garyostrowski
Member
Has anyone experienced repeated rear airbag failures on a Spartan K3 chassis? We have a 2019 Entegra Aspire 38M (not tag axle) and rear airbags have failed twice in 3 years and 25k miles.
Spartan Chassis Airbag Failures
- Thread starter garyostrowski
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Ray-IN
Well-known member
Welcome to the rvforum.net discussion forums!
That's definitely not normal. There must be an external cause. If you inspected the failed air springs, did you note any chafing or cuts? When does this happen, while driving or parked.
Have you spoken with Spartan customer service yet?
I have a 1999 Spartan Mountain Master GT chassis and the original air springs still look like new, but dirty.
That's definitely not normal. There must be an external cause. If you inspected the failed air springs, did you note any chafing or cuts? When does this happen, while driving or parked.
Have you spoken with Spartan customer service yet?
I have a 1999 Spartan Mountain Master GT chassis and the original air springs still look like new, but dirty.
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garyostrowski
Member
Hi Ray and thank you. I’m actively working with Spartan on this, while the coach is in a truck service center, for the last 50 days. It started with both original rear airbags failing at at different times but within weeks, seemingly while the coach was parked. One was torn and one was leaking from the interface of rubber to top plate. When a new Firestone replacement failed almost immediately, again from the rubber to top plate, we sent it back to Spartan and Spartan had Firestone inspect it. Firestone’s analysis said that the chassis alignment is the cause, with the bag looking like it had undue stress out in it.
Spartan had me take pictures of the airbags and other areas, looking for anything unusual. What I think is unusual is that the inflated airbags look like they’re not perpendicular to the chassis frame, they look like the top mount is inches aft of the bottom mount, canting the airbags aft. Spartan and the shop acknowledge this but Spartan has chosen to focus on minute chassis adjustments (pinion and thrust angles, ride height).
The truck center that’s been working on the rear end, following Spartan’s advice has made minor fine tune adjustments to the chassis, ignoring the possibility of the airbag mounts being improperly located during manufacture. I know that this is unlikely, but I now believe this is the case. This is why I’m asking others in the forum.
Since single (not tag) axle Entegra’s with Spartan K3’s are less common than tags, I figure that the potential for this manufacturing defect is there and undiscovered in others. Or maybe discovered and blamed on alignment or something else.
I’ve attached pictures of our inflated airbags, showing the cant backwards. The truck center master mechanics and I think this is unusual. Spartan is finally now asking them to make measurements of the airbag mount bolt hole locations to check if the mounts were incorrectly located in manufacture. I’m upset because we’ve spent 50 days fine tuning the chassis, and now we’re finally looking at the potential for gross misalignment. Like having someone paint the chassis, then instructing them to look for rust, remove it and add primer.
Spartan had me take pictures of the airbags and other areas, looking for anything unusual. What I think is unusual is that the inflated airbags look like they’re not perpendicular to the chassis frame, they look like the top mount is inches aft of the bottom mount, canting the airbags aft. Spartan and the shop acknowledge this but Spartan has chosen to focus on minute chassis adjustments (pinion and thrust angles, ride height).
The truck center that’s been working on the rear end, following Spartan’s advice has made minor fine tune adjustments to the chassis, ignoring the possibility of the airbag mounts being improperly located during manufacture. I know that this is unlikely, but I now believe this is the case. This is why I’m asking others in the forum.
Since single (not tag) axle Entegra’s with Spartan K3’s are less common than tags, I figure that the potential for this manufacturing defect is there and undiscovered in others. Or maybe discovered and blamed on alignment or something else.
I’ve attached pictures of our inflated airbags, showing the cant backwards. The truck center master mechanics and I think this is unusual. Spartan is finally now asking them to make measurements of the airbag mount bolt hole locations to check if the mounts were incorrectly located in manufacture. I’m upset because we’ve spent 50 days fine tuning the chassis, and now we’re finally looking at the potential for gross misalignment. Like having someone paint the chassis, then instructing them to look for rust, remove it and add primer.
Attachments
Ray-IN
Well-known member
Incorrect thrust angle might affect the air spring vertical alignment. This requires an alignment machine large enough for commercial bus's and semi-tractors.
I know my HDT repair shop found my rear axle out of alignment (thrust angle) by 3/4". After the total alignment my MH drives nearly as easy as my Silverado pickup.
I know my HDT repair shop found my rear axle out of alignment (thrust angle) by 3/4". After the total alignment my MH drives nearly as easy as my Silverado pickup.
garyostrowski
Member
Thank you Ray-IN, our thrust angle was off by a fraction of a degree and slightly out of spec and corrected. But it didn’t change the visual appearance of the airbags being not vertical and canted backwards, which is what is suspect is the main problem. Waiting on Spartan to define the airbag mount critical dimensions so that we can determine if something odd happened during chassis manufacture.
Ray-IN
Well-known member
Your pictures, to me, show a mis-alignment of at least 1" between top mounting plate and bottom mounting plate. A small plumb-bob should confirm the actual distance. I have a Clinometer app on my phone that will display actual angles/degrees of level/plumb too.
CharlesinGA
Well-known member
This is clearly a no brainer. The top mounting (or bottom, but more likely the top) is way off. There is no excuse for them stalling other than thinking you would somehow go away and not bother them.
