Firestone 2245 Ride-Rite Kit

Cheap Firestone 2245 Ride-Rite Kit Review

I purchased this kit for my 2004 tundra to improve ride when pulling a loaded car trailer. tundras have a great ride when unloaded and a really great ride with a few hundred pounds in the bed. But my personal thought is that they(pre-07 models) are fairly dangerous when towing heavy equipment due to small brakes, soft springs, light weight of the vehicle, narrow stance. Previously, if I had any tongue weight on the truck while driving, any bump would cause the rear end to get sloppy and raise the frontend causing some floating.

The install went well. although initial writeups didn't comment on drilling the frame, it wasn't too difficult(just be careful of brake lines and cables). The kit was missing a few nuts so I had to use my own. Good thing I had several spares onhand. Double-check that you have all of the necessary parts before beginning. I routed my fill valves through the licence plate upper bolts in the rear bumper. I had to do some extra drilling in ot hte plastic mount and the brass nut did strip on one side so be careful if you do this. the result of licenceplate mounting is it keeps things clean and easy access to adjust pressure when needed.

I've tested the airbag setup twice since install with two different results. The first test up a freeway in to the mountains showed improved control of the trailer(allowing more tongue weight w/out rearend spring sag). The trailer stopped controlling the truck when hitting minor bumps and high speed curves. The 2nd test run was again in the mountains but included extreme winding switchback roads and very uneven paving. The vehicle still caused some tongue bounce in this environment. but the frontend didn't float as before. I may have had too much tongue weight for the amount of air in the bags at the time. It's something that will require some fine tuning of tongue weight vs air bag weight. In both scenarios, city driving was much more controlled than before the air bag install.

overall I feel much more control of the vehicle and trailer which results in a much safer towing environment.

Firestone 2245 Ride-Rite Kit Feature

• RIDE-RITE KIT

Firestone 2245 Ride-Rite Kit Overview

RIDE-RITE KIT



*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Mar 23, 2010 07:56:06