shockies

[Toyotoy Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Toyotoy]

Can any one recommend a good brand of shocks to replace stock standard shocks under the rear end of my Prado 2014 turbo diesel . I tow a caravan with my rig any suggestions of type would be appreciated.

[kizbot Member Find all posts View Profile Close kizbot]

I can't really recommend shocks as I have always had standard but I have done a bit of research recently as I am having new Dobinsons suspension (50mm lift) fitted shortly.

Reason for the upgrade, due to towing a Jayco Hawk Outback which is about 1300kg fully loaded. I noticed with the ~130kg tow ball weight the Prado (2010 GXL) was sitting a bit low in the rear on the standard suspension.

Initially I was leaning towards comfort springs with twin tube shocks and airbags in the rear. My thinking was, 50mm lift tick, comfortable ride tick and improved towing capacity with airbags tick. I quickly realised that sticking with comfort springs (only 15% stiffer than stock) and increasing the ride height would not improve my handling and may actually make it worse due to the increase in the centre of gravity. So now i'm going with one step up from the comfort springs (100-300kg constant load) which will handle the extra weight on the back when towing and improve handling.

Apparently the 100-300kg constant load is not a harsh spring so should be fairly comfortable albeit noticeably stiffer than stock. This means I don't need the airbags (something else to go wrong). I also opted for monotube shocks (not remote res ones) due to apparently being a better shock overall. Likely overkill in my situation since I don't go on the rough stuff much but it wasn't that much more expensive to go with monotubes instead of the twin tubes.

So to answer your question in short form. I don't know but from everything I have heard (not real world experience) the Dobinson's stuff is meant to be a good fit for the Prado's.

Hope that at least gives you some ideas.

[Guest Close Guest]

Speak to John at Zordo's suspension. He would be the best for Prado suspension in Aust. He ships all over. Personally wouldn't go Dobinsons, see too many failures of them myself.

[Toyotoy Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Toyotoy]

Thanks for the info will research a bit myself

[kizbot Member Find all posts View Profile Close kizbot]

Funny you say that Piggy. Zordo is doing my setup.