Auto Leveling Jacks

philv · 06-29-2015, 10:01 AM

Anyone have problems with auto leveling jacks. The other day while leveling it took my front wheels off the ground about 6 inches. Took back wheels off the ground just a little. Tried to lower RV and two jacks bent and wont go back in. Was on fairly level ground.

??

Duckogram · 06-29-2015, 10:09 AM

Not that problem. Sounds like the control box went haywire. Are you stuck?

conceptumator · 06-29-2015, 10:10 AM

Uh oh! Sounds like maybe a limit switch problem? Take a look at the jacks and see if you can see the limit switches on each leg. Possibly some road debris damaged one. Mine lifts the front wheels off the ground (sits in my driveway like that when not in use) but the rear should always be on the ground. If all of your wheels came off the ground something is definitely wrong. The only way I can think that might happen (other than malfunction) is if the rear of your RV is sitting lower than the front and had to be raised to level the unit. If that's the case, turn the RV around to be sure the front end is lower than the rear. It should lower all the jacks one at a time until they make contact with the ground, then raise the lowest end of the RV up until level one end. After that, it levels side to side. It usually does both these operations in steps to keep from twisting the frame. Good luck with it.

Big Dog 1 · 06-29-2015, 12:25 PM

Same thing happened to me Saturday and I had to call Coach net. They walked me through resetting it. But in my case it was pilot error. Fortunately I didn't bend anything in the process but here is what I learned: This system is extremely fussy and slow. Once you press the auto jack button you have to let it go even though it seems to take forever. What I did was press it a second time thinking something was wrong and confused the thing, so I'm told. Three went down one went half way down and the front end was completely off the ground on a very slight incline no more than 10 degrees. After a lot of button pushing and back and forth with the Coach Net tech on the phone he had me take remove the auto level jack panel on the left arm rest. It's just a small box installed with four phillips screws..nothing fancy. There is nothing underneath just empty space. Anyway, this is the brains of the whole operation and there is a simple 12 volt plug connecting it. Just unplug it, wait one minute and plug it back in. It resets the brain. Problem solved. Hope this helps.

Meathouse · 06-29-2015, 02:41 PM

Back around xmas.....whole rig was lifted off the ground in my driveway and wouldn't come down. Ended up manually retracting the levelers, disconnecting the system and taking it in to the dealer. Was told different things by different people but they got it fixed.

Was on a trip a month ago and hit 'auto' and the front levelers lifted the rig off the ground again and wouldn't go down. Had to reset the breaker (on wall above coach batteries in first bay) and they lowered. I just used the manual leveling button after that and got it close.

I'm not a fan of the 'Auto' button on the levelers so I will only use the 'Manual' button from now on. I don't need the rig to be perfectly level and as such would rather just do it myself than have the system mess up again and leave the rig in the air with no way of bringing it down while in a site.

Brewster McFrisk · 06-29-2015, 04:07 PM

I too never use the auto leveling, always manual as we found it lifts the RV unnecessarily to high off the ground.

Duckogram · 06-29-2015, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brewster McFrisk

I too never use the auto leveling, always manual as we found it lifts the RV unnecessarily to high off the ground.

X3

philv · 06-29-2015, 07:30 PM

I had to have a mechanic come out through Travel Assist. Two of the jacks were bent. He took the two Jacks off of the RV. Charged me $200.00 . I was able to drive the RV to the dealership for repair. They said it will probably take two weeks for the jacks to arrive. I have only put about 750 miles on this new RV. Most of them are driving to dealership for repairs.

wayne and sherry · 06-29-2015, 11:08 PM

I also only use my jacks in manual mode. I have had my RV in a perfect level condition and placed the old fashion level bubbles in a few places in the RV. Once l pull into where we are going to stay l just look at my bubbles and manually use the jacks to level. What ever bubble is the farthest off center is leveled 1st wether that's front to back or side to side, the one that reads the farthest from center is leveled 1st, then the next one is brought to level. It's been working great that way, and l always place blocks (2x10's) under my jack pads 1st thing. And I keep my motor running during this process with the E-brake set and my foot on the break peddle. Once my leveling process is level, I turn off the system, turn off the motor and then slowly take my foot off the break peddle using all my spider senses to try to detect any thing that shouldn't be happening, movement, anything that don't seem right.
One other side note, as I'm pulling into a spot, I'm pulling in very very slowly, my wife is watching the bubbles and giving me verbal reports as to what spots are the closest reading to level. That is where we will stop and start the process.

JeNNY (2015 FR3 / 30DS)
2000 Jeep TJ Moab Rock Crawler
2013 Jeep JK
USS Seattle (AOE-3) 84-88 Wayne
US Army 06-15 Sherry

bigduke1956 · 06-30-2015, 09:17 AM

Hello All, sure wish a FR rep would monitor these forums, maybe they do and are hesitant to respond or do so as another RV'er; I have only 1 trip under belt, but have setup RV nearly everyday locally, drive way or local casino, I use the auto level 100%, this topic's discussion gives me pause, the one time we did go to a state park, the RV front tires were off the ground by 2-3 inches, there was a noticeable 'feeling' as I walked about the RV, my Wife (much smaller than me) did not notice; I was concerned if really high winds came thru (we did have a storm, just rain, no big wind) how much that would affect the RV, I told my Wife, if wind started blowing branches around, I was going to pull up the jacks, but we did not have to.

