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Unfortunate design flaw

7K views 78 replies 28 participants last post by  Second Wind 
#1 ·
I just recently learned about this unfortunate design flaw. It makes the axles shift left to right when the jeep goes up and down. It is stupid.

The problem is even worse when you lift the damn thing. Some really good lift kits MUST address this issue by dropping the trackbar to compensate for the increased angle from the lift. I don't know. It looks too weird.

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#6 ·
And the rear track bar goes the other way, so when you jump on the highway doing 75, its good to know that your jeep is doing the ballerina with front wheels going left and the rear wheels going right....
 
#4 ·
I'd rather have the green axel... much more unique I think... although it is only 2wd... unless they've made the smallest pumpkin in the world... would help with ground clearence issues...
 
#16 ·
@deathphoenix99 Ahahahahahaha, do that to your jeep and see how it rides! :thumb:
 
#14 ·
Oh good God! I guess we all need to whine to Jeep that we want a Watts link to make sure the axle stays exactly in the middle under any circumstance possible.

Even though a track bar isn't perfect it's a helluva lot better than leaf springs because you can at least predict where the axle will be at any given time. I don't see anyone complaining about their leaf springs on a YJ doing a lousy job of keeping the axle centered.
 
#19 ·
:whistling: Remember, if you "X" tracked the axle like that !

I would go STRAIGHT up and DOWN--no articulation !

Sure would ride good though-for a maller

:dance::rofl: JIMBO

Wrong! By crossing the track bar like that you would create vertical triangulation and the axle would not move at all. It would be the same as WELDING the axle to the frame, no springing action. :thumb: The only purpose it'd be good for is display in a museum of tanks LOL
 
#21 ·
Design flaw? Seriously?

This is just a consequence of using a track bar. There's nothing unusual about it and they are widely used. (See here.)

If you lift beyond 2" or so, you just get a longer track bar or (less preferred) a bracket that provides a little extra length. Problem solved.
 
#24 ·
Design flaw? Seriously?

This is just a consequence of using a track bar. There's nothing unusual about it and they are widely used. (See here.)

If you lift beyond 2" or so, you just get a longer track bar or (less preferred) a bracket that provides a little extra length. Problem solved.
Exactly, it is a consequence of bad design! It is the simplest solution with a known flaw, which is acceptable, and not easily avoidable, yet its a problem. Extending the track bar is workaround, a compensation to the problem. Not the solution. The fact that its used widely, does not mean its perfect. A solution may be best, relative to all other known solutions, but its not absolute best.:whistling:
 
#38 ·
Jimbox, I think you meant U of WD40!
 
#44 ·
This has got to be the stupidest example of a design "flaw" I have ever seen. This is not a flaw, it's a compromise. This is the best that could be done without adding too much cost. The could have given us a Watts link and it would cost 10 times as much as the track bar. They could have done a triangulated 4 link, but that inherently binds. Then you'd be in here crying about how the control arms are twisted as the suspension moves through its travel. We can fix the binding by using Heim joints at all the mounting points, but those aren't cheap and most people are perfectly happy with the rubber bushings. Except you. That last 1% of articulation would keep you up at night wondering what could have been if only you had a Jeep with a nice set of Heim jointed control arms. You'd drive it a while and they'd start to wear a little bit and get noisy. Or worse they might squeak because that's what they do sometimes. Then you'd be in here crying about the noisy suspension that is obviously because of a design flaw. At the end of the day, if you're Jeep, you're money ahead to put something on there that satisfies 99.99% of all you customers because it doesn't matter what you do or how you built it, a Wrangler with a base price of $40k built with as little compromise as possible will still be nitpicked to death by someone who wakes up in the morning searching for some trivial piece of minutia to complain about on the internet. Does the track bar move the axle side to side a bit during its travels? Absolutely. Does it matter? Hell no. It probably moves less than an inch total from full droop to full compression. The old leaf spring suspensions allowed more side to side movement than that, and there was no way to predict where they might be at any point in the travel. What we have now is by no means perfect; if it was there wouldn't be so many aftermarket parts available for it. But it's as close to perfect as statistically possible given the price point of the vehicle and the wants/needs of the typical purchaser. If an axle that moves back and forth a little bit is such a problem you may be looknig at the wrong vehicle.

