Hubby just got a new marathon carriage and it has air bag type shocks on it. Also got both sets of wheels–pneumatic and hard rubber. It rides great on the pneumatic tires but when we put the hard rubber ones on for a competition last week, it rode about as bad (or worse) than his old Bird-In-Hand carriage with leaf springs.
Any tips on what sort of air pressure is supposed to be in the shocks or other such tips?
Can you call the dealer who sells those carriages for suggested recommends?
Having air shocks set high, lots of air, will probably give you a hard ride. They are full, need more load than you are giving them so they are not softening up.
Husband has air bag shocks on his work truck, with a usual 1000# load in the truck. He said he keeps about 10 pounds of air pressure in them for a softened ride. Keeps the load off the chassis, but lets it move so the truck ride is not like sitting on a hay wagon.
Having air filled tires will give more cushion to the ride of carriage, a big seller of those extra wheels! Try the vehicle with less air in the bags, on the hard rubber wheels, see how the ride feels then. Does he also have the air ride seat? Might need to adjust that too.
No air ride seat 
though we joked about that. However, as the 'gator, I wouldn’t benefit from the air ride seat even if he had one.
True about the pneumoatic tire ride vs hard rubber. Was just surprised that the amount of air in the bags, that is as it shipped from the manufacturer, is apparantly too much for the hard wheels. Wish I could tell you how much is in them but DH hasn’t measured it yet. It is on the “to do list”.
So is it just a matter of adjust to the right feel?
Update: He checked the pressure. It was about 30 psi!! He lowered it to 19 psi (manufacturer recommendation). Rode with him last night, albeit with the pneumatic tires. It did seem better than even compared to before with the same tires.
So, so much for trusting the “from the factory settings”!
So glad to hear of improved ride! Wow, that much pressure had to have the bags really hard, no give under your “minisule human weight” during a drive.
Maybe it is a shipping thing, more pressure keeps things firmly in place, despite any poor handling of the container, maybe getting dropped a few inches.
Our Marathon vehicles all have air seats, which is a benefit to Driver mostly on daily driving times. If we are not going down the road, then the Gator doesn’t get to sit down anyway! Legs and knees are the cushion Gator gets when it is rough. Driver MUST be seated, so that air cushion helps a lot with the road miles we put in getting horses fit.
However we always take any air pressure out of the seat on the Marathon course. Sure don’t want the Driver getting “shot” off the seat with sudden impact of dropping into a hole or hitting a bump getting seat compressed, THEN air ride quckly refilling!! Lot of force there, so we dump the air for competition.
We just bought a new-to-us, Pair Marathon vehicle, so we also will be on the learning curve with it from now on. Darn Daylight Savings time change has removed our evening sunshine, so it will be weekend times for driving now.
