Video Transcript for Manufacturer Breakdown - Roadmaster Anti- Sway Options

Hello neighbors, it's Brad here from Etrailer and today, I'm with Jeff from Roadmaster. And today, we're taking a look at what you can do to your coach to enhance the suspension. So a lot of coaches out there, real top heavy feeling and people think, "Well, it is what it is. It's a big bus, you know, how do I improve this" But that's not necessarily the case. Roadmaster has a few different options to help make a better ride, overall. Definitely, it definitely does.

So typically, we educate our customer to let 'em know that yes, you can improve your ride or you can get that GT version suspension with your motor home. And how we do is we basically have to find out what's the root of the problem, okay. So typically, when a customer comes up to us, the very first thing they say is, "Hey, I'm constantly doing this when I'm going down the road." That that just means so many different things. So we actually ask a few more questions. "Hey, do you tow a vehicle behind your motor home Does it get worse when you put that motor home behind, or that vehicle behind the motor home And when it does, is this getting worse as well" And when the answer is yes, yes and yes, then we kind of know that the issue is tail wag at that point.

And that's usually fixed by a product called a track bar. And what it does, it just locks the rear axle in place. So it's not moving side-to-side. It's only moving straight up and down like it should, okay Or the next thing that I typically ask my customers is, is "Whenever you go in and out of turns, does it feel like the coach wants to roll over to its side" Most of the time, the answer is yes. And typically, the reason why is because when that coach or when the chassis was manufactured, they really had no Earthly idea what the final output was gonna be, how tall it was, how much weight was gonna be on it.

So you actually took center of gravity from probably a foot and a half, to a foot off the ground and all of a sudden, you're six feet off the ground or eight feet off the ground. We're putting air conditioners, solar panels, satellite dishes, everything else on top of these things. And we just need to drastically improve that. So how we do that in this case, is we upgrade the sway bars. In some cases, we're doing a remove and replace.

In other cases, we're actually piggybacking, adding a second sway bar to the rear or to the front of the coach. So sway bars are something predominantly, you see on passenger vehicles. And when I started working here, putting a sway bar on an RV, I go, "Well, I mean it's the same concept, why not" But seeing the difference, I've done sway bars on my own personal vehicle and the first turn you take, you go, "Oh, that's a lot better." Definitely. It's no different on an RV, in fact, it might even be. Jeff Much more noticeable. Yeah, absolutely, 'cause. Or before driving, it does feel like it's gonna topple over and you don't necessarily get sports car handling, but it's more response on the steering, it's more direct and you just feel a little bit more planted, more, honestly, confidence when driving. Yeah, and a lot of our customers are reporting back up, you know, they're saying up to a 60% increase in how they feel that their coaches is handling. And that's what we really like to hear and that's where we're trying to aim for. We wanna give that customer their vacation the minute they start out of the driveway and not once they get to their destination. Yeah, and so as far as sway bars, there's rear sway bars as well as front sway bars, correct Correct. So why would someone choose one or the other or should they go with both Typically, we suggest both. In some cases, yes, you can start off with the rear, but like I said, again, we like to suggest both because we're actually tuning the bars for the weight of that vehicle that it's gonna carry. So to have an upgraded bar in the rear and not one on the front, kind of does it a little bit of injustice. That's fair. Now something else too, as a long drive that's gonna wear you out is, is fighting the steering wheel back and forth and you guys have a way to fix that, correct Absolutely, we sure do. So once we turn and look at all the issues that the customer has, we determine what the issues are, we start talking to the customer and we resolve 'em by doing track bars, sway bars, the last and final thing that we usually recommend is a steering control. So basically, what the steering control does and essentially, is put center force pressure on a tie rod. So that way we're trying to hold that vehicle in a straight line. So if the customer has road ruts, if they turn around and hit potholes in the road, high winds, it's an assistance for that customer to keep in a straight line on their coach. Yeah, and that's, again, one of the installs, many of the installs that I've done is the steering stabilizer. And again, that's one of those, "Does it really make that big of a difference" Well, just going through our parking lot and cutting it, you let go of the steering wheel and it kind of still just tracks that way, whereas the steering stabilizer, you can see the steering wheel go back to center and then, when you're just going down a straight line, it just feels like it's in a nice natural groove. Jeff Yeah, sure does. So it's definitely a lot more comfortable, especially, you know, putting a lot of hours on the road or doing any twisty-turvy, you know, curvy roads out there, it's just gonna help balance it and kind of counter steer a little bit for you, bringing it back to center. That way, you're not having to fight that wheel back and forth. Now with both of, you know, our front sway bar, rear sway bar as well as the steering stabilizer, that's gonna get you a really good ride. And I think overall, better drivability, these also still work in conjunction with other suspension enhancements that you can add on as well, so you can really deck out the suspension of your RV. And I think it's. You'll be a believer once you start doing these, you're just gonna enjoy driving it more, I believe. Exactly, it brings the vacation back and the fun back into RV-ing. Yep, absolutely. Well, this was a look at some of the Roadmaster suspension components to just get your coach going down the road a little bit safer and a little bit more comfortable. Thank you Jeff from Roadmaster, for taking the time to break that down for us. All right, thank you.