Levelling up!

No matter what your motorhome, there’s usually room for improvement, particularly with the ride comfort and handling.

The good news is that it’s easy to improve this with an air suspension set-up and the improvement in ride quality, stability and safety is dramatic. Various systems are available from basic manual systems at a budget price, to all-singing-and-dancing models that will actively monitor and adjust ride height.

A self-levelling system is different and works when you get to a campsite by levelling the motorhome in seconds at the touch of a button, making it rock steady. It has many other benefits, too, which we’ll detail later.

But first back to air suspension and to understand how this could work for you, it helps to know about the original suspension. At each wheel on a motorhome there are two components: a spring and a damper (often wrongly referred to as a shock absorber). The job of the spring is to support the weight of the vehicle and absorb bumps, while the damper reduces the oscillation of the spring, controlling its compression and rebound (dampening the oscillation, hence its name).

While the springs can take various forms – such as coils, leafs and torsion bars – the dampers are usually an oil-filled unit pressurised with gas. Often on motorhomes there is an additional spring assistor – usually found between the rear leaf spring and chassis on many Ducato models – which works in partnership with the spring to give additional resistance and cushion the ride (these often touch