Alko suspension

Hi,
I have it on my off road caravan never had any problems!

Don't bother with the shocker option there rubbish!

I used to be the storeman for al-ko in sydney. From my experience of working for the company for 3 years is such.....They are a good axle which does the job asked of it. There simple design means fewer failures BUT and here is the BIG BUT.....Should it fail somewhere remote you are stuffed as far as I know no one else can fix them. It has been about 7 years since I left them and I sincerly hope they have improved their turn around time since then, but when I was there I would regulary be chasing axles from melboure for very frustrated customers who had been waiting weeks for their axle to be fixed. Again things may have changed since then but at the time all repairs were sent to melbourne.

Dont quote me as this is my opinion from my time there. Please do the reserch and make an informed decision

Cheers Stefan

I have the suspension on our camper trailer and it's great, except for the shocks, which when we did our last trip to cape york and back (about 5 weeks ago) the shocks were nothing left of the guts. They were totally stuffed.
do a search on alko in the forum & have a read it there. about 2 pages on alko.

I have Alko suspension on my off road camper/tent trailer. Has had a pounding as we bought the trailer for exactly that. i.e Offroad use. No complaints and no probs.

I do recognise that they are not a "repair in the field type of suspension", however balanced against that is that they are so simple and rugged that outside of tearing the stub axle off or something equally catastrophic you will always limp home or into civilisation.

The little anecdotal evidence I have had tdate indicates that there is no longer any inordinate delays in replacement.

Ian

Have a look at caravanersforum@groups.msn.com.
Long discussion last week on the Alko and various other van suspension
systems.
Mike B

I have ALKO suspension on my single axle Phoenix and it has proved to be a very smooth system, it is necessary ( as it is with most vans) that you need to make sure that weight distribution left to right is close to even.
I had a wear problem on the outside of a left hand tyre and with a relocation of some liquid refreshment and the annex this problem disappeared.
(I drank the beer and left the annex at home!!!!)

eerfree

i have a home made 3.5 tonne 5th wheeler with two alko axles. done about 35000kms behind an f250. not off road, but heaps of gravel including birdsville track. fantastic so far. no signs of odd tyre wear. very smooth ride - i have sat in the van whilst it was driven over gravel roads and was suitably impressed.

Like most BIG companies they "think" they have the market wrapped up. I've been planning the replacement of our standard 1450 KG rated Alko suspension on our Jayco caravan for a while now. One thing I found from Alko is everything they have is under rated (weight/payload wise) and more expensive than comparable products out there from other suppliers.

I've contacted several trailer axle/suspension manufacturers in Brisbane that have cheaper, higher rated axles and other components, sometimes half the price of Alko. I don't assume their product is of a lesser quality either, as some have been in the business for many successful years.

The first thing I will replace is the Alko drop axle with a straight one of higher capacity.

Have a look around.