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Unpopular opinion: Long travel suspension isn't always better for off roading
So last month I took my '93 Toyota pickup out to the trails near Moab and got into a debate with a guy running a coilover setup on his Jeep. He swore his 14 inches of travel let him fly over whoops, but I saw him get stuck on a simple rock ledge because his geometry was all off. Meanwhile my old leaf spring truck with maybe 8 inches of travel just crawled right over it with no drama. Three years ago I had a Ranger with a cheap suspension lift that rode like a log wagon, and I thought more travel was always the answer. But after watching that Jeep struggle last week and talking to a guy who builds trophy trucks, I'm starting to think we focus too much on numbers and not enough on how the suspension actually works under different conditions. Has anyone else found that a simpler setup works better for the kind of driving you actually do?
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irishenderson3mo ago
Traded my lifted Tacoma with long travel suspension for a stock Jeep XJ a few years back and haven't looked back. The simple leaf springs do everything I actually need on forest service roads and rocky trails around here. Less travel, less hassle, more capable where it counts.
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ivanlewis3mo ago
Saw a video recently where a guy explained how modern long travel setups can actually hurt traction on slower, technical stuff because the suspension unloads too fast. The XJ's stock leafs just squat and grab, which makes sense for what most of us actually wheel. Seems like a lot of the big suspension builds are more for looking cool than real world crawling.
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