Superspring Recomendations for 5th Wheel

I’m purchasing a fifth wheel with a loaded pin weight of about 1500lbs. I contacted Superspring and an advisor recommended the blue ones. I’ve had the blue ones on a pervious truck and they worked well but I wasn’t carrying as much weight. Will the blue be enough or should I consider the black or even yellow? I thought about airbags but just don’t want to deal will possible air leaks.

Please, do not respond with I’m over payload.

 

You might need the polka dot and tiger stripe ones since you'll be over pay... oh wait, nvm.

 

Very helpful, thanks.

 

Well the higher the density of those, they more they impact unloaded ride. So much of that could depend on how much you ride unloaded vs loaded/towing and what you will put up with.

In the case of a 5th wheel at this weight and a tundra, Im not sure it will matter much which color you choose. Id guess they suggest the blue because the unloaded ride will degrade so much moving to black or yellow, which are probably meant to be used on HD trucks.

 

Yes you’re right in that the advisor was thinking about the unloaded ride quality. I was hoping someone would chime in who used the black supersprings and how the ride was.

 

I don’t have any experience with Sumo Springs but have looked in to them as many folks have. If I were to opine, I would probably go with the black springs in your case. From their website, they list the black ones has having 1500 lbs of load capacity at 50% compression, but not to compress them more than 65%. I think that the blues are only supporting 300 lbs or so at 3 inches of compression. I typically have a significant load in the bed of my truck and the stock spring isn’t totally collapsed on to the stops at that weight, but it is relying pretty heavily on the overload.

Not trying to steer you away from Sumos, but if your hang up on airbags is avoiding leaks, I’ve not had a single leak in 120k miles on my bags. I installed them in the driveway. But I do understand the desire for something simple and reliable.

IME, anything you do to add capacity to the rear spring pack is going to change the ride a little; some more than others. In the case of airbags or Sumos, both with increase jounce and limit uptravel to some degree. I do appreciate the adjustability of airbags and valued it higher than simplicity. I found them to be extremely reliable as well.

I’m interested to see if anybody is running the black Sumo’s and who also tow or haul heavy.

 

Thank you for the information, very informative. What air bags are you running on your truck? If I do go Superspring your right in that the blue may compress to a lower level than I like.
I use to have a 2020 Tundra SR5 Sport and now have a 2016 Tundra Off Road (both 4X4 DCs). I haul about 1200lbs of stove pellets in the winter and the 2016 squats very little compared to what the 2020 did. The Tundra Sport squatted bad enough pulling my TT (600lb tongue weight) and with the stove pellets that I purchased a blue set of Supersprings. The Off Road didn’t require any help. Might explain why the payload decal on the door was 300lbs higher than the Sport.

 

Ya, that makes sense. My truck is essential the same truck - '13 DC TRD OR 4x4. I bought it to haul and tow and it has seen some loads... Bone stock and completely empty, I picked up a load of river rock with it one day; the guy running the loader started with a 1/4 bucket and it barely moved. So he grabbed another 1/4 bucket and it moved a little. So he grabbed a 1/2 bucket and asked if I wanted to keep going till it squatted. I said sure, why not. He ended up dumping the rest of the bucket in and it wasn't on the stops. Close - but no on the bumps. The operator was impressed. I didn't know either way, TBH, but thought it was pretty stout. I looked it up later and a yard of river rock is around 2600 lbs.. Oops. Just drove around the corner to get home.

Anyways, I went with Firestone Ride-Rite airbags. They are a 6" double convoluted bag without internal jounce, so they require 5 psi in the bags when empty. I feel the their kit is simpler - in parts and install - and takes up less space, so the bag compresses less at stock height. I could be wrong about that, but it sure looks that way to me. I did have one of the bags start to fail earlier this year; the wire rope around the convolutes corroded and broke (we get winter here; maybe not quite like you are used to, but plenty of cold and snow and wintery roads), but the bag remained intact and continued to hold air until I replaced it. I contacted Firestone to ask for a part number and where I could possibly purchase a new single bag, noting the failure. After a few quick email exchanges, they sent me a new bag, no hassle. A+ customer service, IMO. They were surprised to see the bag fail, honestly. The new bags have maybe 5k miles on the, so that 120k miles was on the original bags.

For me, the adjustability was key. I'm almost never unloaded, but I do haul and tow a wide variety of loads and trailers. So the bags have been the best option for me. A while back, I was searched and searched for new leaf springs or different setup, thinking I might be missing out on a better setup. I was THIS close to purchasing a custom Alcan pack, or a Dobinson pack, or Deavers, etc, etc, etc. But every time I called to speak with someone about my use case, they all told me to keep the bags for heavy loads and towing or I'd ruin their fancy heavy duty springs. I scratched my head that for a while but decided the bags are right for me. I've actually got some 7" bags sitting in the tool chest and am thinking of pulling the overload to make more of air ride setup...

 

I’ll start looking into the Firestone bags.

 

I live in a rural area so no scales to weight the set up. I’m not sure if it would be wise to post the numbers even if I had access to scales. It always turns into a sh!t show.