Air Suspension for off-roading?

[bbbeeennnjjjeee]

I am selling my company and buying myself a new truck as a present. The 2023 Limited can be configured with both the off-road while having the standard equipment air suspension and the air suspension cannot be replaced in favor of the standard coils. I don't plan on doing any hardcore wheeling, but I do like to go fast over fire roads and do some more challenging trails from time to time - nothing massively difficult but I do spend a decent amount of time off pavement.

To those of you who have an air suspension, does it handle this type of use case fairly well or am I going to be disappointed by the dampening performance? Is it better to just get a fully loaded Laramie and put some 3" coilovers on it?

I used to have a 2019 Laramie Quad Cab with a 4" BDS lift on 35s as a reference. Never should have sold that truck...

 

[clazer]

You generally aren’t going to get the articulation with air. I’ve had diagonal tires off the ground on multiple occasions with air. In general, you can soften up the ride by dropping to aero.

 

[Bay Area RAM]

If you plan on racing up and down fire roads a lot, I would go for the coils. The limited is mostly a pavement queen and should be treated as such. Also, coils are way cheaper to lift than the limited is…. Cause those 22’s ain’t doing you no favors on dirt.

with that said, I took my limited on a freshly grounded up oval dirt track at high speed once… really bumpy and rutted… the truck handled it just fine but I couldn’t help but think that I was gonna break something in the air system.

there’s a reason the TRX doesn’t have an air system.

 

[rsgard]

I have had no problems with my 4 corner air rocking around the fire roads in Colorado during Elk season.

 

[go-ram]

...there’s a reason the TRX doesn’t have an air system.

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Yeah, as Ram designed their four-corner air suspension for the half-tons, it's definitely best to stay on-pavement or well-graded roads with it. Air suspension is great on paved roads, great for towing...not so great for deep ruts or rock crawling.
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It is nice to be able to raise the body an additional 2" when needed for clearance, but it gets mighty stiff at max ride height, no uptravel left, and the downtravel is pretty harsh. Plus, the air suspension is expensive to buy and even more expensive to fix. For any kind of serious offroading, the coil-spring suspension is the way to go.
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Interestingly, though, GM went with four-corner air suspension on the Hummer EV-1, which the offroad magazines seem to love offroad. Just saw a Jay Leno video on an Earthroamer, they use four-corner air suspension as well. I wonder what GM & Earthroamer do differently than Ram.

 

[Roddog2220]

i love my air suspension but if your hard core i wouldnt risk something breaking, and wth are fire roads?

 

[wegasque]

i love my air suspension but if your hard core i wouldnt risk something breaking, and wth are fire roads?

Someone can verify, but I assume fire roads are dirt roads through forested lands made specifically to fight forest fires. They're probably prevalent in National Forests, BLM lands, etc

 

[LaxDfns15]

I vote for coils, but that's due to ease of lifting/adjusting and less expensive breakable parts.

Fire trail - Wikipedia for @Roddog2220

 

[jimothy]

Don’t forget the Longhorn! It has the luxuries of the Limited, and air suspension is optional (in Canada, you can get a Limited without air suspension, but in US, it’s standard). Its interior is by far my favorite off all the trims.

That said, my Longhorn with ORG has a rather low payload (under 1,200), so be aware of that. Of the options I ordered it with, the only one I have second thoughts about is the sunroof; skipping it would have upped my payload slightly.

 

[go-ram]

Someone can verify, but I assume fire roads are dirt roads through forested lands made specifically to fight forest fires. They're probably prevalent in National Forests, BLM lands, etc

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That's correct. I some cases, the roads are used for logging as well.
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[IndianaRam]

I love my air ride system. Great for towing my car trailer and rides great. But is it expensive to replace the parts. $1300 for one air shock, that's not installed either. If you have to replace front air line, you have to replace the complete front system, that's $300 for the part.