We’ve all seen trucks crawling down the road with their rear bumpers hovering inches above the pavement, saddled down with a heavy load. Not only is it embarrassing for the driver of the truck, it’s also dangerous.
When a vehicle is overloaded, its weight distribution shifts rearward. Steering becomes more floaty and less responsive because the “contact patch” of the front tires is reduced as a result of the proportionally reduced weight distribution over the front axle.
Conversely, an excessively overloaded rear axle can cause problems as well. The vehicle will become more prone to “fishtailing” in slippery conditions, and can even be the cause of a vehicle overturning.
The conventional approach to increasing the load-carrying capacity of a truck or SUV has been to increase the stiffness of the rear leaf springs. This does increase the capacity, but at the expense of ride quality. If you’ve been lucky enough to ever spend some time riding in a commercial-duty truck, you can probably attest to the punishing ride. The engineers at Roadmaster Active Suspension came up with a solution that is deceptively simple in principle, but works wonders to improve vehicle stability under load.
Since its North American introduction in 1997, Roadmaster has sold over one million kits. Usually requiring less than an hour to install, the Active Suspension System is ideal for any customers who tow or haul on a routine basis.
“Once in place, the system stores, dissipates, and introduces energy to the system,” said Clive Schewitz, president of
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Roadmaster Active Suspension, Inc., explaining the principle behind the system and the advantages of it being a purely mechanical system (as opposed to a hydraulic or pneumatic one). “We designed the system to be simple in operation, but extremely effective. The action of the Roadmaster is instant, working in exact counter-proportion to the force applied, either by a cargo load, or the suspension load under cornering.”
Though leaf spring suspension systems have traditionally been regarded as utilitarian designs, Schewitz said the Roadmaster’s Active Suspension System brings the performance of leaf springs up to par. “Roadmaster’s patented design revolutionizes the performance of rear leaf spring suspension,” he continued. “This system increases a vehicle’s load- carrying ability by boosting the capacity of stock rear leaf springs (like helper springs), without stiffening the ride. It eliminates bottoming out, just like an air system, but our system never needs adjustment. With a load or without one, Roadmaster’s Active Suspension reduces sway and roll just like an anti-sway bar, and eliminates axle wrap and wheel hop like traction bars would. Customers get all of this in just one product.”
Applications are available for almost any ½ to 1-ton light-duty truck or SUV with rear leaf springs, as well as compact pickups and minivans.
Naturally, the key to selling any product is being able to market its features and benefits, and Roadmaster makes sure that its dealers are well equipped in this area. |
