Hi All - I recently picked up a 19' Raptor w/ 30k miles (for a reasonable price given the madness in the market.) Truck is still under bumper 2 bumper and I intend on covering it with a Ford extended warranty while it's eligible.
At any rate, love the truck, however I've been trying to track down an issue where about 1/2 of the time the ride seems to go to shit. When when it's cold/been sitting, the ride is what I'd call smooth but firm - about what I'd expect from a Raptor. I test drove a couple and it feels right compared to those (and it's how it rode when I did the initial test drive.)
However, randomly after some period of driving it really seems as if the ride in the rear firms up dramatically and the truck will start getting unsettled going over rough pavement. IE, go over a pothole and you'll feel it in the front end a bit, but when the rear axle goes over it's harsher and there will be a second or two of vibration/shimmy from the rear - every now and then it'll rattle your teeth. Granted it's a live axle and this is a pickup, but it really feels like this effect comes and goes and the ride really takes a nose dive.
Long story short, I'm wondering if I've got an intermittent fault in the live valve in one of the rear shocks and one side of the rear axle is going full-firm and the axle is jumping around on one end. Worth nothing that when this is going on if I punch it from a dig it seems like the nose of the truck lifts higher on one side than the other.
So far to look into this I've:
* Put the truck up on a lift right after buying it just to give things a once over and there's no signs of major abuse that were missed - and everything looks fine. IE bump stops are unmolested, no visible oil leaking from the shocks, nothings bent etc.
* Took it in for an initial service/once-over at Ford and had them look at this - they gave the truck two thumbs up mechanically and claim it was riding normally, however they drove it in the morning, when it was cold, so its likely if this is a real thing they didn't feel it.
* Played with tire pressure. When I picked it up it was running ~42 hot and I read a lot about how on-road ride is improved by airing down to 38 hot or so in the rear. Right now it's getting up to more like 40 psi hot so I'll keep playing with this because I guess it could be the extra couple PSI as they warm up. Airing down this far definitely seemed to help some but the harshness/vibration in the rear just feels like a damping issue more than just a stiff tire to me.
* No dash warning from live valve system.
I read a couple threads on here about people having issues with Live Valve locking a shock into firm mode due to solenoid or driver failures - but usually with a dash message. It may be placebo but it seemed like switching the truck in/out of sport mode a couple times has resolved it for maybe 5-10 minutes at times. I ordered a Forscan OBD cable so I'm going to try and look at the solenoid voltages and whatnot.
At any rate - I guess what I'm looking to hear is if other people have experienced this without any error messages/codes and the best way to deal with the dealer/Ford if it is in fact occurring and it's intermittent.
At any rate, love the truck, however I've been trying to track down an issue where about 1/2 of the time the ride seems to go to shit. When when it's cold/been sitting, the ride is what I'd call smooth but firm - about what I'd expect from a Raptor. I test drove a couple and it feels right compared to those (and it's how it rode when I did the initial test drive.)
However, randomly after some period of driving it really seems as if the ride in the rear firms up dramatically and the truck will start getting unsettled going over rough pavement. IE, go over a pothole and you'll feel it in the front end a bit, but when the rear axle goes over it's harsher and there will be a second or two of vibration/shimmy from the rear - every now and then it'll rattle your teeth. Granted it's a live axle and this is a pickup, but it really feels like this effect comes and goes and the ride really takes a nose dive.
Long story short, I'm wondering if I've got an intermittent fault in the live valve in one of the rear shocks and one side of the rear axle is going full-firm and the axle is jumping around on one end. Worth nothing that when this is going on if I punch it from a dig it seems like the nose of the truck lifts higher on one side than the other.
So far to look into this I've:
* Put the truck up on a lift right after buying it just to give things a once over and there's no signs of major abuse that were missed - and everything looks fine. IE bump stops are unmolested, no visible oil leaking from the shocks, nothings bent etc.
* Took it in for an initial service/once-over at Ford and had them look at this - they gave the truck two thumbs up mechanically and claim it was riding normally, however they drove it in the morning, when it was cold, so its likely if this is a real thing they didn't feel it.
* Played with tire pressure. When I picked it up it was running ~42 hot and I read a lot about how on-road ride is improved by airing down to 38 hot or so in the rear. Right now it's getting up to more like 40 psi hot so I'll keep playing with this because I guess it could be the extra couple PSI as they warm up. Airing down this far definitely seemed to help some but the harshness/vibration in the rear just feels like a damping issue more than just a stiff tire to me.
* No dash warning from live valve system.
I read a couple threads on here about people having issues with Live Valve locking a shock into firm mode due to solenoid or driver failures - but usually with a dash message. It may be placebo but it seemed like switching the truck in/out of sport mode a couple times has resolved it for maybe 5-10 minutes at times. I ordered a Forscan OBD cable so I'm going to try and look at the solenoid voltages and whatnot.
At any rate - I guess what I'm looking to hear is if other people have experienced this without any error messages/codes and the best way to deal with the dealer/Ford if it is in fact occurring and it's intermittent.
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