Mad to consider retrofitting full air to a 2010 van? (1 Viewer)

[Silver-Fox]

Small airbags replace the stops on the rear springs.

Usually pumped to 2-3 bar (compressor not needed)

Had it fitted to a C class with a noticeable difference.

My current van came with them fitted.

Kit about £500 + fitting

Edit from £200 !!

And if your handy with the spanner’s very easy to fit.

 

[Silver-Fox]

As per BB's description below BUT

the kits are fare dearer in spain. They charge extra for the homologation sheet required to get them added to ficha tecnica .Around 190€ I seem to recall then add on they have to be fitted by someone who can supply the correct piece of paper you can then get it all added to the ficha.last time I considered it it was looking at the thick end of 1100€ by time kit bought ,Coc obtained then pay for it all to be installed.

gus-lopez could you not fit it in UK then just sneak back into Spain

 

[Barclaybasher]

And if your handy with the spanner’s very easy to fit.

Yes, fit the bags and run plastic air lines and fit guages either in the 'garage' or locker close or onto the cab area.

 

[a900ss]

Check out Aeon rubber spring assistors from Ride Solutions in Cambridge CB22 6RY who will be able to advise on which ones to get . Sorry but I can't remember their phone number.
They're made by Timbren and fitted from light vehicles right up to massive ones on train carriages.
I have an old Hymer S650 which really used to wallow around, especially on roundabouts.
I had these fitted a few years ago and it made a world of difference at relatively small cost , possibly less than £200 if I remember correctly.
They are fitted in place of the current bump stops on the vehicle and a very simple job to install , although I did have my local garage fit mine.

My van doesn’t have leaf springs or bump stops. It’s got a Torsion bar rear suspension and I also think adding more resistance will decrease comfort rather than increase it.

 

[OldAgeTravellers]

I’ve got a very similar van to him, also a 614SL so I’ll probably drop him a line for his thoughts.

Sorry, this is going to be long.
Yes we have the same vans. Mine is 12 years old 11 of them owned by us and we love it. We have looked at new vans and hate them. I actually think ours was the last of the properly built motorhomes. Even looked in a newish palace and frankly wasn’t impressed.
So we decided that apart from a few niggles ours couldn’t (for us) be beat.
So as we were heading for 90 days in Scandinavia decided to shell out on what I hoped would be nice to have mods. Full air which unfortunately I couldn’t fit myself and I think is very overpriced. I bought Air Rides when they came out about 30 years ago and we’re about £500 and moved them from van to van as we changed except on the Alco’s, they did their job but don’t even come close to full air. I have now had the full air for nearly 4 months & about 9,000 miles and absolutely love it. Still get the crashing on a pothole but for this three month tour it has been fantastic. No sway and passing Lorrie’s especially on the Swedish roads with frightening steel wire crash barriers there is no sway or sucking.
Our overhang is quite long so I had some grounding wheels but not understanding the Air properly I didn’t raise the back when driving up out of a roadside picnic spot which had a steep slope. Well I ripped one of the tyres off one of the skid wheels but luckily it didn’t damage the chassis. So I quickly re read the Air instructions and found that the raised back feature self returns when you hit 21mph , I thought you couldn’t drive over 21, doh! From then on whenever driving out of an off the road area. Regardless I automatically lift the back first. Likewise I always raised the whole vehicle when going on or off ferries, and there are a lot of ferries in Norway, I think we did about 30. So no problems with what look like small slopes but aren’t. I saw one Motorhome rip the back off driving off a ferry!
Draining waste water? Just press the button and the van leans over like a drunken thing to empty it all. Had one m’homer scratching his head so I had to explain it. I never thought I would drive off-road so much. No problem just press the off-road button and it lifts up until you get on the smooth road and speed up. My other indulgence was uprated alloys from Rogue and A/T tyres which have made very short work of soft sand and wet grass and given us to go down forest tracks. That was a very worthwhile £1,500. I still haven’t had the courage to reduce the tyre pressures yet though.
The self levelling is great almost perfect 90% of the time, a few times it has got confused and given up and left it quite out of level with the back or front still high so just switch levelling off and lift either the back or front to maximum or one up one down then press the self level again and it then gets it right. All this is done before the kettle has boiled.
If your struggling for money then it is a very expensive luxury. If you can afford it then 100% go for it. Our sons have told us that we should die as paupers because they don’t need our money, so we are working on doing just that!
If you buy Full Air on my recommendation then please tell them I should get commission because I still think it is over priced. But I would not be without it now.
If you have any other questions then send me a message and we can swap numbers. My phone won’t call out from here but I can receive calls or we can WhatsApp.
P.s. AirRides are rear air bags or semi air. Only of use on leaf springs. You can have semi air on Alco Chassis but I think you will be losing out on the best features.

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[Hettie's Crew]

My van doesn’t have leaf springs or bump stops. It’s got a Torsion bar rear suspension and I also think adding more resistance will decrease comfort rather than increase it.

Our 2014 B544 has the Alko torsion bar rear suspension and we had air assist bags added by AS Suspension in Warrington.
Prior to the air bags we had crashing and banging and always felt the rear end looked a little low, our rear axle was rated at 2000kg and weighing showed we were always around 1950kg. So the rear was near, possibly over sometimes, its limit.
The air bags made a big difference in the ride quality, assisting the over burdened torsion bars and resulting in a much more controlled comfortable ride, running at 1.5 bar, with the rear sitting a few centimetres higher.
We have also increased our 215/70 15 tyre size to 225/70 15 making it even better.

