Landing Gear Overnite

[old turbo]

While at a campground and sitting around with other 5vr owners the topic came up about putting down the landing gear if your still hooked to the truck and you want to put the slides out for a over night stay. Is it proper to put the landing gear down to use the slides?

[1retired06]

i always drop the front legs, enough to take weight off the truck. Provides more stability. Key to staying hooked up is a level rig for both slide and frig operation. If the rig is level, doubt it would hurt anything to leave the legs up, but there may be some movement as you walk around.

[stengels]

X2

[waynemoore]

Yep X3 that

[BB_TX]

Same here. Primarily for stability. No harm in not doing it though.

[DQDick]

I've only done it once on someone's parking lot and that was when we were hit by 60mph winds (sorry Denny's but it was what it was). If I'm using a pull thru at a campground I always do it.

[8.1al]

The only time our front jacks go down is when the Montana is coming off the truck

[kdeiss]

Never! Prior to extending slides I crank down the rear stabilizer jacks

[richfaa]

For a on the road overnight stay we usually do not unhook but we do extend the front jacks for a bit of stability. That is at a C.G.we never stay in a parking lot,big box store, etc overnight.

[mjammersc]

The few times I have done this so far, I have put the jacks down for stability as I had the slides out too. If it is a blacktop parking lot and looks like it may be "soft" I will put boards under the jack feet to reduce the likelihood of any jack imprints in the blacktop. Also when taking the load off the truck and/or leveling the trailer out some, pay close attention to the hitch to ensure you aren't raising or tilting it too much.

[mhs4771]

I generally go a step further and will put the Level-Up into manual mode and bring the rear jacks down to just touch the ground. Just help to stabilize everything and only takes a couple of minnutes.

[Twopetes]

Ditto to others comments but I will add. We try to position the 5er so we can run out the bedroom slide but only if it is not over a sidewalk or another parking spot. I like to park along the edge of a parking lot at places like Cracker Barrel so I do not interfere with anyone. I will also park farther away to make sure we are not "hogging" up room!

[Art-n-Marge]

If we overnight for the one night and don't extend the slides, I usually don't go through the time to drop the landing gear, but I can imagine the gain in stability with something more solid than the trailer tires and suspension plus the TV tires and suspension. If the movement bothered me that much, then I'd also drop the rear stabilizers.

Note that with my floorplan I have double French doors for the living room that cannot be opened and accessed if the slides are in. So unless I open the slides, there's no need to drop gear or stabilizers just for an overnight.

However, it is nice to know and understand options for overnight stops and when to use landing gear, stabilizers, etc. Also in my case, we were on a trip that required an overnight stay and because I tow slightly nose high I used a set of Lynx leveling blocks under the Monty tires so we slept on the level. We left the truck hitched and didn't drop landing gear or stabilizers but next time I might so the rig doesn't move so much.

[rmthelen]

This is one more reason that we appreciate the Level Up. I unhook and set up just like we were staying a week, go to dinner and relax for the evening.

[dieselguy]

"I unhook and set up just like we were staying a week" ... this my friends is exactly why RV'ers as a whole get a bad rap by John Q Public. John Q Public looks at this situation like this ... geeze $125K plus in equipment camped out at Wally World???

[Art-n-Marge]

LOL dieselguy, they said "like a week", but I don't think they actually stay a week. I suppose Level Up might even provide another level of convenience.

As much as I know it's an available option, I have only overnighted enroute at actual campgrounds. Then when I leave myself hitched up I can only be accused by other RVers as being too lazy to set up correctly. But I'm guessing they'll figure it out when I depart the next morning.

I belong to 1000Trails and have been fortunate enough to be able to overnight at one of those. It's mostly free for me and convenient enough since most of my long distance RV travel has been within California, Nevada or Arizona that have 1000 Trails campgrounds.

[Sinterior]

I found just using the rear jacks when still hooked up to the truck stabilizes the fiver better than just the front landing gear, then I put the slides out for an over night stop, always in a RV park or campground.

[WaltBennett]

Always, and only sometimes not the stabilizers. Don't lift the front more than getting the weight off the truck. Since we've two motor front legs, I level quite a bit side to side. Makes the rig much more stable for an overnight.