Ride Height sensor recommendations

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Aspen03

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Has anyone here used any of the aftermarket ride height sensors for your air suspension? It seems the factory ones had a strange open ended design and many aftermarket hook on with a similar mechanism that our rear glass and hood lift struts use. I did a quick search here and didn't come across much other than general air ride broken questions. Many without a resolve. Their is an enormous difference in cost vs factory replacements and if the link is improved I'm all for giving 3rd party a shot. Jjst curious is anyone has any experience with one brand over another. Prices on these I've seen from $30-40ea to about $300 for Ford oem with most all points between covered. Being an important piece of the air suspension puzzle I don't want to go a subpar route but if there is a better mechanism on them vs factory it seems like a logical way to go.

As my wife pulled put of our in laws drive, which there is a large bump going up to the road I noticed her navigator bounce pretty hard...enough to make the headlights flutter up and down and catch my attention, I had her immediately pull over in a neighborhood nearby. Turns out the rear ride height sensor linkage had popped off again and as a result more or less bottomed out the suspension since she was climing up over a 6" obstacle. It was essentially riding on the bump stops at this point. Crawled under and snapped it back on, far too easily in my mind and I think it's time for a replacement. The movement also felt sluggish/tight to what I've seen represented in repair videos I looked up last time.

It's happened twice at their house, the first while pulling in about 7 months ago. For whatever reason when the county resurfaced the road they also built up the road bed significantly and no one bothered to taper it off into their gravel drive so there is a hump taller than a curb and not profiled nearly as well that you have to drop off or croll up to get out of there. They've complained several times to no avail. It's the county line road and neither wants to be responsible for correcting the issue. If my in laws didn't happen to drive trucks and suvs there is a high likelihood you wouldn't be able to get out of there. When people visit or deliveries happen people 9/10 times scrape thier undercarriage and bumpers unless you come to a complete stop on a busy road and walk the vehicle down angled 1 tire at a time.
 

OverlandExpy

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Probably won't get an answer here unfortunately, the 2nd gen forum is pretty dead. If you're having issues with the air suspension though I'd recommend just swapping over to coilovers. A lot less maintenance and way easier to fix if it does break. A conversion can be done for around $500-$600 if you have some jackstands and a decent set of tools.

I've got the air suspension still on my 04 EB, but am in the market for some long travel suspension. No one seems to make aftermarket parts for our generation of expys though. Good luck!
 
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Aspen03

Aspen03

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It's just a bad sensor, original to the vehicle so can't complain too much. It's binding up and doesn't travel like it should. If you move it w a bar (not getting under it while it's moving up/down) the suspension responds as it should and otherwise drives fine. When something major goes it'll likely switch to coils. That's far more work than necessary at the moment however. I was able to get in touch w the previous owner who had replaced one of the front sensors which, close to 2 years after he installed is still doing the job and Ill be ordering with the same kind.

I was really just after some feedback on the oem vs aftermarket on these given a massive cost differential. This is a very low use vehicle for us so saving $250-300 on a sensor that will likely outlast our ownership is substantial. We've driven less than 4k on it in a year. It's a very easy component to service and only minimal time required. Knowing the old still functions, just not perfectly it'll be stashed away somewhere in a dark cubby hole in the vehicle in case the aftermarket were to suddenly fail. Wouldn't be caught stuck thay way. Honestly for as cheap as the aftermarket ones are I'm considering just buying all 3 sensors to have spares for a just in case scenario. They're not very big and would stash inside the rear wheel areas under the cup holder with ease.

I do most of my own work, so long as I can physically do it and have a proper set of tools, along with my in laws owning an auto repaur shop...I was formerly a tech but due to a back injury it's not pleasant to be contorted working on things 40+ hrs a week.
 
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