Chevy Autoride Suspension for Overlanding

Luckie1999

New member
Esteemed Overlanders,

I am looking to buy a 2000 suburban 1500 to start a budget camping/light overland/light towing build and everything about it RPO code wise seems good except one thing: it comes with the chevy autoride air suspension. From what I can tell online, this system is not very reliable and can be expensive to repair. The suburban has a lot of things done to it (new KO2s, brakes, and transmission for highlights) but has about 170k miles. I seem to also have found a conversion system from a company called Arnett, but have my doubts as to whether this is a good long term fix.

Could anyone that has experience with autoride give your opinion on whether it should be a deal breaker for me on this rig or if its no big deal and I should just try to negotiate out a little more money to account for doing the conversion or initial repairs? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
 

buellconvert

Active member
You can also look at strutmasters too, they have a kit that converts the suburban to coils and regular shocks for less that $500, I used them when I converted my old Lincoln Mark VIII from air suspension to coils and it was a great kit. If the truck is what you want besides the air ride and you can get it at a good deal, I wouldn't let the suspension stop me from getting it and I'd just swap it over...

Sent from my moto e6 using Tapatalk
 

nitro_rat

Lunchbox Lockers
All you need is a set of regular coil springs and conventional shocks for the rear to mechanically delete it. I think the 2000-2002's are pretty simple to get the suspension warning light turned off also. I would say grab it.

Put Moog coils in the back (they're the same ones that come in the Arnott and Strutmasters kits) and go with Monroe Reflex Monotubes. Make sure you get the monotubes as there is a twin tube relfex also. The regular ones are a champagne color and the monotubes ate black with a convoluted boot.

To beef up the front suspension XRF makes a heavy duty tie rod assembly. Go with Moog problem solver for everything else.

They are great rigs. The early ones are easy to get all 4 headlights to stay on in high beam also.

You can go with Z71 springs in the back (also from Moog) for a little lift and crank the front torsion bars to match.

There is an easy front brake upgrade that uses the newer rotors and calipers (with brackets). It requires 17" wheels. I like a 265/75R16 or 265/70R17 on these but 285's will also fit with minimal fuss. If you get factory 4.10's they work really well with the above tires. If I had to regear I would probably jump to 4.30 or 4.56.
 

CrazyDrei

Space Monkey
Autoride is awesome for overlanding. But takes three steps to make it perfect.

Step 1: unhook the johnson rods and disconnect autoride from all 4 corners.

Step 2: Install new shocks such as bilstein 5100s.

Step 3: pull the autoride fuse to disable the dash warning light.

Beyond that, you might want to pull the air compressor off the frame because it's just extra weight that just hangs there and serves no other purpose. I bolted up a 2 gallon air tank in that location for my onboard air.

As far as negotiating on price use it, it's expensive to fix and and break often. As far as other options, the truck sounds like a great start. KO2s and the tranny (if it has a receipt) should have saved you $2,000 right there.
 

Luckie1999

New member
Thanks for the quick response guys. Good to know its not a complicated fix. I found this set specifically, but couldn't tell if they were just coils and shocks with the electronic module or if the replacement had to be a special design for some weird reason that would lock me in to that company.

https://www.arnottindustries.com/co...llac-escalade-ext-exv-gm-yukon-xl-gmt-830-lwb

nitro_rat,

Thanks for the extra tip. the truck i'm looking at is geared at 4.10 with the G80 so i'll have to look into it if I end up buying the truck. Looking to tow a 6x10 camper conversion trailer so i'll take as much extra breaks as I can get for overkill and safety.
 

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