I have the 9000XL's in the rear. Drove them about 500 miles this weekend on a road trip between San Diego and San Luis Obispo and they worked out well. Different feel from the Bilsteins, but better in most ways. And the uneven shoulder wear starting on the rear tires is gone, so apparently 30K miiles is about enough for the Bilsteins.
I found the weak spot for the Rancho's is the same as many linear spring/damper combinations, when undulating pavement or patterns of bumps are close to the natural frequency of the system. It gets a little floaty at that point, but even very expensive dampers have a hard time overcoming physics there. (The only real sure way around that is non-linear springs, which are harder to tune but come with some neat advantages...like no oscillatory behavior on undulating pavement.)
Outside of that, set at "5" (I haven't played much with it yet) it has excellent low speed compression damping combined with light high speed compression damping, and adequate rebound damping. Not much more you can ask for out of a shock without going to expensive adjustable external reservoir variants. I'm accepting the floaty-feel on long straight highway stretches that are probably exacerbated by my airbags anyway with the fact that these corner and resist squat way better than my Bilstein HD's did.
Since the adjustment knob adjusts both rebound and compression, I suspect dialing it in a little more will make it even more-better...
http://www.gorancho.com/images/download ... lSheet.pdf
ivanqz wrote:I am looking to do the same thing. I've had the Rancho quick lift for about 8 months, NOT happy. The shocks seem to have prematurely worn out and the ride is kinda dangerous on the highway at high speeds. I bought an extended warranty on the shocks, I know, wish me luck.
I want to go back to stock height (or near stock) like you do, but firmer ride. I drove a BMW X5, bad idea. That thing rides like a nice sports sedan
You may want to dial your expectations in a little bit. My truck rides as close to a big Camry as it's going to get, but it's still a big body on frame truck. The X5 on the other hand is pretty close to its unibody car cousins. Just not the same breed of cat when it comes to street manners.
On the other hand, when snowmageddon hit DC it was fun to drive circles in the snow around the pseudo-SUV's like X5's that couldn't quite make it down the street. Let alone the AWD wannabe's like Subaru's and Volvos...
Anyway, with air bags and the Ranchos my ride is pretty car-like. I'd recommend looking into the sway bar bushings too if you're not happy with cornering or lane changes. For about $25 it really makes a huge difference. Well, more than that if you have to replace end links like I did (mine were worn).