Air suspension in your camper: how does it work?

Campers have a hard time when it comes to loading and that in turn affects the braking distance and driving behavior. With air suspension in your camper you can make a significant improvement. We'll tell you how that works.

Campers are built based on vans. You can see this most clearly in the popular bus campers, but semi-integrated, alcove and integral campers also have the chassis of a standard van. This is usually from Fiat, Peugeot, Citroën or Mercedes. Camper manufacturers do not change anything about the suspension of those vans; Sometimes you can order an upgrade from the factory, but usually you drive the standard configuration of such a van.

Maximum load

Nothing wrong with that, you might say, but our campers are taxed much more heavily than a van from the average parcel service. With campers, an entire 'house' is built on the chassis, with a kitchen, bedroom, living area and bathroom. And then the water tanks are added, plus the technical equipment such as stove/boiler, refrigerator and electrical installation with an extra - heavy - battery.

And then there is also a whole supply of holiday luggage. When fully packed, most campers are close to their maximum permitted weight: 3.500 kilos. As a result, the shock absorbers and leaf springs of our campers are loaded to their maximum capacity day in, day out.

You can also see that: almost all campers – and especially integral campers – are positioned with their noses forward and they only have two or three fingers of suspension travel left at most. As a result, the suspension can even sag on bumps or bumps. In extreme situations, such as evasive maneuvers and emergency stops, this makes the camper less easy to steer and you can even lose control of the vehicle. The high center of gravity of the camper does not really help. Together this results in driving behavior that can be improved greatly. You notice this, for example, in crosswinds, on bridges, for example, or when you are overtaken by coaches, or when you overtake trucks yourself. But you also notice it in long bends and on roundabouts: such a camper often feels wobbly and unstable.

Improve suspension

You can make a lot of improvements to the standard suspension. Heavier front springs, for example, or auxiliary suspension at the rear. That already results in a significant improvement. The best possible upgrade is air suspension such as from VB-Airsuspension, a Dutch company that not only develops air suspension systems for campers, but also for ambulances, for example - because they also carry quite a bit of weight.

You can have air suspension installed on the back of your camper, or all the way around, whereby the front suspension is also replaced. The camper also gets more suspension travel at the front and you can see that the car no longer leans forward, but is horizontal. The air suspension makes the camper less sensitive to crosswinds, you hardly notice irregularities in the road surface and the camper also leans much less in bends.

Drive safely

If you have to swerve or brake unexpectedly, the camper remains easy to steer under all circumstances, even if the camper is heavily and unevenly loaded. The air suspension compensates for this and always keeps the camper at the same ride height - even if you have a heavy scooter in the garage. The compressor compensates for that extra weight with extra pressure, so that your camper is always perfectly horizontal.

An additional function of air suspension is that you can also level the camper. Thanks to a built-in spirit level, the air suspension places your camper perfectly horizontal. Another useful function is when you need to empty the waste water tank. You can tilt the camper with a button on the remote control, causing the water tank to empty to the last drop.

How much does that cost?

Air suspension is not cheap - count on more than 9.000 euros for a complete system on the front and rear axle. A cheaper option is supporting coil springs on the rear axle and reinforced front springs; That is already a huge improvement in driving behavior and it costs about 1500 euros. You can expand this system with the air auxiliary suspension that keeps the rear of the camper constantly at the same ride height. Handy for heavy loads - such as a scooter. At VB this is called 'Semi-Air' and then about a thousand euros are added.

Air suspension manufacturers

VB Airsuspension – www.vbairsuspension.com

ALKO – www.alko-tech.com/nl

Goldschmidt – www.goldschmitt.de

M.A.D. – www.mad-suspensionsystems.com/nl

Car support – www.carsupport.nl

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