Jayco goes independent

After 38 years of fitting conservative beam axles and leaf spring suspension to its RVs, Jayco is now rolling out its own independent trailing arm coil spring suspension across its full range of camper trailers, pop-tops and caravans ranges.

From production start-up in 2014, all new top-of-the-range Silverline caravans and all Jaycos ordered with the optional Outback pack will get the new JTECH suspension, which has been engineered in house by the team now under R&D Manager Joel Stoddart.

Although Stoddart only joined Jayco from Holden Special Vehicles last year after the basic design was complete, he ticked the system off for volume production following exhaustive endurance testing.

Jayco says its R&D team completed a record 40,000km of destruction testing at the Australian Automotive Research Centre owned by Lindsay Fox at Anglesea, Victoria and on second-class roads using full-size caravans and pop-tops.

The suspension reportedly outlasted other chassis and body components in most cases and two large 4WD tow vehicles broke in the process!

A key design requirement of the new JTECH suspension was that it had fit within the confines of existing Jayco chassis and wheel boxes to save extensive and expensive re-tooling.

This led to the design of a bespoke sub frame-based system, rather than the adaption of the heavy Simplicity suspension previously offered as an option by Jayco, or the alternative of adapting one of the current leading-edge off-road systems such as Vehicle Components’ Cruisemaster.

The JTECH suspension components are manufactured to Jayco specifications by outside suppliers. The sub frames and their component parts are then assembled at Jayco’s Dandenong South, Victoria HQ and dropped between the rails of upturned chassis before being fitted on the chassis.

Features of the suspension are the single, large-diameter shock absorber and coil springs designed specifically for Jayco by Pedders and the Aeon rubber springs fitted inside each coil spring to achieve a progressive rate when the suspension is compressed.

The system also incorporates toe adjustment for wheel alignment.

The independent system adds marginally to the weight of most Jaycos to which it is fitted, with a small cost increase built into revised 2014 pricing.

The benefit to users is a smoother, more compliant ride on most surfaces, particularly corrugations and greatly increased ground clearance on Outback models.

Jayco expects that JTECH will also be available optionally on most of its on-road pop-tops and caravans during 2014.

Jayco’s surprisingly under-publicised move to IS has generally been welcomed by other Australian suspension suppliers.

Deon Van Deventer, the Principal Engineer of Vehicle Components, which markets the Cruisemaster suspension, said Jayco’s move was welcome – particularly as Australia’s largest RV maker has no plans to supply rivals in the industry.

He believes it will put pressure on the myriad of smaller custom builders currently fitting conventional leaf spring and beam axle suspension systems to ‘keep up’.

“We are expecting the phone to start ringing!” Van Deventer said.