Al-Ko expands coil suspension range

Al-Ko might have been late into the mushrooming caravan and trailer coil spring trailing arm suspension market with its Enduro system launched last September, but the Australian entity of the company now controlled internationally by Dexter of the USA is rapidly making up for lost time.

At the upcoming Victorian Caravan, Camping  & Touring Supershow at Melbourne’s Showgrounds from February 24-29, Al-Ko will unveil its new ‘Enduro light’.

Badged ‘Enduro Cross Country’, the new Al-Ko coil spring suspension is designed primarily for on-road caravan applications. It’s a direct market response to the rapid market inroads being made by Queensland’s Vehicle Components with its CRS (Country Road Suspension) introduced in 2013.

Effectively a simplified, light weight version of Al-Ko’s full-blown Enduro trailing arm off-road suspension, Enduro Cross Country is claimed to be “a light weight version designed for comfort, control and durability on bitumen and graded dirt roads. It is also suitable for use on corrugated roads for short distances”.

Australian designed, manufactured and tested, the new suspension will be available for both single vans up to 2300kg ATM and tandem vans up to 3300kg ATM.

Al-Ko Australia boss, Sven Mannfolk said the impetus to develop the new ‘Enduro Light’ stemmed from demand from the caravan industry and chassis manufacturers.

“Since releasing our Enduro Suspension for extreme off-road conditions, we have had a fantastic response from both caravan owners and manufacturers who had been waiting for a high quality solution from Al-Ko”, he said.

“The requirement, which we have met with Enduro Cross Country, was for a lighter weight option suitable for bitumen and graded dirt road conditions.”

Mannfolk said a key feature of both Al-Ko Enduro suspension systems is the integration of Al-Ko shock absorbers designed and engineered in Australia, but made by Al-Ko in Spain.

According to Al-Ko, which is understood to have benchmarked Vehicle Components’ CRS when developing Enduro Cross Country, “test results show little to no bush deformation or wear, significantly less dampening degeneration, superior heat dissipation and a failure point 40 degrees higher than that of competitor products tested”.

Al-Ko’s expansion of its coil spring suspension range has also been driven by Jayco, which has changed the market definition of ‘normal’ with its locally-developed JTECH independent trailing arm coil spring suspension launched two years ago.

Initially offered only on Silverline caravans, Outback-optioned Starcraft and Expanda caravans and pop-tops and Jayco camper trailers, JTECH is now available on all towed Jayco RV models with the exception of non-Outback camper trailers.

As a result thousands of Jayco RV trailers now roll out of the Dandenong factory each year with the optional, independent coil suspension.