Just Curious

[Dave Haddon]

So up here in the North country, Saskatoonn SK. we have a road anomaly. It seems on a lot of the roads, not all hence the curiosity, have these whar seem to be expansion strips every 25 ft or so. They are so annoying as all you get is thump thump thump. Even after i changed my rear shocks to the Bistein 5100 ( I think )..no real change. I remember the same issue when we drove through parts of Salt lake City..although that seemed to be sections of concrete.
Does anyone know of a cure for a better "Thumpless ride"...is it just my winter tires..the fact the Crew Cab box is mostly empty?? Just curious from you knowledgeable ones...thanks

 

[Black-Wolf]

So up here in the North country, Saskatoonn SK. we have a road anomaly. It seems on a lot of the roads, not all hence the curiosity, have these whar seem to be expansion strips every 25 ft or so. They are so annoying as all you get is thump thump thump. Even after i changed my rear shocks to the Bistein 5100 ( I think )..no real change. I remember the same issue when we drove through parts of Salt lake City..although that seemed to be sections of concrete.
Does anyone know of a cure for a better "Thumpless ride"...is it just my winter tires..the fact the Crew Cab box is mostly empty?? Just curious from you knowledgeable ones...thanks

The problem is that your tires hit those sections at speed - some tires - like passenger car types - don't make as much noise when hitting those types of sections, but they don't mitigate it by much. About the only thing that will eliminate the thump would be to drive slow, or buy a big subwoofer and crank the base up to out thump the thump!

 

[Wild one]

Try lowering your tire pressures Dave,shocks aren't going to do much on the tar strips you're talking about.They're a fact of life on the Canuck Prairies,as the frost up here goes down at least 8 ft in the winter,and when it comes out,pavement has to heave/buckle and changes shape,it's especially bad in the spring,once all the frost is out about May,the roads usually get a wee bit better

 

[diymirage]

There are sections in Tennessee where the expansion lines are spaced in such a way it feels like taking a dirtbike over whoops

 

[mikeru]

Does anyone know of a cure for a better "Thumpless ride"...is it just my winter tires..the fact the Crew Cab box is mostly empty?? Just curious from you knowledgeable ones...thanks

You should switch to these types of roads instead. Guaranteed there are no expansion seams, although addiction to them is a real possibility.


As Rick mentioned, tires and tire pressures will make a bigger difference than shocks and springs for expansion seams. One of the major highways in my area has a large concrete section and used to have that issue. A few years ago the state went through and made adjustments and now that section is very smooth. The adjustment consisted of cutting out sections at each seam and filling with some kind of epoxy. I don't know any more details than that but it made a huge difference. Not sure that would work for asphalt though.

 

[Wild one]

We don't have expansion joints in our paved highways up here,all we have are frost heaves,that breaks the pavement,and they attempt to fix it with tar over the break,lol.About all i've ever found to help is to lower the tire pressures in the spring.
Mike when i was a kid growing up in Saskatchewan,the gravel back roads in the spring were usually smoother then the highways,they at least had a grader/patrol go over them once inawhile,lol

 

[Dave Haddon]

Thanks guys will do

 

[Curmudgeon]

Just air down to about 18 PSI*. Your tires will wear horribly but you could probably run over a moose and not feel it.

*This plan has risks.

 

[Dave Haddon]

Probably won’t go that low. As TPMS will light up. But I will play with the pressure settings. Thanks guys

 

[ultivssl]

Hello from a fellow Saskie. On my 4th gen I ran Michelin LTX MS2 and it was pretty good over the frost cracks. In my 5th gen (rodent write off of the 4th gen) the duratrac tires on the rebel suck balls. The stock bilsteins do help a bit, but not much. But also the northern roads in Sask suck too. Heck even hwy 11 between Stoon and Regina is horrible in spots.