What have you done to resolve the choppy ride when towing on concrete roads?

I am looking for suggestions from those that have resolved this problem. Today I bumped into a Jayco Owners blog, that indicated many owners going through the same dilemma, with no solution. The consensus there goes something like that?s the way it is on concrete roads.
I?m pulling a Grand Design Imagine 2950RL - a 30? travel trailer. My tow vehicle is a 2015 Chevy Silverado LTZ 2500HD, 4x4, standard bed, extended cab (not crew cab).
We are using an E2 WDH with 1200# bars.
I?m considering shocks on the trailer, different WDH.
PLEASE don?t offer suggestions if you HAVE NOT lived through the problem and resolved it.
TIA
Don

Move to Florida, we don't have choppy roads down here. ;D

Haha! Wisconsin has the worst! I-80 in Iowa is bad too!

DonPam said:

Haha! Wisconsin has the worst! I-80 in Iowa is bad too!

Click to expand...

Wrong!!!  Southbound on I-95 just as you enter So Carolina from NC. The road is probably 50 miles of continuous thump, thump and thump. 2 thumps every second @ 55 MPH. It blew out one of my RV tires a little over a month ago. The road is littered with remnants from blowouts. You can't go 10' without seeing chunks of rubber. I'm taking a different route back in March.

What is your tongue weight percentage?

Had a similiar problem with a fifth wheel and when I increased my pin weight percentage from 15 percent to 22 percent it made a dramatic effect on the ride on concrete roads a rough railroad crossings.

Ha ha, if this was Facebook, I?d ?like? your comment!

Lava rock,
I have the data. I have to come back to you. When you increased your TW, did it improve it? I?m also running a TT vs. your 5er.

I've hired a new chiropractor!
<gigglesnort>

I honestly don't remember with my TT, even though we had it for 5 years here (Houston area).  Maybe it wasn't so bad I couldn't deal with it.  Or maybe I did most of my trips with only a short ride on the concrete.  I really can't remember.  But I do have the issue with my 5th wheel.  I don't know if it works the same with a TT, but I put air bags on my truck, partly to help with the squat of the truck.  But I have found that pumping them up a bit more helps greatly with the bouncing and jouncing of the concrete highways.  I have the wireless compressor, so I can adjust the air pressure on the fly.  I can usually run with 35 - 45 psi on "normal" roads, once I get off the concrete.  But on the concrete highways around Houston, I usually pump them up to 65 - 75 psi. 

In the long run, I don't think you will ever get rid of it, but you can make it manageable.  And even with the psi pumped up, I still have to slow down in some areas where the concrete is just beyond help.

Good luck.

To Lava rock
I?m at 16%. I?ll increase and give that a shot.

DonPam, can you describe what you mean by "choppy"... and are you referring to the ride in your truck, or the trailer bouncing up and down on hard roads?  By towing "on concrete" do you mean heavily-traveled interstate that is in poor condition?  Or any concrete slab roads with sections that can be uneven?

Your truck's towing capacity should be more than fine for your trailer... but my TT (a few feet longer than yours) was really giving my older 3/4 ton Suburban a whooping on rough roads.  On a hard bump, the vehicle suspension would bottom out with a mighty BANG and practically shake the fillings out of our teeth!  I'd grimace in advance anytime I saw a bridge seam or pothole coming up.

What helped my towing quality immensely was the installation of airbags (air helper springs they're called) on the rear suspension of my Suburban.  Actually the system was already there from the previous owner, but the bags were dry-rotted and mounts rusted to pieces... I had it all replaced with new parts from Air Lift, who I highly recommend because the parts are quality and were covered for free under lifetime warranty (even though I wasn't the original purchaser).

With about 40psi in the airbags, our ride while towing is MUCH smoother now and some of the road bumps (that used to rattle our brains) can barely be felt now.  And with the extra air cushion/buffer to hold the TT's tongue weight, in theory it's supposed to also improve trailer sway and overall stability (in addition to ride quality).

Don
there is no silver bullet in eliminating freeway hop/chucking/bucking issues as each truck/trailer combo has different mechanical issues working.
I've hauled for a living with mostly one ton drw trucks pulling GN/pintle hitch and bumper pull trailers from a 7k enclosed trailer up to 22k GN flatdeck trailers.

