https://jksmfg.com/products/fox-2-5-performance-series-shocks-jeep-wrangler-jl-set-of-4
I just put new RS9000XL Rancho shock on again after 84,000 hard miles. Towed a camper 48,000 of those miles with the Jeep loaded down. Every time someone new rides in my Jeep, the first thing they say is, "I can't believe how good this thing rides. I was expecting a lumber wagon ride, not a nice passenger car like ride."
I did, I called them. Told them the hell that I have put them through and they sent me return shipping labels so that their engineers could look at them. Mind you, I have thousands and thousands of miles on trails, forest roads and dirt roads in general. Pounded them on sand dunes, the Jeep has been jumped 5 feet in the air, and drove fast for miles and miles of rumble strip roads at speed.
I simply do not trust the rancho ones, I keep hearing so many mixed opinions about them. I have been driving on these fox 2.5s since I got the vehicle and I trust them... I'd consider falcon, king, bilstein, or another reputable brand but I do not believe rancho is reputable, there has to be some reason they are that cheap.
In general, twin tubes are significantly less expensive than Monotube based setups. I’d assume it’s due to reduced structural design with the reduced gas pressure.
I will give you personal experience. I bought RS9000 for my truck after the stockers wore out. Probably at around 30K miles. They worked great, especially heavy load adjustment on the rear. So I started to notice they were super stiff. So I reached out to rancho and they sent me a new set to replace them. This was at 275,000 miles…. I am not great at math, but they lasted 245k miles, and they replaced them under warranty. Truck is now at 350k miles. So some are going to say well highway miles are easy on shocks…. Lol, I have broken the motor mounts on that truck twice, hitting big hits too fast. New steering boxes, track bars, etc. My truck sees more off road than 20 jeeps combined. Rancho is top notch and a very big bang for your buck. Out of all the shocks on my JKUR the Rancho5000X was the best overall shock. And the ones I keep the longest. Only dig on Rancho is painted shocks rust.
My question is why do you believe that your shocks are going bad?
It is true that having a shock piggyback or reservoir does help with cooling and heat dissipation, there's another large, overlooked benefit to running a piggyback or reservoir.
I'll explain. Assuming that most performance aftermarket shocks are a monotube, you'll have everything in the same shock body. Oil separated from the nitrogen charge by a IFP (internal floating piston). Simple and works well, except the fact that you are limited on usable shaft length by the IFP. Too long of a shaft and the piston can strike the IFP and cause damage.
However with a piggyback like our Falcon 3.1/3.3/3.5, Fox 2.0 piggybacks, and many others, the IFP and nitrogen charge is moved into the reservoir, and as a result the effective shock shaft length can increase greatly; thus adding travel potential to the shock without increasing the main body length. Because of this a piggyback shock will have often 1-2 inches extra on the fully extended length compared to a same length body monotube.
Here's a crude image from google that shows what I am referring to.
I still can't believe that I found my set of Mopar shocks for 300 bucks and less than 3k miles on them.
I personably like having to replace things down the road, so I ignore @Roky ’s advice.Best shocks ?? ……… Fox……. But……
