Landing gear

yes I grease the 5th wheel before I hook to the trailer. Whether it was my own trailer which I only unhooked from maybe once or twice a week, I would grease it before hooking back up or doing drop and hook, I always grease before hooking to a trailer yes.

The third video you posted, wow that guy dumped that loaded trailer hard on the ground without dumping his airbags first. In his defense maybe his truck doesn't have that feature but dang.

I hate it when they are dropped low like that, scrapes off all the grease. So what I would do is back under, pick up the trailer a little with the 5th wheel, get out and lower the landing gear just til it touches, then pull forward and put on some grease then back under airbags dumped, then raise the air bags at the perfect time and click in having max grease where it is most needed. Takes an extra couple minutes but my 5th wheel has 800,000 miles on never been worked on.

 

This was the result of a hit and run. Drivers were dropping and hooking for a swap when another driver attempting to park next to trailer bumped it pretty hard and pushed it over on collapsed landing gear crushing the reefer fuel tank and causing the loss of the frozen load. 2 wreckers to lift it at $500 an hour each plus figure couple hundred grand for the load and severly damaged trailer and hazmat cleanup with the fire department. Driver who hit trailer jumped out looked around then jumped back in his truck and split. Plenty of eye witnesses and folks with dashcams running across the way along with others holding their cell phones recording this guy running off.

 

I know this topic is old but i will reply anyways. I have been experiencing the same issues at my job. Drivers are leaving too much space between landing gear and the ground. I have to crank the landing gear up every time i attempt to hook. In my opinion the truck should never feel like its being forced under the truck. Obviously the relay driver left that "1 inch space" rule between the landing gear and the ground in some cases after i hook up there is 3 plus inches. It makes since to leave space if you know for a fact the guy picking up the trailer has a lower fifth wheel height or maybe running lower profile tires or maybe even those special duty trucks that run extra small tires for clearance reasons. Ive seen Browns Trucking with those trucks. Anyways at my company we run all the same trucks and there is no reason to leave any space i think its a habit more or less. When i lower landing gear i lower it all the way to the ground if empty. When loaded i lower all the way down then crank up until i hear the airbags hiss. Works fine every time. We drop in gravel too so if you add the compression of the gravel and dirt to the 1 inch its more like 2 to 3 inches. Any thoughts?