XJlimitedx99

When I bought my xj it had a 3" HD coil lift in the front and an add a leaf in the back. Works great as a lift but the ride is nothing short of rough. Can definitely feel every bump on the road. It throws you around and road noise is loud. Would it be beneficial to get lighter lift springs to make it a nicer ride because this is my dd. would upgraded shocks help? I was looking into sound deadening but it would be better to stop the problem at the source

Bryan98XJ

my old xj had the same setup and rode great.
I had brand new shocks though. Any idea how old yours are?
You can always take them off and try to compress them to check their condition.

XJlimitedx99

No, no idea. How would I go about testing how worn they are once they're out?

Bryan98XJ

Put it on the ground and push with all your weight.
If they are really bad you can push on the shaft until they easily bottom out.
If they are ok, you will most likely have a somewhat hard time pushing them down.

RememberTheMallamo

This is so vague lol. Not bashing you, man, just thought your verbage was funny is all.

To my understanding, a shock's true purpose isn't so much resisting the pushing but rather resisting the pulling. Your springs absorb most of the bumps by compressing. Your shocks do help with this of course, but they mainly keep the spring from, well, springing back and launching the wheel off the ground. I'm sure there are good ways of testing shocks in either direction, I've personally never looked too much into it. YouTube!

motorcharge

What lift and shocks?

Coils/springs and shocks make more difference in ride quality than anything.

RememberTheMallamo

Without a doubt. Those are definitely step 1 in the investigation. Then look at things like CA angle and check the condition of your bushings all over the thing.

Trumpster

I think that what he's trying to say is that the shocks shouldn't just flow in and out with no resistance. It should take a good amount of effort to compress them.

Example, putting my new shock on with my lift, when I had the bottoms bolted in and I missed the mounting holes just a bit on the top in the rear, it took just about everything I had to get them to start compressing back down so I could line them up better.

Unbolt the top nut in the engine bay on one of the fronts, grab hold of the bushings and bushing mount in the wheel well, and see if you can pull it down without much effort or if it takes some "umph" to get them to compress. Obviously this is subjective, but it should take some effort even for a pretty built person to do this. If you can't get it moving at all, then it could be seized; you'd likely know about that though without having to pull the strut since it would be like riding on a steel rod haha.

pmichel

A while back I ran across and old Consumer Reports review from the 90's on the Cherokee (stock and brand new, of course). They called the ride quality "punishing".

Donnie_K

whenever you lift a vehicle, you change the geometry of the suspension. Steeper angles on your control arms and leaf spring shackles makes for a rougher ride. There are ways to correct this... BUT... It's a 4x4, not a Coup Deville