Automatic air bags to prevent sag

[v-ate]

Thinking about getting automatic airbags for my 2003 tundra to prevent the rear end from sagging so much. I have the tow package and pull a 15' camper. approx weight is 6000' but might be more. The rear end of my Tundra sags a good bit, enough that the chains and sometimes the crank up hitch lift sometimes scrape the ground.

Anyone have any experience with these and can reccomend a brand/dealer to purchase from. I have seen the automatic one's in action but was unable to ask the person who owned the truck where they got them from and what brand they were.

[rambrush]

Firestone comes to mind, they are not hard to install. Pictures in my gallery.
You can set your air pressure in the cab and it will maintain it.

Originally Posted by v-ate

Thinking about getting automatic airbags for my 2003 tundra to prevent the rear end from sagging so much. I have the tow package and pull a 15' camper. approx weight is 6000' but might be more. The rear end of my Tundra sags a good bit, enough that the chains and sometimes the crank up hitch lift sometimes scrape the ground.

Anyone have any experience with these and can reccomend a brand/dealer to purchase from. I have seen the automatic one's in action but was unable to ask the person who owned the truck where they got them from and what brand they were.

[RockyMtnRay]

Originally Posted by v-ate

Thinking about getting automatic airbags for my 2003 tundra to prevent the rear end from sagging so much. I have the tow package and pull a 15' camper. approx weight is 6000' but might be more. The rear end of my Tundra sags a good bit, enough that the chains and sometimes the crank up hitch lift sometimes scrape the ground.

Anyone have any experience with these and can reccomend a brand/dealer to purchase from. I have seen the automatic one's in action but was unable to ask the person who owned the truck where they got them from and what brand they were.

Your problem is that because your tongue weight is being applied about 5 feet behind the rear axle, it's causing a weight shift from the truck's front to rear axles as well as adding the tongue weight itself to the rear axle.

So forget the air bags. All they do is stiffen the rear suspension and lift the rear end. They won't solve the real problem which is the trailer weight is unloading your truck's front end and excessively loading the rear axle.

By contrast, a weight distributing hitch (when correctly sized and adjusted), will transfer about a third of the trailer's tongue weight to the truck's front suspension, a third to the trailer's axle(s), and leave only about a third of the tongue weight on the truck rear axle. So, while the truck will squat a bit, it will squat equally front and rear and the rear will squat a whole lot less than you're now experiencing.

Using some sample numbers...if your trailer has a loaded weight of 6000 lbs, it likely has a tongue weight around 700 lbs. When you apply that 700 lbs 5 feet behind the rear axle, you're not only loading the rear axle with 700 lbs but also another 300 lbs or so because the front of the truck is being unweighted by the teeter-totter effect of so much weight so far behind the rear axle. That means you're actually putting around an extra 1000lbs on the rear and taking 300 off the front. It's no wonder the truck looks as if it has a bad sag with the front raised the rear really lowered.

If you used a properly adjusted WDH, then you'll add around 220 lbs to the front axle (instead of taking 300 lbs off) so the front end will steer and brake a lot better. But most importantly, instead of adding 1000 lbs to the back, you'll add only about 220 lbs. That's 800 lbs less on the back of the truck and, as you can probably imagine, the difference in rear sag will be enormous.

So forget the air bags and just get a good WDH!