When I had my construction business we used 5 trucks (3 GM/1 Ford and 1 Dodge) all different year models.... cab selections... wheel bases/etc pulling 5 GN trailers loaded with wheeled equipment.
  We learned by trial and error how to load each trailer for a particular truck to stop freeway hop issues. What worked on one may not work at all for another truck.

Sorry I can't help as its a vexing problem .  Keep huntin' for a fix for your combo.

One thing I have noticed that I have done is change my speed. Might have to go a little slower or faster. Just have to play with it and then it is going to change when you hit a different stretch of road.

butch50 said:

One thing I have noticed that I have done is change my speed. Might have to go a little slower or faster. Just have to play with it and then it is going to change when you hit a different stretch of road.

Click to expand...

Agreed. And another .03 (?), try driving a bit to the Left, or Right.. of the travel lane (rut).. especially going over and under bridges ?

Scottydl
The choppy ride I am talking about is the sensation that we feel in the cab passing over joints. On one particular divided state route in Wisconsin this summer headed east toward Sturgeon Bay, we actually had to get off the road, the chop was so bad.
The source of the problem is the joints in the concrete roads. You see, the concrete slabs are curling as they age. That is, despite all the rebar that goes into those joints, the slabs curl up at the ends. Some worse than the others. I could bore you to death with the science of it, but trust me. If not Google ?concrete curling.?
As we pass over the joints, having tried differing speeds, we get the truck reaction, and the trailer reaction, that will rattle your teeth loose. The truck isn?t bottoming out or anything like that - in fact it may be too rigid. Since the trailer doesn?t have shocks, it?s trying to bounce. I?m contemplating shocks for the trailer, but am waiting to see if someone says YES THAT WILL IMPROVE IT to a 5on a scale of 1-10.
One minor thing that could be contributing in a small way is the hitch socket on the truck. The 2500HD comes with a larger socket, I think 2 1/2? and an adapter at 2? that has a little play (less than snug) and the trailer hitch fits typically (somewhat loose)in the adapter. I?ve thought about welding the adapter to the main socket to make it permanent and tight, but I?m going to try set screws on all 4 sides between the adapter and hitch tongue to make the hitch and adapter perform like a single unit. This is minor in the big problem, but nonetheless a contributor.

Thank you all for your comments and thoughts. It seems that long haul might be right. There are many on the Jayco blog and in the Grand Design Imagine groups that are dealing with the same issue.
I?ll keep asking, searching and trying things. Fortunately the asphalt highways are wonderful, and rewarding after getting off the concrete ones!

Move to Florida, we don't have choppy roads down here. ;D
Wrong!!!!  Just visit and leave all your money here.

Our Arctic Fox has shocks and they don't help all that much with the choppy ride on concrete. As others have said, slowing down is probably the best thing and hope to get off of the concrete sections as fast as possible.

I installed shocks, they help on shorter bumps, but where each slab is curled or tilted the ride actually got worse.  My opinion is that 90% of the time there is an improvement and 10% is worse.  There is one stretch in NY that I can't hold the minimum 40 MPH speed and even then it is unbelievable.

There are two ride problems associated with the expansion joints of concrete highways:

1. The fixed distance between the joint "bumps" sets up a harmonic rhythm that gets the trailer tongue repeatedly plunging down and then jerking up again. This harmonic is dependent on the truck and trailer wheelbases, i.e. the distance between the two truck axles, and also the distance from the truck rear axle to the trailer axles. Different rigs experience it at different speeds, or not at all. Furthermore, different highways have different joint spacing (based on the size of the slabs), so what works on one highway can be ineffective or even worse on another. The concrete slab length and the size of the expansion joints is determined by engineers based on climate and the composition of the ground under the highway.

2. The bumps themselves can cause a poorly balanced trailer to jerk the hitch ball or pin.

#1 is very difficult to alleviate. It is both speed and length dependent, and some truck or trailer suspensions react more violently than others.  More pin or tongue weight may help, and for 5W's the use of an air cushioned pin box softens the effect. Sometimes changing the length of the 5W pin box can help to (it effectively changes the trailer wheel base). A stiffer rear suspension on the tow vehicle may help, and adding shocks to the trailer suspension can help as well (for the many trailers that have leaf springs and no shocks).

#2 is largely a tongue or pin weight issue. The greater the tongue/pin weight, the less tendency to jerk upwards after a bump.