New to motorhomes... Vista 29VE

[Ray H]

HI, We have been RVing full time for the last 6 or so years in 5th wheels and travel trailer. At Quartzite this year we were attracted to a Vista 29VE and bought it. We got it back to Casa Grande to our RV park just fine, but when we tried to leave, we could not get the slide in. We got it back from the RV repair about 2 weeks ago, put on new tires, packed and headed west to Bakersfield, CA area.

Terrible ride!! We want to get this fixed before we head to Washington for the summer. We felt every bump, and with light crosswinds(under 10 mph), we were mover around a lot particularly when passed by an 18 wheeler.

We want to get the ride smoother and more stable. Suggestions?

Thanks,

Ray

[creativepart]

Hey Ray,

Welcome and congrats on the new motorhome. You didn't mention what model year your Vista is. Generally, you're going to find that all gas Class A motorhomes after about 2010 are built on the same Ford F53 chassis. Prior to 2020 they all had the Ford Triton V10 motor and after 2020 they changed to the Ford Godzilla V8 engine.

V10 models all have the same suspension and for V8 models Ford made some suspension changes. All offer very rough rides and most can be a handful on the road. There are folks that think the V8 models are better for ride comfort but there are plenty of complaints about the ride of those models, too.

Here's the hard truth. You can definitely spend $4000 to $6000 to vastly improve driveablity and stability on the road. But almost nothing will give you a smooth ride. There is one expensive fix that does provide a smooth ride but it costs just north of $25,000. Most other changes you can apply might slightly improve the ride and others that improve handling may make the ride even harsher.

There are thousands of posts here and on www.IRV2.com about the most common mods that people do to improving driveablity. These include:

1. Steering Stabilizer (Safe-T-Steer, Roadmaster RSS, etc)
2. Sumo Springs
3. Additional/beefier Anti-Roll bars (or modifiying your existing roll bars called CHF or cheap handling fix
4. Rear Track Bar (panhard rod)
5. Different shocks, Koni, Bilstien, Sachs, Monroe
6. Air Bags instead of Sumo Springs

Another thing to be aware of is your chassis weight rating. The Ford F53 is commonly available in at least three sizes: 18,000 lb, 22,000 lb and 24,000 lb versions. Many say the lighter versions are harder to see real improvements on.

The $25,000 option is called LiquidSprings and it totally replaces the dump-truck like F53 suspension with a high pressure liquid "spring" that produces a smooth diesel pusher ride.

I have the 26,000lb V10 Chassis and I've done numbers 1, 2, 3 and 5 above. These did make driving better but the ride is horribly rough.

We've handled the rough ride by shortening our drive days to no more than 300 miles a day. Which works fairly well for us. But it can take 3-nights/4-days to go 1000 miles. We're not in any hurry.

You will encounter a few people that swear their F53 motorhome rides great. Or that new shocks brought a silky ride. Fans of the CHF claim that it fixes all ills and even clears up acne and halitosis. OK, I'm just kidding but they seem pretty enthused about the process that firms up their anti-roll stiffness and nothing more.

The first thing most folks do is add the steering stabilizer. It's not super expensive and makes driving much more controlled.

Good luck!

[Ray H]

my Vista is a 2019. Sorry for not listing that

[Morich]

I'm not much into dealing with improved ride as so much of my work experience was with trucks and trailers that made really bad rides the norm!
I pulled pole trailers for several years and one thing you learned to ignore was ride quality! Once you've learned pulling a 40 foot pole wagging the truck, the RV ride is just another day! Not something to belittle but just not rising to the level to work too hard to fix?
One thing I do see is how the length of the RV relates to how much it wiggles going down the road. More length behind the rear wheels will often mean more wiggle but I'm not sure of any cure to recommend!