 

[Lenny HB]

Check out Aeon rubber spring assistors from Ride Solutions in Cambridge CB22 6RY who will be able to advise on which ones to get . Sorry but I can't remember their phone number.
They're made by Timbren and fitted from light vehicles right up to massive ones on train carriages.
I have an old Hymer S650 which really used to wallow around, especially on roundabouts.
I had these fitted a few years ago and it made a world of difference at relatively small cost , possibly less than £200 if I remember correctly.
They are fitted in place of the current bump stops on the vehicle and a very simple job to install , although I did have my local garage fit mine.

Can't fit those to an Al-Ko chassis you need semi air which is about £2700.

 

[a900ss]

Sorry, this is going to be long.
Yes we have the same vans. Mine is 12 years old 11 of them owned by us and we love it. We have looked at new vans and hate them. I actually think ours was the last of the properly built motorhomes. Even looked in a newish palace and frankly wasn’t impressed.
So we decided that apart from a few niggles ours couldn’t (for us) be beat.
So as we were heading for 90 days in Scandinavia decided to shell out on what I hoped would be nice to have mods. Full air which unfortunately I couldn’t fit myself and I think is very overpriced. I bought Air Rides when they came out about 30 years ago and we’re about £500 and moved them from van to van as we changed except on the Alco’s, they did their job but don’t even come close to full air. I have now had the full air for nearly 4 months & about 9,000 miles and absolutely love it. Still get the crashing on a pothole but for this three month tour it has been fantastic. No sway and passing Lorrie’s especially on the Swedish roads with frightening steel wire crash barriers there is no sway or sucking.
Our overhang is quite long so I had some grounding wheels but not understanding the Air properly I didn’t raise the back when driving up out of a roadside picnic spot which had a steep slope. Well I ripped one of the tyres off one of the skid wheels but luckily it didn’t damage the chassis. So I quickly re read the Air instructions and found that the raised back feature self returns when you hit 21mph , I thought you couldn’t drive over 21, doh! From then on whenever driving out of an off the road area. Regardless I automatically lift the back first. Likewise I always raised the whole vehicle when going on or off ferries, and there are a lot of ferries in Norway, I think we did about 30. So no problems with what look like small slopes but aren’t. I saw one Motorhome rip the back off driving off a ferry!
Draining waste water? Just press the button and the van leans over like a drunken thing to empty it all. Had one m’homer scratching his head so I had to explain it. I never thought I would drive off-road so much. No problem just press the off-road button and it lifts up until you get on the smooth road and speed up. My other indulgence was uprated alloys from Rogue and A/T tyres which have made very short work of soft sand and wet grass and given us to go down forest tracks. That was a very worthwhile £1,500. I still haven’t had the courage to reduce the tyre pressures yet though.
The self levelling is great almost perfect 90% of the time, a few times it has got confused and given up and left it quite out of level with the back or front still high so just switch levelling off and lift either the back or front to maximum or one up one down then press the self level again and it then gets it right. All this is done before the kettle has boiled.
If your struggling for money then it is a very expensive luxury. If you can afford it then 100% go for it. Our sons have told us that we should die as paupers because they don’t need our money, so we are working on doing just that!
If you buy Full Air on my recommendation then please tell them I should get commission because I still think it is over priced. But I would not be without it now.
If you have any other questions then send me a message and we can swap numbers. My phone won’t call out from here but I can receive calls or we can WhatsApp.
P.s. AirRides are rear air bags or semi air. Only of use on leaf springs. You can have semi air on Alco Chassis but I think you will be losing out on the best features.

Great Feedback. Really appreciate it and if I have more questions, I’ll be in touch. Thanks so much for taking the time to write a thorough response.

 

[gus-lopez]

gus-lopez could you not fit it in UK then just sneak back into Spain

I could do it here.Problem is that everything is noted on the ficha tecnica & is checked at the itv(mot).
If it is there but not on the ficha =you fail
If it should be there & is on the ficha & it isn't there = you fail.
I actually have a pair of air bags at present with a view to using them in place of the original spring assistors without air pipework & just pre aired to around 30psi.

 

[Minxy]

I actually have a pair of air bags at present with a view to using them in place of the original spring assistors without air pipework & just pre aired to around 30psi.

You'd still need a way to put air in them as they do lose some over time.

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[Minxy]

Go over the channel.Roads are far better, Uk roads are shite.

England is bad enough but sheesh, Scotland is dire at times and that's on main roads!

 

[DavidG58]

We fitted full air but rear only to our Mercedes based Hymer, made absolutely no difference to the wallowing around but has been a saviour for lifting the rear for ferries and steep transitions would have it fitted again just for that

 

[BouncyBoatFolk]

I could do it here.Problem is that everything is noted on the ficha tecnica & is checked at the itv(mot).
If it is there but not on the ficha =you fail
If it should be there & is on the ficha & it isn't there = you fail.
I actually have a pair of air bags at present with a view to using them in place of the original spring assistors without air pipework & just pre aired to around 30psi.

Have you looked at "Sumo Springs"? Easy to fit as they just replace the useless standard bump stops, so could be swapped in 1/2 hour for the mot.

 

[Guigsy]

2C instead of 4C, usually the rear only?

Semi air just replaces the bump stops with airbags.

2C full air replaces the whole rear suspension. The leaf springs (or torsion bars if you're on an Alko chassis) come out and get replaced with totally new linkage that compressed air bags as the main suspension element.

4C also replaces the front struts with units that contain air bags instead of coil springs.