I Put Airless Helper Springs on My Toyota for Four Months So You Don't Have To. These Are the 7 Things Nobody Told Me.

1. I had no idea my bump stops were doing nothing

Ray, who has worked on my trucks at the same little shop in Laurel for sixteen years, was the one who explained it, and he said it like he was a little annoyed with me. He put the Tacoma on the lift and tapped the factory bump stop with a wrench. It's a small rubber block, he said. It does nothing at all until your suspension has already bottomed out.

Every load, every hard stop and every sharp turn before that is left to factory springs that were never built for a camper on the hitch. My truck was never weak. There was just nothing working in the gap.

2. Nobody told me the squat, the dive and the sway were one problem

I'd been fixing them one at a time. Shocks for the sway. Air bags for the squat. Nothing for the nose dive, because I didn't know anything could be done about it.

Ray said it's all the same gap, front and rear. The back drops when you load it. The front plunges when you brake. The body rolls when you turn. Same empty space, three different ways it shows up.

That's why I spent hundreds and the truck still felt tired. I was patching one end of a truck that needed help on both.

3. Nobody warned me I'd feel it in the brakes before the trailer

I was checking the hitch height in the driveway every morning like a fool. But around day four my wife Linda asked why her coffee wasn't sloshing out of the cup holder at the light by the Walmart, and I hadn't said a word to her about the springs.

Hard stops were next. The nose stayed up instead of diving. Then on our first camping trip in July, the tail sat level with the camper on. The guy in the next site walked over and asked what I'd done to it. I didn't even have to brag. He noticed.

4. Who knew I'd been fixing it from the wrong end?

The air bag kit, the compressor, the heavy duty shocks, a leveling kit I never put on. I had all of it in the garage, half of it still in the box. Ray said none of it was junk, exactly. It was just fixing the ride from the wrong place.

Air bags only help the rear, and they need lines, fittings and a pressure check before every trip. The day one line cracks, you're sagging on the shoulder. These springs sit right where the factory bump stops were. Solid. No air. Nothing to leak. I still run my shocks, by the way. The springs don't replace them. They fill the gap the shocks were never meant to.

5. Nobody told me it would still ride like stock when it's empty

This was the one I couldn't get past. I told Kyle flat out I'd rather live with the sag than drive something that rides like a lumber wagon. So the day the box came, I read every word of it standing at the mailbox.

The springs are progressive. Empty, they barely touch, so my drive to the feed store feels exactly like before. Add weight, brake hard or dip into a corner, and they push back harder the more they squeeze, up to 1,400 lb of support. Load comes off, they spring right back to full height. Nothing to adjust, ever. And the potholes on our county road stopped slamming my teeth together.

6. I had no idea I could do it in my own driveway

I'm not a mechanic. Ray offered to do it, and I almost let him. But Kyle did his 4Runner on a Saturday morning, so I figured I'd try.

Jack it up, unbolt the old rubber stops, set the springs in the same spot, tighten the included bolt. No drilling, no cutting, no lift kit. It took me under an hour for all four with a coffee break. Kyle swears he did his in twenty minutes.

And between the lifetime warranty and the money back guarantee, I figured the worst case was losing a lot less than I'd already lost on that compressor. So I hit the button.

7. Why did nobody tell me to get the front and rear together?

I bought the rear pair first, like a fool, because I thought my only problem was the squat. Two weeks later I went back for the fronts once I noticed how much the nose was still diving and leaning in the turns.

Kyle told me most people figure that out before I did. Over 17,000 Toyota owners have done it, and it's rated 4.9 stars from more than 1,400 reviews. So do what they did and get the front and rear kit. Right now it's 60% off with free shipping and a lifetime warranty. I don't know how long the fall sale runs, so if it's still on when you read this, get both ends. I'll only say that once.