Suspension Enhancements to Help with Sagging

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tccchef

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I have found a spring insert product called sumo springs by super springs.com. Units are inserted between spring coils and held in place with zip ties. Claims to stiffen up ride when towing. While not effecting daily driver ride. Has anyone had any luck or advice about this product or any other ideas ?
 

Oldnerdguy

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I have the Sumo Springs. Below is my long winded experience with the Expy towing and my thoughts on the Sumo's. (edit - very long winded)
I have 2017 XLT non EL.
Our truck (Nissan Titan) does a better job when towing, in my opinion due to the solid axle. I believe the IRS on the Expy is the issue. But the Expy has better power for sure and is a better fit for some trips.
Small trailers are not an issue, but the camper is a different story. It is a 26ft Ultra-lite at 5300 lbs dry, so probably at least 6000 loaded plus the people and stuff in the vehicle.

First time I towed the camper (before Sumo) -
The weight distribution hitch fixes the tongue weight /sag and gets it all level. But going down the road the rear of the vehicle was all over the place, felt like the tires were flat. They were not flat as I had already increased the pressure to 40 all the way around for towing. Luckily it was a short trip to a local lake which was a short stretch on the interstate and a few curvy roads. The curvy roads were were not fun at all. The trailer would push the rear side to side in curves especially if braking in a curve. The interstate was terrible due to passing tractor/trailers, as they would move my vehicle everywhere, if they passed me or I passed them. Not sure how to describe it, but it felt like the Expy and camper were mounted with an additional rubber link between them (not a description but hopefully it gives a general idea). After all that, I said I may never tow the camper again with the Expy and was maybe regretting not getting the air-leveling system from the factory even though it had very mixed reviews on durability and good functionality.
Came home and started researching. There were not many if any common systems that were available for the Expy to fix the towing issue. But I found many others with the same feelings on the feelings on the unstable towing. Most of the bad feelings were on vehicles with IRS.
One option I looked was a higher end version of a weight distribution hitch that has shocks and levers and blah blah but they were very pricey with mixed reviews and I already have a good one that works well on the truck and is easily adjusted for the Expy.
The only other option I found was the Sumo spring. So after a lot of reading on many different vehicle forums, the only negatives I found on them were
1) They are a closed cell foam construction and a few people had seen the ends of the piece deteriorate. Not an issue for me. At $160, I can live with this.
2) They raised a few vehicles up and the owners did not like it. Not an issue for me
3) After some years of use, when the Sumo's were removed the spring had collapsed some and the stock ride height was lower than original by a small amount. I rationalized this to not be an issue since this was likely to happen on the stock spring over the years anyway (similar to what someone else described earlier in this post).
So I ordered a set. What the heck, right. Nothing tried, nothing learned.
They came in and I had them on in an hour. I spent more time getting a jack out and finding a good place to jack the vehicle up and finding another place for a jack stand. You do have to get up under the vehicle and do some tugging and pushing, so I felt I should not trust a single jack point.

After Sumo's -
Ride height before was 35 3/8 in the rear and 36 3/8 in the front from the fender wells to the ground.
After was 35 3/4 in the rear and 36 1/4 in the front.
Driving unloaded was a noticeable difference. Better in my opinion. It road a little stiffer but not bad at all. The wife did not notice a change. The big difference was reduced body roll or top heavy feeling, which is a great thing for me.
Went and got the camper from storage and brought it home and wow was it different. Still some movement but very much reduced. We decided to use the Expy on a long trip to a National Park in the TN mountains 4 hours away. It did great on the interstate and on the backroads. Still some movement but very manageable and not concerning to me at all even around tractor / trailers. Still not as solid as the truck, but the power of the Expy is awesome. The factory trailer braking system is awesome.
The Sumo's have been in for about 9 months and will stay there until they fall apart and then I will get a new set. I only got a set for the rear but I think they make the for the front too. I don't have plans to get those.

A few notes -
My brother got an older EL version after we got ours and he said his was not as loose feeling as I described. We wondered if the vehicle length helped or if the EL has heavier springs or if his opinion of loose is different from mine. He tows a lot for work and often at max loads numbers.
The comment that USMC made about the safety of these things - I was very concerned about that also and was worried that I was wasting my money to have a set of these things in the garbage can. I had messed with the old metal spacers before also. They could pop out or move in the spring. They were also metal on metal so the contact point was a rigid fixed point. After looking at the Sumos and driving on them and rechecking them, I think the comparison is not apples to apples. The foam conforms with the spring and collapses some also not like the old metal parts. (This is my opinion, and I 100% do not mean any disrespect to USMC or his thoughts or his comments.)
 

tccchef

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Thanks for your detailed report you backed up my hopes for installing the sumo springs and getting improvements in towing for the expo. I’ll get a set installed soon on the rear and if I like them may also try some for the front end
 

ChapPcemkr

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Thanks for the report Oldnerdguy. I agree with tccchef. I think I will get one for myself as well. 2003 Expy XLT. Does anybody know what size I need to get. Still waiting for a reply from the company. Etrailer.com seems to indicate 168.
 

Fozzy

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Hellwig makes front and rear sway bars that greatly help with body roll on the Expy. I have a 19’ and will be adding the sumos and if that isn’t enough I will at least add the rear bar.


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