Charles
Charles
Utclmjmpr
Well-known member
My Mountain Master chassis is 26 and I just replaced all the bags because I was loosing air at a large rate,,after the bag change still had the problem,, found the leaks else where and went down the road knowing the bags were new..>>>Dan
A Traveler
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2014
- Posts
- 665
If your air bags were LOOSE that could cause them to LOSE air pressure.
Sorry, the incorrect use of “loose” and “lose” is a pet peeve of mine.
Sorry, the incorrect use of “loose” and “lose” is a pet peeve of mine.
Ray-IN
Well-known member
Nope, each air spring is a sealed unit. Both mounting plates have 4 threaded bolt holes for mounting. The upper plate has an additional threaded hole for compressed air in/out. So mounting bolts loose does not create a leak.
Oh, you said air bag, that's a different animal.
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garyostrowski
Member
Thank you Ray-IN, CharlesinGA, and the others thus far. I will continue to hound Spartan and report back to you. As of today, Spartan is discussing this with their engineering team. They have still not revealed what the dimensions are supposed to be, from fixed points on the chassis to the top airbag mounting plate bolt holes, although they’ve asked my shop to measure the dimensions and report back, which they did on 5/3/24. Interesting that they’ve only asked my truck center to measure and report but still will not reveal the nominal dimensional requirement or the manufacturing tolerance. I suspect that Spartan is more interested in how to cover their “interests” than in supporting me in a reasonably timely or effective way.
Thanks again, I appreciate the good input, reinforcing my thoughts.
Gary
Thanks again, I appreciate the good input, reinforcing my thoughts.
Gary
garyostrowski
Member
Hi all,
We’ve obtained Spartan and Reyco Granning engineering drawings and have confirmed that the rear airbag top mounts are installed one inch too far aft. Spartan has not admitted this fact and continues to only advise to adjust the trailing arms to their extreme aft position. We now know that this is incorrect advice, with the top airbag mounts being so far out of position. We also now know that Reyco Granning (Spartan’s supplier of the suspension assembly) has been advising Spartan that our rear airbags need to be relocated to fix the issue; Spartan has never passed this recommendation along to us, not admitting the mis-location issue and only advising adjustments that’ll never be enough to correct the problem. In fact if we were to make the Spartan recommend trailing arm adjustment, we’d likely never be able to readjust the thrust and pinion angles to spec, an would likely destroy / drop our drive shaft on the road. Note that we’ve already adjusted the ride height, pinion and thrust angles to a nat’s ass tolerance, so the I’ll-advised trailing arm max position adjustment would throw the pinion and thrust settings out of spec., likely unrecoverable.
Big black eye for Spartan, as they’ve been caught defending a defenseless position, apparently to avoid admitting fault of a factory defect. They’ve also advised adjustments to our rear suspension that would likely ruin our drivetrain or worse, not to mention the ongoing labor cost to re-do everything that we’ve already checked and adjusted on their advice. Spartan has shown that they’ll throw customers under the bus to try and cover their asses. I know, they’ve done it to me, at high expense, both monetarily and from time lost in the shop. They’ve shown that they’ll ignore their suppliers advice, screwing the customer to try and cover their ass.
Thanks again, especially those who noted the airbag’s improper installation, you were 100% correct!
We’ve obtained Spartan and Reyco Granning engineering drawings and have confirmed that the rear airbag top mounts are installed one inch too far aft. Spartan has not admitted this fact and continues to only advise to adjust the trailing arms to their extreme aft position. We now know that this is incorrect advice, with the top airbag mounts being so far out of position. We also now know that Reyco Granning (Spartan’s supplier of the suspension assembly) has been advising Spartan that our rear airbags need to be relocated to fix the issue; Spartan has never passed this recommendation along to us, not admitting the mis-location issue and only advising adjustments that’ll never be enough to correct the problem. In fact if we were to make the Spartan recommend trailing arm adjustment, we’d likely never be able to readjust the thrust and pinion angles to spec, an would likely destroy / drop our drive shaft on the road. Note that we’ve already adjusted the ride height, pinion and thrust angles to a nat’s ass tolerance, so the I’ll-advised trailing arm max position adjustment would throw the pinion and thrust settings out of spec., likely unrecoverable.
Big black eye for Spartan, as they’ve been caught defending a defenseless position, apparently to avoid admitting fault of a factory defect. They’ve also advised adjustments to our rear suspension that would likely ruin our drivetrain or worse, not to mention the ongoing labor cost to re-do everything that we’ve already checked and adjusted on their advice. Spartan has shown that they’ll throw customers under the bus to try and cover their asses. I know, they’ve done it to me, at high expense, both monetarily and from time lost in the shop. They’ve shown that they’ll ignore their suppliers advice, screwing the customer to try and cover their ass.
Thanks again, especially those who noted the airbag’s improper installation, you were 100% correct!
CharlesinGA
Well-known member
Good to hear that everyone's feelings were vindicated on this, based on FACTS (drawings). This really wants to make you reconsider ever buying Spartan again. All they got to do is say fix it, send us the bill, but some manager is going to get a black eye, so they try everything to avoid the issue. I hope this gets resolved properly in the end.
Charles
Charles
