ColtEOD
Junior Member
Hey all,
I am pretty new to ram forum but i have a 2017 ram 1500 SLT with 50k miles. Yes, i do a lot of highway driving. Just a little background on the truck, i purchased it in California, it has been in Illinois and I now live in Lousiana. It has never seen snow or salt. I say this because that might have been a factor in my question.
As far as suspension goes, everything is stock OEM except for the struts and shocks. I recently put Bilstein 5100 series front adjustable struts and 5100 series rear shocks. For those of you that are familiar with the Bilstein shocks, i have them set to the 1.4" adjustment. I heard of people having issues with them at the 2.1" but mostly the 2.8" settings.
Engine wise, nothing major. I just have a K&N cold air intake and a Magnaflow cat back exhaust. I now wish i would have purchased the S&B because it looks much better but the K&N does its job.
Here's my question for you 1500 owners. Before and after I installed the Bilstein shocks/struts, it seems like i feel a lot of the road imperfections both in the floor board and in the steering wheel. I used to have a weird vibration at highway speeds but after adding the bilsteins, that went away. Suspension wise, the truck is amazing after installing them. It just seems to me that the road isn't being dampened all that well, if that makes sense.
Now if any of you have ever driven in Lousiana, the roads aren't much better than most old wooden rollercoasters. The soft ground here makes it incredibly rough but i have noticed it on all different types of roads. I currently have regular stock size street tires and rims that sit around 40psi. Is this just how this truck drives? Tires that aren't so great? Or is something like the steering wheel intermediate shaft to blame? I also get the pretty common shakey brake pedal but i believe that is a separate issue due to poor engineering.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated and thanks again for a great go-to resource.
- Colton
I am pretty new to ram forum but i have a 2017 ram 1500 SLT with 50k miles. Yes, i do a lot of highway driving. Just a little background on the truck, i purchased it in California, it has been in Illinois and I now live in Lousiana. It has never seen snow or salt. I say this because that might have been a factor in my question.
As far as suspension goes, everything is stock OEM except for the struts and shocks. I recently put Bilstein 5100 series front adjustable struts and 5100 series rear shocks. For those of you that are familiar with the Bilstein shocks, i have them set to the 1.4" adjustment. I heard of people having issues with them at the 2.1" but mostly the 2.8" settings.
Engine wise, nothing major. I just have a K&N cold air intake and a Magnaflow cat back exhaust. I now wish i would have purchased the S&B because it looks much better but the K&N does its job.
Here's my question for you 1500 owners. Before and after I installed the Bilstein shocks/struts, it seems like i feel a lot of the road imperfections both in the floor board and in the steering wheel. I used to have a weird vibration at highway speeds but after adding the bilsteins, that went away. Suspension wise, the truck is amazing after installing them. It just seems to me that the road isn't being dampened all that well, if that makes sense.
Now if any of you have ever driven in Lousiana, the roads aren't much better than most old wooden rollercoasters. The soft ground here makes it incredibly rough but i have noticed it on all different types of roads. I currently have regular stock size street tires and rims that sit around 40psi. Is this just how this truck drives? Tires that aren't so great? Or is something like the steering wheel intermediate shaft to blame? I also get the pretty common shakey brake pedal but i believe that is a separate issue due to poor engineering.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated and thanks again for a great go-to resource.
- Colton
