JUSTABANGER Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Hi guys, I'm new to this site as well as Toyota motorhomes but after finding this site I'm hoping for some info from fellow owners. I bought a 1980 Heritage from a friend. It has 80,000 miles on it and the motor sounds and runs great. The rest of the RV is rough but I knew that going in and was figuring on putting some time and money in it to fix it up. Then I stumbled on the warnings about the axles on these older models and my plans to fix it up ground to a halt. Now I'm thinking of selling the old one and getting a newer one with the heavier axle. I took a Sea Breeze out for a test drive and it had the same rough ride as my Heritage. When you hit a little seam in the pavement it feels like you just dropped off a 3 of 4 inch curb. Is this common in all of these? Is there a fix? I'm really wanting one of these to do some serious traveling with but I'm not sure I can put up with this kind of ride. Thoughts anyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linda s Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 What year Seabreeze was it. Possible it had bad shocks or the air bags were absent or not functional. My 86 drives very smoothly on the highway but on rough roads well it is a truck. You can't really evaluate the ride unless your test driving one with everything in good working order Linda S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek up North Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 A very difficult question to answer. Any vehicle will ride poorly if the suspension needs a rebuild, the shocks are in poor condition and the tires or air springs too soft or too hard! A 'good' axle can ride just the same as a 'bad' axle. But none will ride like a Cadillac! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 I took a Sea Breeze out for a test drive and it had the same rough ride as my Heritage. When you hit a little seam in the pavement it feels like you just dropped off a 3 of 4 inch curb. Is this common in all of these? Is there a fix? I'm really wanting one of these to do some serious traveling with but I'm not sure I can put up with this kind of ride. Thoughts anyone. A softer ride needs a progressive-rate spring pack that is operational. The springs used in Toyota RVs were designed as "progressive rate" when used in trucks that were NOT fully loaded all the time. Problem with the Toyota RV is that it IS fully loaded all the time and the "progressive rate" is gone from the spring-packs. It has nothing to do with the size of your axle and little to do with shocks (although bad shocks make it worse). If you wanted a Toyota RV that rode like a well-built empty pickup truck - you'd need a specially built set of progressive-rate leaf springs made for your weight load. Toyota never made them and the work-around by RV builders was to add air-spring suspension. Air-springs do a good job of adding weight bearing capacity and ride-height but do not work anything like progressive-rate springs. I have air-bag-suspension in my 20 foot Toyota RV, my 92 Dodge diesel truck, and in my 86 Chevy diesel RVs. All are "bone jarring" on rough roads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WME Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 A Toy has a suspension SYSTEM and all of it must be working properly for best results. Operating with something out of wack can lead to a jarring ride. But even if all is working the best you can hope for is a controlled firm ride in your grossly overloaded Toyota Pickup. If you have a blank sheet of paper then you can make ride as you wish. That is why many of the larger Class A have as many as 4 airbags on the front or rear axle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JUSTABANGER Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 Thanks for the input. I wasn't saying the axle had anything to do with the rough ride I was just wondering if the ride could be improved. Or if that is just the nature of Toyota RV's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MontanaChinook Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 I'm guessing that it's got a broken shock or missing shock and you're bottoming out the suspension when you hit bumps. They'll more often ride like a boat, bouncing up and down and the suspension will feel very spongy when it's worn out. Jarring is more likely to be something broken, or sagging so badly that you're actually hitting the bump stops whenever you go over a bump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 It's the nature of any over-loaded spring-pack with things added to bring up the ride-height. Make no difference if a Chevy truck or a Toyota RV. To my knowledge - there was never an OEM set of leaf springs designed to take the load a 21 foot Toyota RV has - full time. The RVs take the same spring packs at the 1 ton dually box trucks that are designed to carry high loads part-time. In reference to Montana-Chinook's comments about bump-stops. Many 20-21 foot Toyota RVs with air-bag suspension have NO bump stops. They have to be removed to install the air-bellows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linda s Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 There are plenty of us old ladies driving around in these things and doing just fine. Not getting our brains knocked out or anything. No fancy springs needed. Chris from Vermont lives in hers and regularly commutes from the north east to Texas. Never going to be a Cadillac but very nice driving. You just drove a couple of lemons Linda S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 "Rough ride" is a relative term. Means different things to different people. I drive on a lot over very rough gravel, dirt, and sometimes corduroy roads. My 88 Toyota Minicruiser rides like a Cadillac as compared to my 92 3/4 ton Dodge truck (when it's empty). My 88 Toyota Minicruiser however rides like a garbage truck as compared to my Dodge GrandCaravan on rough roads. And yes - even "rough road" means different things to different people. I've ridden in many Toyota RVs on bad roads and they all were poor at smoothing out potholes, ruts, heavy washboarding, etc. Drving on "normal" paved or smooth gravel roads - it rides very nicely. From what the original poster stated - it could just be "normal" for an overloaded spring-pack - squatting on it's overload helper leafs 100% of the time. Seems to me the guy is trying to ascertain if his described behavior can be a normal attribute intrinsic to the Toyota RV - or a definite sign of parts needing replacement. My vote is - it is normal behavior - best I can tell from here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgibson4 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 I think the higher pressures that we run in our tires tends to telegraph the minor irregularities in the asphalt like cracks, patches, roughness,etc. that softer tires wouldn't. This results in noise and rattles in the coach that add to the perception of a "rough" ride. I've noticed that I feel a lot of the roughness of local streets that is a result of the deterioration during the recession, and yet when I get out on the relatively smooth highways everything is quiet and comfortable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MontanaChinook Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 I will agree..."rough ride" is a totally relative thing and one person's rough ride is a pretty darn smooth ride to someone else, depending on what they're used to driving. So does it feel like the suspension takes the bumps, it just feels really spongy and a small bump is making it rock down the road like a boat, or does it feel like there's no give at all to the suspension when you hit a bump, and is more "jarring" and sudden, like riding a bicycle with no suspension? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JUSTABANGER Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 Jarring describes it pretty well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MontanaChinook Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Well, if you drive another like that, get down on the ground and check out the suspension. Of course it helps to know what a good suspension looks like first...or this might not do you much good. My guess is that it either had something broken or beyond worn out, or the had air bags which were inflated to their limit or something... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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