Is AHC suspension ok for going off-road? Would like to hear from members who have gone off-road with standard suspension.
Here is an artical from IH8MUD posted way back in Oct 2013, entilted
LX AHC Off Road Suitability
credit to TeCKis300
AHC gets a bad rap from most on these boards. While some of it is deserving, as it's a potentially expensive wear item to maintain and repair, most of the other reasons are largely undeserving as it's a robust and capable system that is meant to increase the capability breadth of the vehicle without compromises. That is, it will do very well for on road manners, yet also provide clearance, articulation, and active dampening when the going gets rough.
I can't find it at the moment, but Toyota had a diagram that compared the capability of AHC vs non-AHC equipped hundy. It basically showed the AHC vehicle having more capability and on and off road. Now you can't have everything and eat your cake too, as the obvious trade-off is increase cost and complexity. Which brings me to my main point.
Half of the negativity against the system is due to second hand owners unwilling to cough up to maintain and repair what is ultimately a wear item. Not that it's not durable as there are plenty of anecdotal stories about it lasting over 200k. The other half is due to second hand owners trying to modify the system, or use it outside of its carrying capability, without truly understanding how to modify it to do whatever they are doing. Then they blame any fault on some contrived incapability or unreliability of the system.
Fact is, it's a tremendously capable system that can allow you to have the best of both on road and off road qualities (unlike an off road oriented suspension which biases the truck). I'll list a few.
1) By it's very nature of having a large fluid volume, it has more thermal capacity than any remote reservoir setup - great for those washboards.
2) The suspension is ACTIVE, so it has the ability to automatically dial in the right dampening for any particular wash board and load.
3) AHC will RTI higher (toyota supported fact) due to its smaller anti-roll bars and active height control.
4) AHC is constant height, regardless of load within its rated capacity. For example, if you toss in 4 people and gear on a standard non-AHC hundy, you'll already begin at a lower ride height relative to the AHC equipped hundy. Nevermind that the AHC can lift on demand.
5) AHC can have more lift than a statically lifted (stock non-AHC shocked) hundy on demand. Because the non-AHC truck has to compromise to leave some droop in it's setup. The AHC can go even beyond its on demand high position, when the ECU detects the need.
Sorry for my long winded reply, but I hate watching the herd mentality (eg. above) bash AHC on these boards , without a substantive reply.