Landing gear failure

Mine were making a "clunking" noise from day one. I asked for it to be examined and evaluated for warranty work by the dealer, but was assured that it was "Normal". On one camping trip, the noise became continuous as I was extending the landing gear, and it wouldn't lift the FW enough to separate the TV. I used a hydraulic jack to get the FW up enough to disconnect, and was able to reconnect and get it home. I disassembled the unit and found that the gear teeth were broken. What was more interesting was that one of the teeth looked like it was actually a manufacurer's defect. I assume the "clunking" was the noise being made everytime that tooth engaged the adjoining gear.

I decided to replace the whole system with a much more stout one so I wouldn't get stranded in the future.

If you over retract or extend the landing gear legs, they may be damaged. I would investigate what went wrong before completely swapping them out. Perhaps a thermal overload, possibly a bad switch etc.

Daryll

We had a Mobile Suites with hydraulic landing gear that had never ending problems, replaced the rams a couple of times and still had problems.

So one can have problems with either hydraulic or electric but generally they are pretty reliable.

No to both questions.

I rarely see landing gear problems listed on any of the forums for new or fairly new 5th wheels. They are very reliable.

Occaisionally on an older unit the clutch will go out or a gear will break but there's usually a reason like bent landing gear, not lubricated properly, worn...etc.

Electric will be less expensive than hydraulics but even hydralics have problems from time to time.

I had the same thing happen to me with my cheaply built Keystone product. I replaced them with these:

Bulldog landing gear

It's nice to have independent control for each leg. Makes leveling much easier.