A reiteration of what you will find on other threads, but the F53 chassis - IMHO - is a poor platform for a MH. The problem is, it's been the only platform for years now. The F53 is manufactured by Ford for many purposes. And since Ford has no idea what purpose or how the chassis will be used, it has generic suspension and one that favors industrial use. The chassis and the MH are manufactured separately and married together. The MH manufacturers really don't do a thing to the chassis to make it ride or handle any better. Every MH - even the same brand and model will ride differently because of weight distribution and other factors. Think of it this way, if you gave 20 neighborhood kids the same skateboard you bought from Wal-Mart and told them to build a dog house on it to push down a hill, you'd get 20 different designs and all would ride like they are on a skateboard, but every single one will track differently. My personal experience after having 2 MH's from the same brand, same model but different floor plans is this; they both handled differently and one was louder than the other. My new 29.2 handles a lot better and is quieter, but frankly it's still horrible on anything but perfect roads. Concrete or anything but a surface smooth as glass and it sounds like the cabinets will be ripped from the walls. It tracks ok from doing the CHF but I can tell it's still too tall for the platform. By comparison, an OTR truck handles much more solid and it's taller. Why? because the platform was built for that purpose. Your pick up truck handles great. Why? because the chassis and suspension was designed and built specifically for it. Most gasser MH's are loud and handle horribly. Why? Because they all use a chassis designed for many completely different things. BTW, you don't hear this issue much from DP owners. Because they use a chassis better suited to a MH. There are a ton of "fixes" for the F53, which gives some indication of how bad it is. A lot of folks have disillusioned themselves into thinking it's acceptable or even pleasant. The F53 for MH's is - at best - tolerable if you get the right setup. I'm glad to see MH magazine finally doing some critical reviews on it. But if you want a newer gas MH, that's your only choice, which may be why many of us talk ourselves into thinking it's OK. If you didn't want a gas MH but were talked into driving one, you'd come away with the unbiased opinion that it can be a loud and scary ride.