How much wind have you experienced? What are measures (counter) you can take? Pull jacks? Pull in slides? Any advice for a newbie is appreciated, thanks

conceptumator · 06-30-2015, 09:25 AM

bigduke1956: I, too, always use the auto level and did so with our previous MH for the 5 years we had it. Never had a problem. In the driveway, my front wheels are always off the ground without an issue. Not been through a hurricane with it like that (and would most likely lower it for that) but high winds and thunderstorms are a daily event here in Orlando during the rainy season (June through November). I don't think I've ever had the wheels off the ground, though, when in a campground. What you can do in that case is raise the front a little higher manually and block under the tires, then lower it manually on to the blocks. That should help a lot with the sway you're feeling.

Lexi2007 · 06-30-2015, 04:10 PM

Last weekend, the MH [not an FR 3] 2 spaces over from us had it's front wheels on blocks and blocks under all four jacks. The concrete spaces had a bit of a high spot in the middle and that seemed like a good idea to me. How would you go about deploying blocks under the tires, do them first and then deploy the blocks under the jacks?

conceptumator · 06-30-2015, 05:21 PM

I've never had to do it, but the folks I've seen built blocks they could drive the front wheels up on to, got it as level as they could that way, then just lowered the jacks for stability, not leveling. Your other choice would be to use the jacks to raise the front end higher than needed, put the blocks under, then lower the jacks a bit. In all cases, the rear needs to stay on the ground as they act as your brakes.

MrBill16 · 07-01-2015, 09:45 AM

Just came back from a trip to Cape Cod. I auto leveled the 2016 FR3 30DS and was unable to retract the jacks. Called Coach-net and the man walked me through a reset of the system and 12v breaker. The indicator panel had all the status lights flashing and was unresponsive. He told me to hold down the 4 arrow buttons for at least 15 seconds. This cleared the panel. It still wouldn't retract. As someone wrote above, the fix was to reset the breaker near the house batteries. Kudos to Coach-net.

Purchased FR3 new on May 11th. So far has spent more time in the dealer for repairs than on the road. Goes back in July 7th for 9 new problems, the water leaking in the coach the most worrisome.

xman123 · 07-01-2015, 09:58 AM

i also had issue first time out with jacks. Talked with a dealer tech for an hr trying every thing he could think of. Jacks wouldnt go back up and system was blinking. Left MH there and went home in wifes car. looked up on internet the problem and found video on how to manually bring jacks back up and how to reset the system..By pushing all four directional buttons at the same time. it reset the system and jacks came back up np

jbutch · 07-01-2015, 11:10 AM

We had a situation where the leveling jacks wouldn't retract at a campsite we discovered a red circuit breaker button just above the batteries in the battery compartment when reset the Jacks started working again.

There is no mention of this red circuit breaker button anywhere in the documentation that I have regarding the leveling jacks.

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WVFR3 · 07-03-2015, 07:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbutch

We had a situation where the leveling jacks wouldn't retract at a campsite we discovered a red circuit breaker button just above the batteries in the battery compartment when reset the Jacks started working again.

There is no mention of this red circuit breaker button anywhere in the documentation that I have regarding the leveling jacks.

Sent from my iPhone using Forest River Forums

X2 Thank you for posting. This is exactly what happened to me and if I hadn't seen this post I too would have been stuck at the CG. Was able to reset an got leveled. Was using auto, but went manual. Thanks again.

zippyzrx · 07-05-2015, 06:54 PM

I just press the auto level button. Only problem ive had was on uneven terrain. Learned a valuable lesson....dont use the jacks unless its pretty much level...and good ground. Beyond that theyve worked great.

Ddubya · 07-05-2015, 10:10 PM

I carry a few 4 inch blocks and check my side to side and front to back levels before attempting to auto level. By looking at the levels I can determine which jacks need the blocks. By doing this I have been able to eliminate the issue of raising the wheels off the ground.
There have been a couple of occasions when I had to manually control the level sequence however.

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Gilm2113 · 07-05-2015, 10:52 PM

I had an issue on a trip this summer where mine would not retract. The indicator lights showed "all up" but they were all down! Nothing I did would correct the problem and unfortunately it was a Sunday morning. I called Bigfoot directly and got their 24/7 technical assistance. One of three names and cell phone numbers were provided and the one I called was extremely helpful. He helped me troubleshoot the system and solve the problem. For me one of the main wire harness plugs that goes into the back of the unit had come out ever so slightly but it was enough to lock up the system. I highly recommend their service group and Bigfoots 24/7 hotline.

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