King or Fox?

I agree customer service does go a long way. That’s what swayed me as well was the reviews from people that switched from the Big 3 companies to ADS.

 

ADS looks crazy expensive... JS

 

^^ This!

 

Honestly man coming from being a long time mountain biker, I tend to stay away from Fox products cause they have the same rep for their mountain bike shocks. Their products always burn out the fastest, most expensive products to begin with, and their turn around time is double if not triple the amount of time as their competitors. It was an easy decision for me when entering the truck world to avoid them as to be honest they have a horrible rep just from the raptor guys. Fox makes their own valved shocks as an upgrade for the raptor and that’s what many guys use to beef up their stock raptor suspension from the not as good oem fox ones on their vehicles. They have to wait months and months because fox takes a good while turn around and couple that with lots and lots of customers. To me, I think they are over hyped for much of a pain in the ass they make themselves to deal with, but again I say that as a mountain biker who gladly avoids their products. It never ceases to amaze me how professional that king has been through my experience and in the race scene, you can’t discount the strong presence that king has.

Folks are right that king doesn’t have a 2.0 option in stockform like fox does, but that’s because king is big on what works and makes sense for trucks over offering every variation without customization. They share this mentality in regards to their coils always having remote resis. Yea you can get their coils special order without, but they figure why settle on less insurance for shock fade to occur which can lead to blown shocks without a Resi. Cause of stuff like this, king does make a lot of sense for the guys who need that level of performance.

 

I was one of the first purchasers of the Toytec 2.5's for the third gens. They were saweet in the beginning. The ride quality and lift were huge upgrades over stock, but two years and 12,000 miles later the ride quality is getting pretty rigid, and my lift has shrunk a half inch with add one to the truck. The weight I've added probably has more to do with the decrease in ride quality then the shocks, but if I had to do it over again I would get the King with 700# coils. I feel all of the big four or five companies make a pretty good product, but you need to look ahead at the big picture of your build to determine what demands you be placing on your suspension when completed. I underestimated my build, and now I get to pay the price. Suspension is generally the starting point for a build, with the rest following over a period of time as money allows, so plan ahead. Customer Service is key in any purchase and finding a company with good customer service will improve your whole experience tremendously. Toytec was good about it, but geezI wish they had aske more questions up front, it would have saved me some do re me

 

I switched to FOX on my bicycles when Rock Shox was having all kinds of issues with the Judy dampers and the Manitou TPC was on the wrong side. This is back when all those guys were applying what they knew about motorcycles to MTBs, so having the damper on the left side didn't seem wrong yet. FOX has always had the damper on the right side so if it does overheat and leak it doesn't foul your brake rotor.

I got lucky because there's a couple of aftermarket options local to me to build and tune FOX forks and shocks. The guys I use are PUSH, literally down the road from me. They turn around a rebuild in a couple of days, so I got that going for me.

That said, if I was in the market to build a fork now it would probably be MRP out of Grand Junction, CO. Although it would be hard to stray from a PUSH'd FOX for the convenience. I'm also not nearly as enthusiastic about them now that they have moved quite a bit of production overseas.

The reason FOX makes 2.0 shocks is that not everyone needs 2.5 and 3.0 shocks or reservoirs. King is a smaller company and focuses solely on a higher end.

I've never personally overheated my 2.5 body shocks because I don't do desert racing and even an hour of washboards isn't anywhere like it. I've gotten my rear 2.0 pretty warm but they haven't faded on me. They'll be replaced with 2.5 or 2.0 with reservoirs when budget allows.

It's all a compromise since not everyone has unlimited deep pockets. The steps from stock -> Bilstein -> OME Nitro -> BP51/FOX/King/ADS are a balance between performance/price. The fact is you get a ton of improvement at each step.

I happened to have some money when I did the suspension on my truck so I decided I wanted something beyond what I had on my last truck, which was a mostly OME Nitrocharger system, which never let me down. I'd always wanted the option to tune my shocks, so I splurged but I still couldn't spend 25% of what I paid for my truck on shocks. The reason for FOX is that love 'em or hate 'em, there's a lot of non-factory places that know how to work on them. That's another lucky thing on my part, @TMFF is a short drive away.

 

They were up there with fox, went bankrupt or somesuch, then were bought by AFE or something like that. I haven’t been in touch with my off road mfg drama. But they are back.

Honestly I don’t expect people to really remember sway a way because back when it was fox, saw, and MAYBE king (later on) bolted into trucks, most people here were Obsessing over their civics.

I spy a sway a way sticker back in the dizzay woooooo

How I remember it was that you had red or blue. Sway a way or fox. Bloods and crips.

 

this is why I'm going 2.5's with dual speed compression adjustment. I drive regularly, 2-3 days per week on washboard eroded national forest roads. All in all, fox is a bigger company all with the R&D and engineering muscle the industry could ask for from ALL types of suspension...

 

I'm probably doing 2.0 w/ DSC in the back as well. Haven't found the need to change the damping on the fly in the front shocks but it would be handy on the rear. I'm sometimes spot on, sometimes it develops a little bit of an oscillation. Mostly seems hanging the rack and bikes off the back affect things more than I assumed. It's never uncontrollable, though. And like I say, I haven't found the need for larger bodies in my application, so the remote reservoir on a 2.0 should be plenty sufficient improvement.

 

I've had Kings in for about 3 weeks. I don't have anything to compare them to. But they have been great so far on and off road. And with the TW @Downsouth Motorsports discount the price was great.

And the service was top notch.

Very happy with my choice

 

Just need to shop around. I got mine for an awesome deal...

 

I was under the same situation a few years back with my 2nd gen and went with Icon 2.5 w/CDC. Now, fast forward and I'm in a 3rd gen. King and Fox were my options this time around, I picked up Fox 2.5 w/DSC for Black Friday. I could've gone either way, but the Fox were 30% off which made it an easier choice. Will be installing soon, but now I got to debate which UCA.

 

Kings! Waiting on their arrival.................

 

Check out the ome bp51

 

Thanks for the info

 

are they the extended travel 2.5?

If so I'm running the Total Chaos UCA and absolutely love em.

 

Most on my daily driving will be NFR washboard just to get to pavement, and I hate going slow.. JS

 

Probably need a factory discount to filter down.

 

Where did you purchase?

 

I think we are saying similar in the direction of king over fox...king is the more focused guy who wants all the capability. King might be smaller from an overall company perspective, but their presence in the off roaring scene to me is much more dominant than they were ten years ago when it was more high speed racing. That’s where it comes down to the user...like everything else on this forum...do you wheel...drive fast over stuff...etc. I guess a better to describe fox is they have products to suit more types of drivers than just the off Rosser while king mainly designs for guys who want to put their truck trough their paces due to their product line up. That said, king is in pretty heavy demand for products a lot cause of the aggressive drivers out there are pretty devout to them for a number of reasons.

As far as mtb goes, back when fox first entered the fork scene they did help revolutionize the fork game with a better valving set up which forces guys like rock Shox and manitou step it up. Now a days with many companies on the same page, fox is becoming more and more pronounced with their wait times and annoying proprietary parts that seem to be a pain to get. A few of my buddies own bike shops and they all deter fox products for this purpose. Not everyone needs to have their stuff refreshed all the time unless you run gravity Dh which is what I do. Fox seems to have the quickest refreshing intervals which is also not advantageous as some of my buddies have to send their forks offs before the season even ends.