Montana Owners Club - Keystone Montana 5th Wheel Forum - View Single Post

drog55chev · 09-08-2019, 05:49 PM

I'll add a little more here. It may or may not help if your planning on doing any upgrades or need to change brakes, etc..

I own a 2008 GMC 3500HD Sierra crew cab long box with 120000 miles with leveling kit. It's primarily used as our construction vehicle and we pull a 10K# utility trailer and a 16K# dump trailer regularly.

We recently bought a new Montana 3120R and we love it. First time out I probably shouldn't have been towing because it needed new tires, had bad shocks and I didn't know the condition of the brakes. It also had quite a bit of vibration and shimmy in the front that wasn't noticed with our other trailers but this 5th is longer, taller and heavier. I took it slow and it made it through the 175 mile round trip with a 3500 foot elevation gain but there was a little white knuckling going on. I tend to use the trailer function to slow down with the transmission rather than using the brakes but that's just me. I don't have the exhaust brake option but I may add that some day if I start towing more. For now my wife is retired, I am not but I can act like I'm retired.

We had a long trip scheduled back to Montana with some serious elevation changes so I decided to take a few days off and do some upgrades before we took that trip. In my opinion most aftermarket products exceed OEM specs especially when your doing towing or heavy hauling. My truck was ready for some TLC.

I did a lot of research and decided to change the OEM shocks to Bilsteins, the OEM brakes and rotors to PowerStop Z36 Extreme towing rotors and ceramic pads. The OEM brake pads still had 60% on the rear and 40% on the front. What I noticed was a lot of hair line cracks across the pads and the rotors were warped. Heat probably. I also changed the OEM wheels from 17" to 20" (Not sure if I gained much from doing this but the truck looks better). I also installed Firestone wireless airbags.

I have to say this second trip there was a world of difference. The overall ride and handling was greatly improved and no more white knuckles. The truck tracked the trailer better and all the front shimmy and shake was gone (probably from warped rotors). I have to say the airbags was a great improvement. I was down on the overloads before and now I'm not. I can change pressure in these for any trailer we're towing and I don't get flashed at night anymore because my headlights are up and I'm back to level.

09-08-2019, 05:49 PM	#18
drog55chev Established Member Join Date: Jul 2019 Location: BEAVERTON Posts: 30 M.O.C. #24480	I'll add a little more here. It may or may not help if your planning on doing any upgrades or need to change brakes, etc.. I own a 2008 GMC 3500HD Sierra crew cab long box with 120000 miles with leveling kit. It's primarily used as our construction vehicle and we pull a 10K# utility trailer and a 16K# dump trailer regularly. We recently bought a new Montana 3120R and we love it. First time out I probably shouldn't have been towing because it needed new tires, had bad shocks and I didn't know the condition of the brakes. It also had quite a bit of vibration and shimmy in the front that wasn't noticed with our other trailers but this 5th is longer, taller and heavier. I took it slow and it made it through the 175 mile round trip with a 3500 foot elevation gain but there was a little white knuckling going on. I tend to use the trailer function to slow down with the transmission rather than using the brakes but that's just me. I don't have the exhaust brake option but I may add that some day if I start towing more. For now my wife is retired, I am not but I can act like I'm retired. We had a long trip scheduled back to Montana with some serious elevation changes so I decided to take a few days off and do some upgrades before we took that trip. In my opinion most aftermarket products exceed OEM specs especially when your doing towing or heavy hauling. My truck was ready for some TLC. I did a lot of research and decided to change the OEM shocks to Bilsteins, the OEM brakes and rotors to PowerStop Z36 Extreme towing rotors and ceramic pads. The OEM brake pads still had 60% on the rear and 40% on the front. What I noticed was a lot of hair line cracks across the pads and the rotors were warped. Heat probably. I also changed the OEM wheels from 17" to 20" (Not sure if I gained much from doing this but the truck looks better). I also installed Firestone wireless airbags. I have to say this second trip there was a world of difference. The overall ride and handling was greatly improved and no more white knuckles. The truck tracked the trailer better and all the front shimmy and shake was gone (probably from warped rotors). I have to say the airbags was a great improvement. I was down on the overloads before and now I'm not. I can change pressure in these for any trailer we're towing and I don't get flashed at night anymore because my headlights are up and I'm back to level.