Steering a Motorhome
We have been full timing for three years pulling a fifth wheel. We purchased a 2013 37' Winnibago Itasca Meridian. We have driven it for about 500 miles, it seems like I constantly need to be slightly...
Forum Discussion
rgatijnet1 wrote:
No, it is not normal to have to input steering corrections all of the time but driving a Class A is different from a pick up truck. Naturally the road surface can affect your steering but after 500 miles you should have experienced different road surfaces. Wheel alignment is something that should be checked as well as tire pressure to make sure that all tires are balanced. They do make a steering stabilizer that is helpful to some drivers. It looks like a shock absorber mounted sideways to to your tie rod and is adjusted to keep your coach going straight on a flat road surface.
The cheapest thing to check is your tire pressure and then I would check wheel alignment. Four wheel thrust alignment is the best, if the shop is equipped to do it. This insures that your rear axle is pushing straight to your front axle.
After all of that is checked and eliminated as a problem, you will still find that the Class A drives different than your 5th. You should be able to relax behind the wheel, however.
Its not quite that simple. First the center of gravity on a MH is quite high compared to a pickup. Then you have crown in the road for water drainage. The alignment may be slightly off also. On multi lane roads, have you tried the left most lane to see if it does the same thing. A steering stabilizer is a little more than just a shock absorber mounted sideways, it usually has a big spring the is a compression and extension force, so it tries to keep the steering in a fixed location. This may or may not help because of road crown and the height of the center of gravity. Not only that, but it is not unusual to have 200 pounds or more difference in weight from side to side, which could contribute to the drifting. You can try adjusting tire pressure, but many have found this to be unsatisfactory to resolving the problem. I don't know if tire manufacturers have changed their pressure charts lately, but going low on air pressures can be dangerous, especially for the 19.5 inch rims, as they can come off the rim easily. In fact most of the 19.5 tires come off the rims after deflating them.
