Do I really need a air ride trailer?

Some do require air-ride. But I would get one anyway, ride a lot smoother and there is less risk for cargo damage. The price difference isnt very significant. The other thing is some customers want a trailer less than ten years old.

 

Newer spring rides are pretty smooth. Sorry PP, our whole fleet of trailers is going to be spring ride. Most of the major fleets are going spring ride. Cuts down on the maintenance costs and no difference in resale price. For fleets it makes since. If you think about it, when you are at a 3-to-1 trailer ratio you have a trailer sitting around a lot on MT air bags. That produces more damage than the wear of having them always running. So fleets see a lot more maintenance.

With all that said, If I was an independent I would get an air ride.

 

keep in mind, a heavily loaded spring ride may become illigal if loaded heavy on the trailer axles. Unlike and air ride, it does not auto adjust height. Your truck's air ride will automatically keep the king pin height correct, but the trailer axle will sag under 34,000 pounds. Since the kingpin isnt on the front, its not uncommon to end up with the front being 13'7 or 8. I messured this several times on link america spring ride trailers and technicaly its illigal to run over 13'6 without permits. The air rid trailer keep rear at correct height and front down where it is supposed to be.

 

Sounds like your issue is with overinflated tractor airbags, not spring ride trailers.

 

I've said this before on here.

IMO, air-ride is over-hyped and somewhat misunderstood. Think about this, most trucks are spring-ride on the steer axle and the few that are air ride drivers give mixed reports about improved ride, why ? The steer axle of a truck usually stays within a 10,000 - 12,000 lb load.

The advantage of air bags isn't a smoother ride, it is that they adjust from a 6k load to a 20k load. With a spring all you can do is design it to handle max load and when loaded it should ride like a Cadillac. When it's empty it's gonna bump and jump a little, but there's no load on so that bumping and jumping is really not likely to cause damage to the vehicle. A light load of eggs or something, you may have a problem !

 

We have a spare grain trailer that is spring ride. I can't notice the difference in ride unless its empty. The disadvantage to a spring ride is you can't have air gauges on them.

 

yea those spring ride trailers squat under load, LOL!! and they ride like crap compared to a air ride, pull one all the time.

 

As long as you don't mind being bounced around or kicked like a mule, never need to worry about being close to max gvw, or mind carefully inspecting those spring packs for missing or broken leaves or center bolts every pre-trip (DOT guys love to catch you with any of these) , go for it.