Buying our first vac truck. Looking for something 4-5k gallon. Found a truck that pretty much fits the bill, but has air ride. My gut says that air ride is bad news. I would think that it would be way more prone to roll overs, especially on the twisty turns roads we have here in vt. Thoughts? Also how many hours is a lot for the isx or dd15 found in heavy spec straight truck?
Does it have an air leveling valve for each side? The local chip trailers run a separate valve on each side with big bore air lines, bloody things handle like sports cars.
I drove for years propane trucks on air ride and none of them felt like they were going to roll over Propane is lighter than water but the tanks are pretty tall. All trucks had one leveling valve with 1/4" lines to the bags, so the air did not really have time to run from one side to the other before you were out of the corner and on the level again. Sometimes while sitting side hill it would take on a funny angle but as soon as you drove it went back to normal.
Unless it's one of the KW 8 bag systems I wouldn't really worry about it. If you're going fast enough to worry about rolling a truck over then I'd say you're going too fast.
I ran a Vac truck/septic truck for 4-5 years with air ride suspension, and a 3000gal product tank and another 500gal for fresh water. That was probably 15 years ago now, and I know the leveling systems are much better...as mentioned with large air lines and separate tanks for almost instant adjustment in air bag load/unload situations. My truck was an old Chevron fuel truck, body job with tandem axles.....that thing would clunk and sway something fierce....it was a full time job just to keep it steering straight down the road....especially with 1/2 loads. But once you learned how the truck performed it was not that bad.....just had to be mindful of your load and the road conditions.
Thanks for the insight. I guess I was making a mountain out of a mole hill. Turns outbreeding afore mentioned truck isn't going to work as we need a truck with a hoist