Pacific Fisher

Once you adjust the Ranchos 9000's to where you like them you only need to change the rears when you are towing or hauling a load. I am 63 and consider it easy to change the settings at the bottom of the rear shocks.
Not sure what the Bilstein owners do to adjust theirs, but it must be a lot more work than changing the Rancho settings.

RES4CUE

With the damping abilities of the bilsteins the change automatically instead of turning a ****.

http://www.bilsteinus.com/products/t...ht-adjustable/

Pacific Fisher

I will stick to my adjustable Rancho's, especially for heavy loads.

RES4CUE

Shocks only control the suspension they don't do anything for the load. I've had thousands of pounds on mine and like I said, they have variable valving to adjust to shaft speed, etc.

Both are reputable brands I just prefer to not pay for a feature I won't use unless I drop more on the in cab switch.

I don't think you could go wrong with either!

OP, have you looked at F150lifts.com? They have the boss shock set up. The is a whole coilover system designed for the F150. Alex is the rep on here and they have impeccable customer service! It's considerably more than the $350 for 4 bilsteins but they use all new parts including coils!

http://www.f150lifts.com/2009-2014_c_137.html

dsteiger

I got the Fox 2.0 rears installed yesterday afternoon. They do what I wanted them to. Which is eliminate the bed bounce. Other than that, everything feels about the same. It's kind of a subtle change, because now the truck drives like I feel it should have all along. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

CLB87

Do you have 20 inch wheels?

dsteiger

I had 20x9s put on at the same time the shocks were installed. Before that, I had stock 18s.

CLB87

Okay, thanks. I have the stock 20's now and am wanting to settle the ride down on rough surfaces. I think I have a bad Pirelli so that will be my first issue to fix, then the shocks. Glad you are liking them.

bhall1222

Just wanted to give everyone an update on this. First of all, this may be very helpful for anybody with a 2014 model. For whatever reason, if you look at the bilsteins or ranchos (and call them), apparently they don't make ANY rear shocks for the 2014 models. SPECIFICALLY THE 2014. What????? Literally makes no sense to me. They claim they are still in the product development stage for the 2014 models. I understand the front end of the 2014 is a hair different, but I know the rear didn't change. So, had my local off road shop look at my truck compared to a 2009 and they were certain everything in the rear is identical. Took a chance and picked up the BILSTEINs, and crossed fingers.

Went ahead and installed them this evening by myself. I've always had shops do my work, but I was assured this one was too easy to pay someone to do. 4 bolts, a little elbow grease, and make sure you have some sort of little pry bar. That was key to getting the bottom of the shock to compress just a hair to be able to get the bottom bolt in. The drivers side took me a good solid 10 minutes of messing around with that to get it in, the passenger side was first try... go figure. As people have noted, these are wayyyy stronger than the stock shocks. Very hard to compress these by hand, whereas the stockers can easily fully compressed with hardly any strength.

After taking it for a quick spin tonight, I'm immediately impressed. No more bed bounce. I can see where people say you "feel" a little more, but that's perfectly fine by me and doesn't bother me at all. Before this change the rear of the truck would continue to bounce after each and every single bump and it resonated in my seat and drove me nuts. Part of the reason I got rid of my 2012 lifted was because of this vibration. The one thing I didn't try was new shocks... dammit! lol oh well.

This is my 3rd F150, all of which have been lifted or now leveled, and I can honestly say this is the best $180 I've spent out of all 3 trucks. For all of you with a 2014, yes the Bilstein 5100 will fit no problem at all and works perfect.

Thanks for all of your input!

bhall1222

And yes, I know, need to update my signature...