Yellow Pages My RV leveling jacks will not work
First, is it a leveling system or a stabilizer system?
They can look alike. Look at the feet on the jacks. If the feet are 6 inches across or bigger, it is a leveling system. If the feet are small, about 4 inches by 4 inches, those are stabilizers. Stabilizers only go down and touch the ground. They are never meant to lift the RV. Stabilizers are usually found on bumper pull trailers, and on some fifth wheels.
Next, is it electric or hydraulic?
Look at a jack leg. If hoses go to it, the system is hydraulic. If wires go to it, the system is electric. Do not go by the touchpad. Some touchpads say "electronic leveling" on the front even when the system is hydraulic. Most motorhome systems are hydraulic.
Check your batteries first. Every leveling system needs good ones.
A weak or bad battery is behind a lot of leveling problems, and it can fool you.
Leveling takes a lot of power, and the biggest pull comes right at the end, when the jacks reach the top.
On a hydraulic system, the pump keeps pushing for a moment after the jacks are all the way up and cannot move any farther. For that moment the pump motor can pull upwards of 140 amps.
On an electric system, each jack can pull 35 to 40 amps, and the jacks come up in pairs. If both jacks in a pair reach the top at the same moment, the system can pull over 80 amps for a short time.
A bad battery cannot hold its voltage under that kind of load. The voltage drops, the control module loses power, and the system quits before it finishes.
Being plugged in at the campground does not fix this. The converter that makes 12 volt power in most RVs supplies well under 100 amps. In most RVs that is not enough to carry those peaks by itself. So everything can look fine, with lights on and the touchpad lit up, and the system still quits partway through.
On a hydraulic system, listen for a loud grinding or chattering noise when you press a button. That is often a sign the battery voltage is dropping too low. The switch that runs the pump motor is clicking on and off very fast because the battery cannot carry the load.
How to know if a battery is good. A voltmeter will not tell you. A battery can show good voltage sitting still and then fall apart the moment it has to work. The right tool is a load tester. It puts a set load on the battery and shows what the voltage does under that load. Without a real load test, it is easy to get this wrong.
This applies to lead-acid batteries, which is what most RVs have. Lithium batteries work differently, and a standard load tester is not the right check for them. If you have lithium batteries, ask a technician who works on them.
Have your batteries load tested before you pay for any other leveling repair.
What to notice before you call
You do not have to fix anything. Just notice these things, because they tell a technician a lot.
- Do the jacks try to move at all?
- Do some jacks move and others do not?
- Is there an error message on the touchpad? Does it name one jack?
- On a hydraulic system, listen to the pump when you press a button. Is it silent? Is it running easy, like it is not working hard? Or is it loud and groaning?
What those signs often point to
- Silent pump, no error message. This is usually a power problem. A technician will trace the power and check for a tripped breaker on the 12 volt side.
- Pump runs easy but nothing moves. This often means fluid is being lost somewhere, like a failed hose or a cylinder that is leaking inside.
- Pump groans and nothing moves. The fluid may be blocked. The valves that steer the fluid are run by electricity, and they may not be opening.
- A motorhome says the jacks are down when they are all the way up. Some motorhomes use a fluid level switch or a pressure switch to know the jacks are up. A little lost fluid or a worn seal can fool it.
All four of these need a technician with the right test equipment.
One thing you can try on an electric system: an error on one jack
This is only for electric leveling systems. An electric system keeps track of where each jack is, and it can lose track. A hydraulic system does not keep track of where its jacks are, so there is nothing to reset. If you have a hydraulic system, skip this part and call a technician.
If the error message names one jack, the system may have lost track of where that jack is.
Before you do this on a trailer, hook it to the truck or support the front. The front of the RV will come down when the jacks retract. Make sure nothing and nobody is under or near the RV.
On a Lippert Ground Control 3.0, which is an electric leveling system, extend all of the jacks at least 6 inches. Then press and hold Retract until the jacks start pulling up by themselves. The system will pull every jack all the way up and save that position for each one. If the error comes back, call a technician. One jack may be binding, or a wire harness may be cut or pinched.
A tip that is easier on the batteries. After all of the jacks are out at least 6 inches, lower one rear jack about 2 more inches, so it is out about 8 inches. To move the right rear jack alone, press the Right and Rear buttons together. Do the same with one front jack. Now the two jacks in each pair will not reach the top at the same moment, and the batteries take a smaller hit. On a 6-jack system you cannot do this for the middle jacks, because they do not move one at a time.
Two things that make a leveling job worse
1. Do not add fluid while anything is extended.
Only fill the hydraulic reservoir when everything on the hydraulic system is pulled all the way in. That means every jack, and every slide-out that runs on the same pump. When jacks or slides are out, their fluid is out with them, so the reservoir looks low. If you fill it then, it will overflow when everything comes back in.
2. Do not guess at the fluid. Check your owner's manual.
Many people pour in whatever is labeled "hydraulic fluid." Most RV leveling systems call for automatic transmission fluid, Dexron III or Mercon V, or a fluid the manual lists as compatible.
Here is why it matters. Transmission fluid is a kind of hydraulic fluid, but it is made to stay thin when it gets cold. The wrong hydraulic fluid can get too thick in the cold. Picture this. You top off with the wrong fluid in Florida, and everything works fine in the heat. Then you drive to Colorado and it snows. The fluid gets cold and thick, and now the jacks and slides do not want to move. An RV pump never runs long enough to warm the fluid up.
Where the parts might be
The control module is not the touchpad. The touchpad is the part you press. The control module is a separate box that tells the system what to do. It can be hard to find.
- Electric system on a bumper pull: the control module could be on the ceiling or a wall of a storage bay.
- Electric system on a fifth wheel: usually on the ceiling of a storage bay. Once in a great while it is in the underbelly.
- Hydraulic pump on a fifth wheel: usually in the front generator bay or a pass-through bay.
- Hydraulic pump on a motorhome: in a cargo bay, under the front hood area, back by the rear bumper, underneath near the drive shaft, or under the stairwell.
The same model can differ from one unit to the next, because it depends on how it was built that day.
A real example of why the root cause matters
A motorhome's hydraulic leveling system would not run. The technician found a bad pump motor, and that was correct. The motor cost about $1,200 and sat under the stairwell, which made it hard to reach. With the new motor in, the system still did not work. New batteries did not fix it either. After a full diagnosis, the real cause turned out to be a failed diode in the pump wiring harness. That diode tells the fluid which direction to go. With the diode bad, the pump was always trying to retract the jacks and never extend them, until the motor burned up. The first diagnosis was right: the motor was bad. But the new motor would have burned up the same way, because the thing that killed it had not been fixed. A technician who finds the root cause is worth every penny.
What to tell the technician when you call
- Whether your RV is a motorhome or a towable. A Lippert Level-Up on a motorhome is built differently from a Level-Up on a fifth wheel, and the technician needs to know which one you have.
- The brand name on the touchpad, if there is one. For example: Lippert Ground Control (electric), Lippert Level-Up (hydraulic), Lippert Titan (a newer hydraulic system with a touchscreen), Power Gear, Equalizer, or HWH.
- Whether it is hydraulic or electric.
- What the jacks did and did not do.
- Any error message, word for word.
- What the pump sounded like.
Technicians near you who do this work
Type your town or zip code to see the nearest listed businesses that say they work on leveling systems and jacks.