Levelers

[Sandtrap]

My old Class A had hydro levelers, but they where manual. Our new Seneca has auto levelers and when on uneven ground (rodeo grounds/fields) it tends to lift the tires from ground at times. Its only happened to the front so far, but I assume this is not ideal? What do you guys do? I hate to drive on blocks as it defeats the purpose, but I did not have this issue with my last RV unless I was really out of level.

I tend to use manual and simply not level as high or only get close.
(I wish I could get my photo to upload to my sig...)

[Jopopsy]

I'd make sure it's calibrated correctly (your manual should explain how to do this). However, even after calibration you'll likely fid spots where you're off the ground.

I have found I still need leveling blocks; I don't like having my tires dangling in the air - especially the rear ones. So I'll still block up under my tires and put a block or two under the levelers before I engage them if I know I'm going to be off-kilter.

[jcoyle]

I had the exact same problem with my seneca when we got it. I found that the rear jacks were actually running out of stroke. It was happening everytime I was on unlevel ground. I have since started putting a couple leveling blocks under the rear jacks before leveling on ground that is remotely unlevel (even if its not bad, just easier then retracting and doing it again). Since starting this over a year ago I have not had a single problem. I know it would seem a pain to add the blocks everytime, but everytime i pull into a spot I give a once around the RV to make sure I'm in a spot that slides will be unobstructed, I'm closed enough to power/water, etc. before I shut the engine down so I don't have to fire it up again to pull ahead or back up a few feet. On the once around it only takes a few seconds to through the blocks in.

[WaltW]

The leveling problem starts because the air bags don't dump until after the jacks are deployed. Tired of having up to 3 wheels off the ground, I level manually. If I have to level, I deploy jacks until they just touch ground then wait a while giving the airbags time to deflate. I use the wait time to do all the hookups etc. Then using a level I adjust using 2 legs at a time per leveling instructions. Works way better.

All that said, a properly designed and installed leveling system would work correctly. It did in my DP.

[SloPoke]

About 90% of our camping is boondocking where the ground is never level... in fact we often look at how we set up so that the entrance door is on the uphill side.

We almost always have to use blocks under our jacks on the low side to avoid the "out of range" errors. The blocks also help greatly in preventing the jack feet from settling into the ground, giving us a better footing. Once we let it level out the coach, we will have one or two tires off the ground, as the limits of the suspension are reached before we are level.

Sometimes.. we find that the Auto-Level function goes goofy and says we are too much slope. When this happens... we take over and manually level it out by lowering the coach two jacks at a time. When it does this - it ends up too high anyways and with the air-bags being dumped, the coach will usually level out just fine.

When we are in a place that is already level (or real close) we just hit Auto and it does it's job just fine.