What are the advantages of a steel spring suspension?

In the transportation industry, steel spring suspensions versus air-ride suspensions is a common comparison. While using “air-ride suspension” sounds like it might be ideal, a steel spring suspension on your trailer will provide the best combination of ride, stability, and cost.

Ride

When you have cargo to deliver, you want to know that it will arrive in the best condition possible. In a standard supply line, the product leaves a factory, travels via over-the-road trailers or trains and/or ships, and then is delivered to its final destination a variety of ways. Most of this voyage will take place on steel spring suspensions, which have been improved upon over the years to provide a smooth ride for your products.

Stability

Steel springs do all the work of stabilizing your steel spring suspension. They prevent excess motion by dampening roughness from the road. By comparison, an air bag acts like a bouncing ball and requires an additional dampening device to keep it from moving around.

The springs themselves have evolved over the years to last longer and are readily available. Most of the trailer springs used today were originally created by Hutchens Industries for our own spring suspensions; MANY versions of these springs are now available. For example, a TRA-2726 spring is the well-known after-market version of the HUTCH 354-00, one of our most common and reliable springs. However, as in any replacement, the quality of the service parts is critical to maintain your steel spring suspension for the life of operation.

Cost

Steel spring suspensions have been around for decades and continue to be improved upon. Lighter-weight and longer-lasting materials mean fewer maintenance costs and less time off the road. Again, proper maintenance is the key to lower overall costs over the lifetime of the suspension (see why Hutchens’ replacement parts are ideally designed to fit and perform here). Proper maintenance of a steel spring suspension is necessary but the cost of doing so is low compared to that of an air suspension.

It’s no secret: a steel spring suspension will get the load delivered intact as economically as possible. We’ve spent decades advancing our designs and materials to optimize your spring suspension performance. No other spring suspension supplier has this much ownership and commitment in the total system. Contact Hutchens Industries today and see how our expertise can help your business.