Fifth Wheel Leveling System
Assuming most RV’s, particularly more expensive RV’s have electric or hydraulically controlled jacks (also called landing gear) on all four corners of your RV, then it is not a stretch that your RV might have an automatic leveling system.
Our Open Range 399BHS has just such a system.
The systems are found usually INSIDE the DRIVERS SIDE fifth wheel basement in an area called the convenience center. You’ll find many different controls and connections in this area.
In the picture below, you can see the system for the Open Range. Its not 100% automatic, I mean you don’t just punch the “level” button. You have to operate the unit.
I do think some are more automatic than the Open Range’s system.
In this system, you have a 2 step process. Step 1 is to level the unit from left to right or vise versa. Step 2 is to level from front to back. If you have stabilizer rods, then the leveling steps are more complex as you try to put weight on the stabilizer rods. See the Open Range Leveling instructions here.
In the Open Range, we can only control two jacks at a time and we can only control them in 2 jack combinations. I think this was done to limit current draw in the system because it is conceivable that if you gave people the ability to control 4 at a time by pressing individual buttons, they probably would try.
Even when controlling only two stabilizer jacks at a time, we’ll blow the circuit breaker every 30 seconds or so. Another reason for two jacks at a time has to do philosophically with the idea of “raise side A”, “raise the front” – which by definition should mean controlling two jacks at a time.
Here is a typical control panel for an RV leveling system :
