Automatic levelers: ya have ’em or ya don’t. Does your RV?
Remember back in the old days when you had to level your RV with wood blocks using a small bubble leveler (actually, those are called a “whiskey stick” and you can read their fascinating history here)? Well, those days are [mostly] long gone. RVs these days are coming with built-in automatic levelers, and if they’re not, there are apps and gadgets and gizmos and all other bells and whistles that make leveling your RV easy (like these Andersen RV levelers and this LevelMatePRO).
As always, feel free to leave a comment under today’s poll about your RV’s automatic levelers. Thanks!
36′ Cl A with HWH hyraulic levelers. Use automatic every time, then trimas necessary so bathroom door doesn’t swing after running the slides out. First Cl A did not have levelers. After 3 years I was ready to give up that game. If a site is too far off for me to get level with rear tires on the ground we change site or find another place to spend the night.
After 40 years of rv’ing, my eye with treated wood boards is pretty good, seldom need to adjust. There are big bubble levels you can attach to the front of the rv when it is level, then the next time you park, you can see through your rear view mirror which side needs boards and what height they should be. Then my wife puts the “whiskey stick” level on the floor inside the door while I lower the electric tongue jack til she says stop. It’s so automatic now that it takes little time at all. The new rig has electric stabilizers that go down last. And always look at the stabilizers the next day to check for settling and adjust as necessary.
Have new Keystone Cougar. Love the idea, just wish I could use it. Mine doesn’t work.
HWH 200 System, Manual all the way just like I want it.
I answered yes however… I have a class A with air suspension which does not level itself – but I can level it by adjusting the air in each airbag. It is limited and on some occasions have had to add a block or two mostly to the front wheels. I basically level for and to the absorption refrigerator requirements. The system does level the coach automatically when in travel mode and somewhat when parked however it is a slow process – with the engine running.
Have a Lippert electric system on our 2019 Coachmen Chapparel. Love it! No problems so far, works every time.
My brother-in-law complained to the dealer of his brand new motor home that his automatic levelers didn’t work, the response was “those only work on level ground”!
Mine do not work properly. Get “out of stroke” ; “excessive angle” ; “frame twist” nearly every time. When not one of the above. I get nothing.
Installed HWH system. Works when I use it.
Absolutely love using our Level Mate Pro in conjunction with the Anderson Levelers! I imagine that our next 5th wheel will have auto leveling but I intend to still use these two handy tools to get a good start on leveling. I have seen people have a terrible time trying to get their automatic system to even start the process unless they are mostly level already.
We have an automatic leveling system on our 2010 Itasca Meridian 34Y but it has never worked right…we use manual leveling every time.
We’ve had the Bigfoot auto levelling system on our 18K lb 5th wheel for the last 12 years of fulltiming. It has been a fantastic feature & made set up so simple. It’s worked perfectly for 200K miles of travel, & we’ve been in some crazy, uneven boondocking spots. Now we’ve parked it as a home base & added a triple slide truck camper for our continuing travels. The TC has powered jacks with a handheld remote, but not automatic levelling.
“Lego” blocks for us, not a big deal. After 10+ years with this rig, we get the number of blocks right just about every time on the first try. One less thing to maintain.
We have them, but use the individual directional buttons. If we use the auto function if starts by lifting the rig first, then begins the leveling pieces. All too often that results in one or more wheels in the air. So we “manually” auto level
Same here! Once our auto-function lifted the front wheels off the ground and we couldn’t get them down. After an hour and several attempts, we heard a big “clunk” and shook the whole rig, but it came down. Never again! Manual only.
Agree! On every RV I’ve had with levelers, the auto feature seems to go through too many gyrations with a result I don’t like. I’ve found it faster and better to run the biaxial legs manually…side-to-side first, then end-to-end.
Mine is automatic, but in order to minimize the possibility of lifting the tires off the surface at those really uneven sites, I do a manual assist, starting with placing the blocks in such a way as to minimize the stroke needed by the auto-level mechanism.
My 5er has them. The travel trailer does not
Ours on our 21 year old travel trailer are automatic. We get ‘there’, I automatically level it.
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Same here Wayne. After pulling in, I automatically get out and put wood blocks under the wheels.
Yes….but like everything else, when they are working properly they are fantastic….when they don’t, it’s maddening!
No, but I wish it did.
Our Montana fiver has the six point automatic hydraulic leveling system and it’s great! It makes setup so much easier. It works so well I gave my Andersen levelers and Level Mate stuff to one of my sons for his travel trailer.
Pull onto a board or two, adjust the tongue jack, done! No big deal for my 21′ TT. No plastic, no expensive electric jacks, not much to go wrong. Love it!
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Had RV’s without, never again. This unit does have a large slide.
I voted yes, but mine are not automatic, however they are hydraulic and so easy they feel like automatic compared to dragging out all the boards and blocks I previously had to use.