List of JTech Suspension Issues (Expert Guide)

 In this brief article we are going to discuss the different JTech Suspension problems, what the causes are, and Troubleshooting Tips.

What are the most common  JTech suspension issues? 

The most common JTech suspension issues are:

• Coil Spring Breakage
• Control Arm Bushing Failure
• Tyre Scrubbing
• Camber Out of Spec
• Body scrapes on exiting ramps

JTech Suspension Set-up

Jayco is a manufacturer of premium caravan and camper trailers in Australia. The suspension for the caravan’s manufactured in JTech offers a variety of Caravans and suspension set-ups to suit different Caravan Manufacturer requirements. A vast majority of the suspensions for Caravans comes from JTech.

JTech offers 2 kinds of Suspension Set-ups:

• JTech Leaf Spring Beam-Axle Suspension system
• JTech Independent arm Coil Spring suspension system

JTech Leaf Spring Beam-Axle Suspension system

Jtech Independent arm Coil Spring suspension system

Coil Spring Breakage

• Steel suspension springs come with a finite life and hence break at some point, depending on how hard they are used
• In a suspension that is Off-road oriented, it is expected to see coil spring breakages more often than not

Leaf Spring Hanger Breakage

• Leaf Spring hangers broken at low mileage
• The probable cause could be overload or severe off-road impact

Control Arm Bushing failure

• In all of the JTech models, the Control arms are attached to the chassis via rubber bushings
• Among all suspension elements, the Rubber bushings are the most prone to failure
• The bushings provide isolation from vibrations, but the trade-off is that in the process of dissipating all this energy, the bushes crack and start to disintegrate
• Rubber elements are also affected by weather, mud, water, salt etc. 

Tyre Scrubbing

• Uneven Tyre wear on the wheels is the common symptom of tyre scrubbing
• The reason this happens is due to the tires being out of their alignment 
• The best way to deal with it is to get the alignment done at a place that does alignment for Trucks. Car and Van alignment shops might not be able to do a good job.
• If an alignment did not solve the issue, then it might be the case that the axles have bent. 
• In order to check axle bend, you can use a straight edge plank or a sheet-metal channel of roughly 1-2 mtr and place it over the edges of both the tyres on the sidewall.
• Ideally, there must be no gap between the tires and the plank. If there is a gap, then it means that there is an issue with either of the axles
• Also check the center distance between the axles on both sides. Use the in-built adjustment to align the axles back to the manufacturer recommendations.

Camber Setting out of Spec

• Happens usually in the 2015 Journey Outback Caravan
• During wheel alignment it sometimes turns out Camber setting is too much out of spec, upto 3/16 inch outside
• This cannot be corrected by suspension adjustment. Hence the Wishbone must be inspected thoroughly
• It seems that some of the Wishbones come with a manufacturing defect where the wishbone-to- chassis mounting center-line and the wishbone-to-wheel hub center line are not parallel due a manufacturing part quality issue.

Body Scraping against minor Bumps

• 2016 Leafspring suspension vehicles scrape when exiting any ramp like a Petrol Station or steep driveway
• The issue is with the lack of ground clearance.
• Low ground clearance is due to the low ride height of the leaf spring suspension
• The low ride height is an aftereffect of Leaf Spring Load vs. Spring Camber specification of the leaf spring
• To improve ride height there are only 2 ways  out:
  • Get an aftermarket Modified Leaf Spring that has more camber at the given trailer fully loaded condition
  • Instead of an ‘OverSlung’ axle, Re-fit the axle to be 

Shock Absorber Failure

• In off-road situations, the shock absorbers have to work more in order to dissipate the energy coming from road undulations. In this process, the shock absorbers convert this energy to heat energy. 
• The energy dissipation process slowly induces wear in the shock absorber internal parts like the piston and the rod seal and they tend to gradually wear.
• Shocks absorbers in Off-road situations tend to wear faster than those used in On-road conditions. The CRS2, however, is an exception, since it has 4 shock absorbers that do the job of 2.
• After the control arm bushings, the next suspension element that is prone to failure would be the shock absorber

Conclusion

In this brief article we have discussed the different JTech Suspension problems, what the causes are, and Troubleshooting Tips.