Cruisemaster BCS: How Your Imperial Outdoors Xplore Series Levels Itself

Every 2027 Imperial Outdoors Xplore X-195 and X-145 rolls off the line with the Cruisemaster BCS (Body Control System) as standard equipment. It’s the biggest change to how these trailers ride and set up at camp since we started running air suspension, so we wanted to go past the feature list and actually explain the mechanics: what’s sensing what, what’s telling the compressor to run, and why we made the calls we made on this platform.

The problem it replaces

Previous Xplore models ran Cruisemaster’s Wireless Level 3W system. It worked, but it asked a lot of the person standing next to the trailer: you set ride height by eye, using the control panel or the wireless remote, and trusted your own judgment to get it right. In practice, a lot of owners didn’t. Set the height too low and you’re riding on a suspension that isn’t in its correct working range. Set it too high and you get the same problem from the other direction, plus a rougher ride either way, and enough strain over time to do real damage to the suspension components. None of that is obvious from the driver’s seat, which is exactly why it kept happening trip after trip.

What changes for you day to day

The headline feature is one-button auto ride height. Before you pull out, hit DRIVE and the system sets the correct travel height itself, no more eyeballing it, no more second-guessing whether you got it right. At camp, LEVEL (what Cruisemaster calls Horizon Levelling) does the same job in the other direction, auto-leveling the trailer side-to-side and then front-to-back instead of you chasing it with ramps and a bubble level. Want to nudge it yourself instead? Manual Mode lets you adjust each corner independently, and you can run it from either the control panel or the app.

The app is worth talking about on its own

You can run BCS from the control panel mounted at the hatch, or from the Cruisemaster BCS app on your phone, and the app genuinely holds its own as a piece of the system rather than feeling like an afterthought. It’s a free download for iOS and Android, connects over Bluetooth, and gives you all three suspension modes (Manual, DRIVE, LEVEL) plus the same real-time diagnostics and fault detection you’d get standing at the panel. Firmware updates come through the app over Bluetooth too, so keeping the system current doesn’t mean a trip to the dealer. None of it depends on a cell or Wi-Fi signal; the app just needs to be paired to the BCS hardware.

 

Under the hood: how it actually knows the height

This is the part most people never think to ask about, and it’s the part that makes the whole system work. At each suspension corner, BCS uses a non-contact position sensor that reads the angle of the control arm and reports it back as a percentage, 0 to 100. That reading is how the system always knows exactly where each corner sits, not an estimate, an actual measured position, updated continuously.

Above that sits the Body Control Module, or BCM, which is really the brain of the operation. It’s got its own accelerometer built in, mounted to read the trailer’s roll (side-to-side tilt) and pitch (front-to-back tilt) relative to level ground. Between the four corner position sensors and the BCM’s roll and pitch readings, the system has a complete, real-time picture of exactly how the trailer is sitting, which is what it needs to actually fix anything.

 

How DRIVE sets your travel height

DRIVE is meant to be activated on level ground before you set off. When you hit the button (from the panel or the app), the BCM compares the current position sensor readings against the correct towing height it has stored, then sends commands to the Air Control Modules (ACMs) at each corner to inflate or deflate that airbag until it lands on the right number. Triggering any BCS suspension function also wakes the air compressor, which stays live for a few minutes afterward in case the system needs to make small follow-up corrections as things settle.

One thing worth being direct about: on this platform, DRIVE is something you activate, not something that happens automatically once you’re rolling. Cruisemaster offers an optional wheel speed sensor kit on some of their setups that lets BCS detect motion on its own and auto-trigger DRIVE the moment you start moving. We’re not running that hardware on Xplore hubs. It’s built to support Cruisemaster’s ABS module, and every Xplore uses hydraulic disc brakes, where that ABS module doesn’t apply. Since we’re not using it for braking, adding wheel speed sensors just to auto-trigger a button you’re already pressing before you leave camp isn’t worth the added hardware. Hit DRIVE before you pull out, same as you’d do a walk-around, and you’re set correctly every time.

How LEVEL gets you flat at camp

LEVEL works off the BCM’s accelerometer rather than the position sensors. The system prioritizes correcting roll first (left-to-right), then moves on to pitch, front-to-back, sending independent fill and drain commands to the ACMs on each side until both angles read as close to zero as the system can get them. You can trigger LEVEL and let it run on its own from the panel or the app, or drop into Manual Mode from either one for direct up/down control over each corner individually, useful for stowing stabilizers, working on something underneath, or draining a bag for service. A spirit level is there as a low-tech double-check if you want one.

The air supply behind all of it

The compressor and tank run on their own automated pressure switch: the compressor kicks on when tank pressure drops below 110 psi and shuts off once it’s back above 130 psi, with a pressure relief valve set at 155 psi as a hard failsafe. It’s an updated, improved compressor over what the old L3W system ran, quieter and more capable of keeping up with the demands of DRIVE and LEVEL both.

We’re not running Cruisemaster’s optional automatic tire inflation module for 2027. Instead, every Xplore gets an air chuck and a manual inflation valve at the same hatch. It’s there as a backup if the compressor ever needs attention mid-trip so you can air up the bags yourself, and it doubles as a general-purpose air source for your tires or anything else around camp that needs a shot of air, no separate air pump required.

Diagnostics, if you or your dealer ever need them

BCS keeps a diagnostics menu, available from the panel or the app, that shows the raw numbers behind everything above: position sensor voltages, current pitch and roll angles, and the zero-point calibration values the system is measuring against. It’s not something you’ll open on a normal trip, but if something ever feels off, it means a dealer can look at actual sensor data instead of guessing, and pin down a calibration drift or a sensor issue directly instead of chasing it blind.

Standard on Xplore, no setup required

BCS comes standard on both the X-195 and the X-145 for 2027, nothing to add, nothing to configure before your first trip. If you want to see how it fits with everything else that’s new across the Imperial Outdoors lineup this year, check out Compare Models, or find your nearest Imperial Outdoors dealer to see it in person at Find a Dealer.