Atwood screw type leveler jacks

[mikestock]

Interested to know how many MH owners have Atwood, screw type jacks and your experience with same.

I have the misfortune of buying one of those rare species and have to hold my breath every time I press the auto level button and the retract/all buttons. Even after upgrading to their new models that were supposed to end all of their problems in 2014, I still average an error about 33% of the time.

Of all the maintenance problems I have had, which are usual for a 9 year old coach, about 75% relate to levelers.

[Bruce_Brown]

Brian in Michigan wrote:
Exactly what is failing on the jack? the motors the screw part?

On the early ones pins & screws would shear and gears would break. One Atwood rep I spoke with admitted they had some supplier quality issues around the '07-'08 time frame, which have been addressed. From what I have seen on the replacement parts he was honest and correct. Occasionally you'll hear of a motor going bad, but thats pretty rare.

I also think some were undersized by the MH manufacturers. Was that their fault or did Atwood tell them it would be OK? I don't know.

It's too bad they had the issues right out of the gate, I think it's a decent product that got an early black eye in the marketplace that it was never able to fully recover from.

[BrianinMichigan]

Exactly what is failing on the jack? the motors the screw part?

[mikestock]

Bruce Brown wrote:
how awesome Atwood has been to work with.

I have to agree with this. They just sent me a new controller after helping me troubleshoot to determine that my 4 month old one had failed.

While going through the programming procedure in the instruction booklet, I got to the air bag settings and did not get the expected response from the LED blinking lights. I called them and they attempted to get me around this problem but the lady I spoke with couldn't get me through it. I was expecting to have to drive 150 miles to Tiffin to get help.

An hour later they returned a call, using their caller ID to find me. She had found help and told me to detach all of the wires and start over, which I had already decided to try. This time the installation went smoothly and everything worked well.

I had to call them back the next morning to tell them how much I appreciated their diligence in getting back to me to make sure I got it right.

[mikestock]

I do have the "upgraded" jacks, installed in Sept. of 2014, but I still hold my breath when I push that button to auto level or retract.

My air bags always dump before the jacks extend and always fill before retracting. I don't guess manually dumping them would be any advantage.

[Bruce_Brown]

Mike,
If you're that far out of level any automatic jack would have lifted the rear wheels. If we're in a spot that I think might be trouble I simply hit the "extend all" button, let them each take a set, then I'll finish up as well as I can manually. I hate lifting any wheel off the ground.

If your computer is out of wack and needs to be recalibrated it's real easy to do with that system.

One thing I found helped a lot was manually dumping the air before going into automatic mode. It seems to level better and is more stable. Sure it dumps as soon as you hit the level button, but it seems the jacks are on the ground and working before all the air is gone. Manually dumping it first takes care of that.

[Bruce_Brown]

We also have them. I have a love/hate relationship with them. I hate they've sometimes been prone to failure, I love how well they work, how easy they are to fix when things do go bad, and how awesome Atwood has been to work with.

My parents also had them on their Allegro. Between the two of us I've grown pretty decent at working on them. I now have a spare working jack, a parts jack, and quite an assortment of repair parts. Fortunately (and I hate to even utter these words) it has been awhile since I've even thought of them. After the original issues we had, and far more the issues my parents had, they've been good. Overall they work well, and it's worth saying again, Atwood has been just great to work with when we did have a problem.

[mikestock]

I also have a '06 Phaeton. I have twice failed to realize that the rear wheels would be lifted off the ground and I will agree with you that it is a big mistake. I have almost stopped using the auto level button. It is always better to have someone outside to watch. To me, it seems that you must be almost level before using the jacks. It would be great to have a remote control, so that I could be outside watching to avoid lifting the wheels. I carry lots of blocking now for the wheels and use four 6" blocks under the jacks to make sure I stroke the jacks a minimal amount. This seems to help.

I have made two trips to Red Bay, AL for jack problems, but fortunately, it's only 145 miles away.

I bought the coach used, but would never buy a new or used model without hydraulic levelers.

[Teacher_s_Pet]

Have replaced 4 Atwood Levelegs, both rear and the driver's side front 2 times. Best way to keep them running is keep the weight on the tires, not tires off the ground. They are for leveling only not for changing a tire or service, which is why two of ours failed within a couple of cycles because the tires were lifted off the ground by service people. Two were changed under warranty and two I paid for. Of course they never failed before I paid the bill, always after and 500 miles away.

[imgoin4it]

I have atwood level legs on our 2007 coach. One failed within 5 days of purchase. Several years ago the same jack failed and was replaced again. (By me) Other than that ours have been flawless. They have been better than I expected.