This thread has piqued my curiosity. I recently bought an 09 F250.. it has Rancho shocks on it.. when empty, on the fwy, ride isnt too bad.. but on the city streets, its pretty rough..
Is everyone saying go to Bilsteins or Fox with more dampening to get a softer ride?
From my experience in vehicles, to have a better ride you have to have less dampening, rebound in particular now this is taking into account the compression circuit is not almost closed off or you have a high spring rate. A lot of the ride comes from the back, so the front can be pretty stiff in comparison. Less rebound means softer ride but also less control to a point.
Most shocks are going to be 50/50 shocks unless they are fully adjustable, compression and rebound adjusters.
So if you get a shock that has a lot of rebound in it then the compression most of the time will be high to, hard to push the shock in because the rebound is pushing against you and the compression is not letting it compress.
To get the softest ride is to have just enough dampening to control the spring. The Fox 2.0 shocks seem right about there. Bilsteins I had on the 08 450 had more rebound from what I can tell so the ride was a little stiffer. If you daily drive the truck and not tow a lot with a lot of pin weight, get the Fox shocks. If you tow a lot I would actually think of the Bilsteins because of the more rebound but I will give my take when I tow the fiver tomorrow.
