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.