Motorcycle Shocks vs. Car Shocks: What's the Difference?

How's it going everybody, I'm Nate Beck and you're watching fix my Hog. For over 30 years Arnott has been the leader in air suspension in luxury brand vehicles, because of this, they understand the critical differences between car air suspension and motorcycle air suspension. Couple that with a team of world-class engineers, R and D, and testing, and that's one custom tuned product for your ride. Arnott's patented True Air Technology is true motorcycle air suspension. It's powered by an onboard air compressor that's adjustable via a handlebar mounted thumb switch. This allows the rider to raise and lower the shock length for parking, stopping, and really finding that custom tuned feel whether you're riding solo, two up, or with luggage. Arnott's kits are manufactured right here in the USA and feature custom valve monotube shocks, deflective disc, and velocity sensitive damping. What that brings you is one high quality product at an affordable price. So let's take a look at some of the other air suspension products out there and then we'll talk about the Arnott. So what I have here is an automotive designed shock that's been modified for a motorcycle. This is not ideal because the needs of a car shock and the needs of a motorcycle shock are two vastly different things. A lot of times, heavy modifications have to happen to make this work on a motorcycle. Things like modifying bushings and adding welds to the top and the bottom. A lot of times these can break and fail, which causes metal on metal rubbing because there's no internal bump stop within the shock to stop that. These also have low grade plastic air connectors which also tend to fail, as well as a low twin tube design that prematurely heats up and causes fade defeating the whole purpose of air suspension. So what we have here is an OE air assist shock, one of the common misconceptions about this is that it's air suspension, when in fact it's air assist. This is still a spring and oil system and oftentimes you have to manually pump the air into the shock. Now these can only hold about 50 PSI, so that custom tuned ride that you're really looking for is really, really limited on this shock. This also has a low-tech twin tube design that will also prematurely heat up and cause fade. So now what we have here is a simple air cylinder shock. As you can see, these do not have the shock and damper system that controls the motion of the shock. What these also don't have is a way to read the road, it's a simple air cylinder and cannot respond to the conditions of the road, so that poses not only safety problems but you paid all this money and took all this time to put air suspension on your motorcycle and you're not getting any performance out of it. These also experience severe topping over bumps which causes some safety issues as well as some complex internals which means complex repairs, should they need to be haven. So let's talk about Arnott and what makes them the leader in air suspension. What I have here is Arnott's Ultimate Ride and Smooth Ride air suspension. Now Arnott are made for your year, make, and model of Harley Davidson, what that means is it's guaranteed to work and guaranteed to give you the performance that you're looking for. This monotube shock features a single cylinder designed to prevent the fade that you get on an automotive shock or on an OE air assist shock. On their Ultimate Ride kits they have machined upper and lower, out of aircraft quality aluminum. These also feature application specific bushings and urethane bump stops that you're not going to get on an OE or a automotive shock. Then they go one step further and protect it with a multiplied Goodyear rubber air bladder that adds air spring firmness. This is all in a aluminum tube that is going to protect it from dust and debris and they cap it off with some brass fittings, so you're not going to have the low quality plastic air fittings that are prone to damage, again, like you do on the automotive shocks. Lastly, if you're riding a new Milwaukee Eight, Arnott's got your back and makes shocks for that as well. If you're interested in upgrading your suspension and checking out air suspension, absolutely check out Arnottcycles.com and pick the best for your ride. Until next time, ride safe, wrench safe, and we'll see you on the road.