BPINE]

I have a Trail Air and it works great at half the cost of an air ride hitch. I might be able to get a group purchase on these if enough people are interested????

 

[NVR FNSH]

BPINE,

I might be interested in a group purchase.



Brian

 

[BPINE]

I will keep my eye on this thread and if enough people are interested I will call my contact at Trailair.