Do you honestly think this wasn't looked at and considered by the engineers, accountants, and production people at Jeep and deemed to be the best compromise that could be made before they built it?
 
#46 · (Edited by Moderator)
This has got to be the stupidest example of a design "flaw" I have ever seen. This is not a flaw, it's a compromise. This is the best that could be done without adding too much cost. The could have given us a Watts link and it would cost 10 times as much as the track bar. They could have done a triangulated 4 link, but that inherently binds. Then you'd be in here crying about how the control arms are twisted as the suspension moves through its travel. We can fix the binding by using Heim joints at all the mounting points, but those aren't cheap and most people are perfectly happy with the rubber bushings. Except you. That last 1% of articulation would keep you up at night wondering what could have been if only you had a Jeep with a nice set of Heim jointed control arms. You'd drive it a while and they'd start to wear a little bit and get noisy. Or worse they might squeak because that's what they do sometimes. Then you'd be in here crying about the noisy suspension that is obviously because of a design flaw. At the end of the day, if you're Jeep, you're money ahead to put something on there that satisfies 99.99% of all you customers because it doesn't matter what you do or how you built it, a Wrangler with a base price of $40k built with as little compromise as possible will still be nitpicked to death by someone who wakes up in the morning searching for some trivial piece of minutia to complain about on the internet. Does the track bar move the axle side to side a bit during its travels? Absolutely. Does it matter? Hell no. It probably moves less than an inch total from full droop to full compression. The old leaf spring suspensions allowed more side to side movement than that, and there was no way to predict where they might be at any point in the travel. What we have now is by no means perfect; if it was there wouldn't be so many aftermarket parts available for it. But it's as close to perfect as statistically possible given the price point of the vehicle and the wants/needs of the typical purchaser. If an axle that moves back and forth a little bit is such a problem you may be looknig at the wrong vehicle.

Do you honestly think this wasn't looked at and considered by the engineers, accountants, and production people at Jeep and deemed to be the best compromise that could be made before they built it?
For one, Engineers and Accountants... are like water and oil. they don't mix, so whatever compromise they do come up with is to be challenged.

If you trust accountants, you get Wall Street. If you trust engineers blindly, well, idk, you will get Matrix. You gotta question. My point is, it doesn't matter how many people looked at something before, you can always challenge it. Without that, we'd still be in dark ages.

How else do you improve something if you ignore the details?

Lastly, the definition of flaw is sinonymous with imperfection. If a diamond has imperfection, it is said to have flaws. You still gave your girlfriend the diamond, cuz that's all your a$$ could afford at the moment, but its still a diamond. So I don't know where you get off saying that its a stupid example when you say in your own words that the design is by no means perfect. See my point?
 
#45 ·
There is a perfectly viable alternative configuration that eliminates the "design flaw"... it's called IFS, and it's on almost every single passenger vehicle built today, EXCEPT a jeep wrangler, which has an "inferior" front suspension with several (not just the track bars) "design flaws".

They are there on purpose, because jeep guys will stop buying new jeeps if they ever eliminate those "flaws"...

go buy an F150 or a dodge ram... they got a frames and torsion bars, eliminating the "problem"
 
#48 ·
There is a perfectly viable alternative configuration that eliminates the "design flaw"... it's called IFS, and it's on almost every single passenger vehicle built today, EXCEPT a jeep wrangler, which has an "inferior" front suspension with several (not just the track bars) "design flaws".

They are there on purpose, because jeep guys will stop buying new jeeps if they ever eliminate those "flaws"...

go buy an F150 or a dodge ram... they got a frames and torsion bars, eliminating the "problem"
aelwero, LOL, it kinda sounds like you're supporting my point, but you keep putting the "design flaw" in sarcastic quotes :)
 
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