Safari Serengeti

Two Jayhawks wrote:
Safaribeachouse & crasster

Gents I want to respond even though I believe the OP has moved on. I was a happy Safari owner. Frankly Safari built a coach that is as high quality as my Newmar. BTW Safari built a lot of coaches and luckily not a lot were equipped with the velvet ride so yes there are tons of happy owners. My experience was not positive with the velvet ride suspension. Very early on (around 2004)I added $1500 in mods to aid in poor handling. In 2012 I suffered rear torsilastic spring failure. I knew about Sulastic then but was able to get OE so I went that way. Regardless the repair was costly (around $5K). So IMO by all means I would recommend a Safari to anyone. However I would NOT recommend a Safari with the velvet ride suspension. Regardless of the availability of non OE suspension parts being available, I just feel like there are too many (non torsilastic) used coaches available that will be easier on the check book.

Thank you for the feed back. From early on, most if not all Serengeti models were VelvetRide, most but not all Sahara's were Leaf Spring (EliptiRide), and until the late 90's most Continental models were VelvetRide too. By late 90's a lot of the Continental models were air ride like their Beaver coach cousins. So, on the contrary, most Safari coaches out there right now are VelvetRide. If you go on the various Safari yahoo groups, you will realize that the largest percentage is VelvetRide, and second inline is EliptiRide (leaf spring). There aren't that many with air ride on the group.

What model and length was your coach, and how many miles on it?
Who did the spring install?
Did you by any chance take pictures and document the install?
How was the ride after the new springs were installed?

Ironically, you were better off going with Sulastic brand, because like tires, these rubber springs age, and those OEM were laying on the shelf a very long time, and the Sulastic would have been freshly made, and they have tons of experience, as this type of suspension is very popular and successful in Mexico, due to their poor roads and poor budgets. VelvetRide has proven to be, by far, the most durable bus suspension to tolerate the terrible Mexican roads. These torsion springs are often known to go in excess of 1 million miles before they wear out. The same was for the torsion springs in Eagle buses, even though they were a different design.

It seems like failure is most often seen from overloading, and sometimes (very rarely) from defect. In the later years, the Safari coaches got much heavier, but Safari, in their desperation to keep costs down, never upgraded the springs to handle the heavier coaches. The most evident failures were the Continental Panther Models, that had the huge and heavy CAT C12 engine and the heavy Allison 4000 Series Transmission. The Zanzibar coaches were also very prone to failure, even though they didn't have the large engine/transmisson, but they were heavy. To give an example on how overloaded the springs were, the same springs were used on the early 90's Continental models, that back then, were built on an Oshkosh chassis and had a GVWR of only 22000, those coaches are over 20 years old and most never even had or needed a height adjustment. Now, in '94 Safari switched to their in house Magnum chassis using the same springs and the average GVWR was 26000, sometimes a bit more. By late 90's they were using the same springs on coaches that had GVWR ratings of 29000 to 33000! It is amazing that those springs held up as well as they did, considering the gross over-weight that they carried.
I am fortunate, my coach is a '95 and is not as heavy as the later models, and I have had zero issues with ride height and the springs themselves. I have all the shims up front, and a few less in the rear, that were taken out before my time. So, short of a freak failure like a collapsed spring, I have a long way to go, before I even come close to running out of shims for height adjustment.

At the time, did you consider getting an air bag system installed to supplement the weak/failing torsion springs? I know Pioneer Metal Works had a four bag kit back then, and now their is also an 8 air bag kit available.
If you don't mind, please give us as much detail as possible on your ordeal, so we can all learn from it.

I think, that unless the shackles are failing, it is cheaper and smarter to supplement with an airbag kit when the proper ride height can't be achieved. I would venture to guess, if you had leaf springs and they failed, the cost would be probably similar, but maybe I'm wrong...

Looking forward to your feedback and story of your replacement!