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Air ride system, anyone have personal knowledge?


Moses76
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I'm considering adding air ride suspension to my 06 R51 Path, to be low for fuel equ during city driving and raised for off road. What are yalls thoughts and dose anyone have personal experience using these suspension systems? Thank you in advance!

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My dad's Allroad has air ride. It's a cool feature. It leaks down overnight, and we haven't found the leak yet, but I'm sure whatever's losing air will be expensive to repair when it finishes dying. I've heard of 4x4s with air-ride, usually in similar terms. Neat party trick until it goes wrong.

 

I won't call bagging an R51 impossible, but it wouldn't be easy, and any fuel savings you might see would absolutely not pay for the parts and the fabrication you'd need to make it work.

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I ran AirLift 100s on my R50 for almost 2 decades & also on a Jeep Grand Cherokee for over a decade. They work as advertised & are alot of bang for the buck. That said, they inevitably leak & they require frequent attention. At some point, I’ve let each system get underinflated, pinched & needed replacement. AirLift replaced them for free on 2 of the 3 times I asked (once per vehicle), which speaks great of them - still it was a pain & the reality is that I drove it significant time periods with them non-functional. For that reason, I would leave your bump stops in place.

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Biggest problem I see is the alignment issues. A couple of inches of change in ride height will have a big effect on the alignment angles since the suspension was designed to stay at a specific height. 

If just popping the tail up offroad it shouldn’t be detectable. I never noticed it in about 20 years usage
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3 hours ago, RainGoat said:

If just popping the tail up offroad it shouldn’t be detectable. I never noticed it in about 20 years usage


It’ll matter for the R51 though because of the independent rear suspension...but to your point, having it a little higher for off-road use shouldn’t be a long-term problem. He’d still need to maintain a regular ride height like Mr. Reverse suggested, since the change in suspension will affect camber. 
 

Though @Moses76 should clarify if he’s seeking to replace the spring with an air spring/bag, or if he’s talking about Airlift bags inside the existing springs.  Two different systems, with the latter not really controlling ride height, just load handling. The former is part of a full suspension system, which I believe is what he’s referring to. 

Edited by hawairish
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Thanks guys for the comments and info. From what ya'll have stated and my further research I've decided it's not worth the trouble and extra maintenance.

Edited by Moses76
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