ford made off road shocks.

 

I thought I'd address the above as a multiple F150 owner in both SuperCab and SuperCrew configurations who drives over gravel a lot. If anything my 2015 is better about driving on gravel than my previous three F150s were. My current has the FX4 package, but unless the road was particularly ****ty, I don't bother with 4WD on gravel. It does help though where I've tried it. I thought it would be worse given how light this truck is compared to my last one, but it's actually better on gravel.


I'm not entirely sure why this is aside from having all terrain tires on the current truck compared to highway tires on the last one. Suspension or shocks may be also be responsible in part for improved performance / stability on gravel. My last F150 basically had highway tires on it because I was driving 100 miles a day to and from work and those tires helped with mileage and comfort / handling on those roads. So I had to put up with worse off road / dirt road performance, which was fine given the disparity between the time spent on and off road.

 

This word is used incorrectly about as often as it is used correctly.
To Dampen is to make wet. i.e. When you wipe a table with a wet dishrag you dampen it.
Damping is used to reduce amplitude. In England they call shock absorbers "dampers" i. e. "put a damper on it" is to reduce activity.

No big deal... just sayin.

Ford Motorcraft "off road" shocks are probably made by the lowest bidder according to the specifications given by Ford. Most people would agree aftermarket shocks are often better than original equipment. Has anyone swapped out the FX4 shocks for better ones without doing a bunch of other stuff? Has it cured the rear end hop that has plagued many? With the reduced weight of the aluminum body parts and the high strength steel (lighter)frame, the Ford engineers were on uncharted territory. Aftermarket shocks will also be uncharted but they may have different valving and shims that may be preferable to some people. There maybe a difference between Screw and Scab models, but perhaps the aftermarket gurus have come across a better solution?

 

Mine rides nice, and is probably better to have around here with all the potholes and bad backroads. Had a bit of hop on a particularly bad backroad when only one tire was hitting holes. I figured maybe pulling the rear swaybar might help because it helped on my last vehicle, but haven't done it because they finally fixed the road lol

 

the 2011 FX4 that I use to have was as much fun to drive as my hand built Italian sports coup. This 2015 FX4 has given me the pucker factor more than once.

 

Some have put icons or fox 2.0's on the rear and have had good results. They are not priced bad either.

 

Yesterday I test drove two nearly identical trucks back to back. Both SupCab XL 4x4, one with FX4 and the other without. Both had the exact same tires, 265/70-17 Goodyears. A few weeks ago I also drove the same truck above with FX4 and with LT245 tires (@ 55psi, per door label), so I paid special attention to how the two felt back to back.

I drove the two trucks on smooth roads, over bumps, then slow on dirt. I could tell the FX4 felt a little harsher, then I checked the tire pressures in the dash. The FX4 was in the 40s while the other was in the 30s.

My conclusion: I believe that the tire type (LT 10 ply E loads, versus P) and their pressure play a big role in how these truck feel. Between the back-to-back test yesterday, and taking into consideration the higher PSI on the FX4, I'd say they were pretty close on the drive comparison above. It would have been better to have both identical tire pressure.

Important! I did NOT test them at higher speeds over rougher roads. I would expect that there would be a bigger difference in favor of the FX4 shocks during harder hits.