My fifthwheel has two axles and the leaf spring on both the left and right side are bent out of shape in an almost identical manner. My first thought was that I was seriously overweight so I went to the local truck stop and weighed my rig. The rear axles weighed 13,160 lbs. I have two 7,000 lb. Dexter axles so the maximum weight rating should be 14,000 lbs. if the weight is distributed equally among the two axles. I have no reason to believe that there is a significant difference, especially enough to cause this problem.

After looking at the photos of the springs several times, it occurred to me that this problem could have been caused if the axle had been twisted and the direction of twist suggested hard braking, maybe caused by having the gain set too high on my brake controller. I first noticed this problem during a stop for breakfast yesterday morning when I saw that the skirting near the tires was riding a bit lower, almost rubbing against the tires. We had left camp a few hours earlier and during the first application of the brakes, at about 15 MPH, I felt the brakes grab real hard and realized that I had left the brake controller gain set on maximum. Do you think it possible that hard braking, even at such slow speed, could have twisted the axle and bent the springs?