hydro or electric leveling

Lippert Six POint Hydraulic and only Hyd slide outs... The In Wall electric slides are a finicky pain...

And for those that DONT know the hyd system .. IF THE HYD pump motor fails then the entire system is easily manually overridden with a simple cordless drill, 1/4 inch allen bit for pump motor end and 5/32 allen wrench...

If a Schwintek IN Wall slide out fails due to a motor then you have to lift both motors up out of the tracks and manually try and push the slide in

My current fifth wheel is 3 slides, all hydraulic and six point hyd level up system.. 8 years of use.. no issues with anything

You can get bad units in every variation. I would prefer electric. Less chance of a hydraulic oil mess. No big lines running back through the trailer just wires. And the big one. If something goes wrong, I have half a chance of fixing it. If your one electric motor on the hydraulics fails, you are stuck. If one of the 6 electric motors fail, there is another one on the opposite side. Run one side up, remove the motor and install it on the other side. Run that one up and you are on your way.

If I had my way I would prefer the old front landing gear and back stabilizers. Much less to go wrong without all the fancy self leveling electronics.

We have auto leveling electric on our current fiver and my son has hydraulic on his. We camp side by side a lot and he has problems with his system. Ours so far with many camping miles has had zero. Ours will lift the tires off the ground easily which I do not do on a regular basis.

I think I would concentrate more on the floor plan than anything. If you don't get a plan that fits your needs it will be a bigger problem down the road.

We're on our third unit with the Lippert Level-Up Hydraulic system and combined we've covered 100K miles with very little issue. Traveled to the Canadian Maritime with Friends and their brand new Jayco Pinnacle and they had nothing but problems, including one front landing gear ripping loose from the frame. They now have a unit with the Level-Up and no problems.

We replaced our electric levelers with the BigFoot hydraulic levelers. One major drawback: There is NO manual override should one of the BigFoot hydraulic jacks fail. Recently we had one of the front jacks fail to retract and we could not move the trailer in that condition. I called the BigFoot 24 hour tech line and they diagnosed a pump failure. To raise the jack for travel we had to bleed 64 ounces of ATF fluid (what a mess!) and obtain a floor jack to raise the failed jack. I understand that there are some hydraulic jack systems that do have a manual override.

I had issues with my hydraulic levelers.
bumpy

jdc1 wrote:
Electric has one motor to fail. Hydro has a motor, the hydraulic pump, rams, and hoses that can fail. You can decide from there.

The new electric systems have a motor on each strut.

Rob

Electric has one motor to fail. Hydro has a motor, the hydraulic pump, rams, and hoses that can fail. You can decide from there.

We've had both. I've experienced a leaky manifold (replaced it myself with part supplied under warranty) with the LCI hydraulic system and had to add CAT anti-stiction fluid to stop the annoying popping sounds. On the other hand, it will lift the trailer off the ground one side at a time to change a tire.

The electric system was much slower and I didn't trust it to lift one side of the trailer (not as robust). A couple of pros for the electric systems - especially ones with the new hall effect motors - is that they are more easily user-repaired.

Bottom line: I don't know that I'd let hydraulic vs. electric make the decision for me. I would be more concerned about a floorplan that would work for us.

Rob

We've only had the hydraulic auto-level system, but IMO it would be better than electric. With hydraulic, there is one pump and six/four cylinders. Electric would have six/four electric motors and accompanying gears. I prefer the KISS principle.