DallasSteve
Texas
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I read an article explaining the difference between stabilizer jacks and leveling jacks. I owned a motor home in the past and it had automatic leveling jacks. I understand from the article that stabilizer jacks are not designed to lift a travel trailer, just to stop them from moving side to side. Some of the more expensive travel trailers that I see advertised for sale say they have leveling jacks. Are those actually leveling jacks designed to raise and level the trailer? Are they operated from controls inside the trailer or outside?
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Bobmontana
Montana
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I've only ever seen stabilzer jacks on trailers. I've often questioned a why motorhome jacks are used to lift the vehicle off the ground for leveling. Still, built in jacks for leveling that are capable of lifting would be handy for flat tires but I doubt that occurs often enough to be a real advantage .
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afidel
Cleveland
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Yes, Lippert makes two different leveling systems for travel trailers. The first one looks like stabilizer jacks on steroids. https://store.lci1.com/rv-leveling-systems
The second is for heavier trailers and is an adaptation of their 4 point electric system for lighter fifth wheels (I can't find it on their site but I've seen YouTube videos of partners/influencers who had it installed on their trailer as part of the partnership program)
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DallasSteve
Texas
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I just did a Google search about this and I found this good article listing 7 trailers with auto leveling. These are bumper pull trailers, which is what I want. It appears that auto leveling is a more common feature in 5th wheel trailers.
Trailers With Auto Leveling
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Gdetrailer
PA
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How hard is it to toss a board under the trailer wheels and pull onto the board?
Answer, pretty easy.
How hard to toss boards under two or more wheels of a motor home?
Answer, not as easy as a trailer.
Not saying there isn't any TTs made with built in "levelers", there most likely is some but in reality it would be a very expensive item which has a tendency to fail or break down at the worst possible moment when you need it to work.
They do make levels with markings in 1 inch increments that takes most of the guess work out of leveling a trailer.
![[image]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/8197BjZ0D1L._AC_SL1500_.jpg)
When you get to your site, check the side to side level before unhitching, place your wood or plastic leveling blocks in front or behind the trailer wheels then pull on to the blocks. Now you have side to side done.
Place your wheel chocks then unhitch.
With trailer unhitched lift or lower tongue until you achieve front to back level.
Now run stabilizers down.
Done.
Motor homes leveling can get pretty complex and built in levelers make the job of leveling a lot easier.
Travel trailers, not as difficult to level since you are dealing with wheels in same close space making it a much simpler task without automation.
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LMHS
NM
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I was always given to understand that one really shouldn't lift any camper/motorhome off the ground and not have the tires supported. I know that it caused problems with the suspension on an Eagle bus to have it's tires unsupported.
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DallasSteve
Texas
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Gdetrailer
Thanks for those tips. Maybe that's the better solution. Are the stabilizers/tongue lift usually manual? Can I use something like an electric screwdriver?
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DallasSteve
Texas
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LMHS wrote:I was always given to understand that one really shouldn't lift any camper/motorhome off the ground and not have the tires supported. I know that it caused problems with the suspension on an Eagle bus to have it's tires unsupported.
I never tried to lift the tires of my motorhome off the ground, for that reason, but most of the time I was able to get a good leveling with the wheels on the ground. When I couldn't get fully level we were able to tolerate it for a day or two in that park.
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spoon059
Just north of D.C.
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Yes, I've got friends with a newer trailer and leveling jacks. Pretty cool, seems much more stable than just leveling jacks.
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Pbutler97
Midwest
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If you know what you're looking at, and crawl under most travel trailers that were built in the last 10 years or so and are on a Lippert frame, you might have second thoughts before you jack it up to change a tire let alone jacking the entire thing up off the ground to level it.
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