Mid Travel vs Long Travel - Which Is Better? | Chasing Dust

This week, it's time for tech talk on Chasing Dust! What is the difference in mid travel vs long travel suspension? If you're looking to upgrade your suspension, you'll probably run into this question before taking your Tacoma off-road, or any vehicle for that matter.

Matt is joined this week by his buddy Brad. You may have seen the two of them on an episode of Driver Battles: Dirt Edition.

Matt and Brad discuss the various differences, pros, and cons of mid travel and long travel suspension systems on two different Toyota Tacomas. They get into why each off road Toyota Tacoma build is made the way it is, and why you might want to go with either setup. By the end of this, we'll have everything you wanted to know about mid travel and long travel suspension explained. Whether you're a mild off-roader or find yourself in the dirt every weekend, this is everything you need to know before modifying your Tacoma suspension.

Drop a comment, share what you want to see more of from the Desert Chief and his project builds!

Matt's truck is sitting on Nitto Tire Terra Grappler G2s:
Brad's truck is sitting on Nitto Tire Ridge Grapplers:

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Thanks for watching!

[drakedischler]

long travel vs mid travel.. with no actual video of them driving lmfao. go find a mall.

[thirstquencher]

The guy says "I'll let you take the wing" and literally DOESN'T LET HIM EXPLAIN!!! 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

[reichousalex]

Side by side or one after the other clips of the two trucks through the same terrain would be interesting to see. There really aren't any direct comparison clips like that out there for Tacos.

[mydaddy]

Very helpful video. I'm a rookie with all this and now I'm leaning towards long travel. Thank you!

[gdolloway]

Perfect video!! Have been going back and forth for months now!! Glad you put it in perspective for me

[johnnyloveee]

Damn you really made your friend shut up and pretty much acted like that dude who is around his ex and brings up all of the things he knows about her to her new boyfriend. It got awkward after a while. I cannot lie lmfao. Dope trucks though.

[seanlincoln]

Stock lower control arm and tiny bit longer upper control arm is not a “Mid travel” kit. Literally stock but stronger and maybe another inch or two or travel.

[NebuChadNezzarKBDN]

Uni-ball is not a good idea unless you like dissembling your suspension just to lube it up all the time. Ball joints are way better unless your literally a desert racer or off-road only.

[paoyang]

Funny how he said to his friend to describe it but he was talking the whole time lmao.

[cdogg]

Very interesting hearing them call a stock length suspension setup “mid-travel”. There is no extra travel with that truck. They have just upgraded the stock suspension components to make it more off-road worthy. And the “long-travel” truck is actually mid-travel because it retains the stock coil bucket. Just my two cents.

[davidcowan]

So sad in Oz we can't do this fully illegal unless they are fully dedicated pre running trucks. Wish we could have the flexibility you guys have with modifications.

[Bloo]

I've got a ram 1500 with a long travel kit being installed on the front. It has king 2.5 piggyback shocks tuned by carli on the back with beefier coil springs and adjusted roll bar connects. The front should get about 13.5 inch travel and the rear about 13 inch travel. Hopefully the back can keep up with the front dirtking kit

[chai]

Didn’t let the dude talk about his truck at all.. lol.

[lifeonadime]

How does that mid travel setup do on say, a pretty bump stretch of back road, pot holes etc? Tbh that's why I'm about to build one. They just won't fix our roads within about a 50 mile radius of where I live and I'm sick of it

[mrshinybald]

The leaf under pack compromises your clearence, though it's a stronger suspension setup

[manny.camera]

I don't dislike your channel, but when you do a premier upload I can't add it to watch later from the notification and the uploads are starting to make me ignore your channel and are annoying. Just $0.02 from a subscriber.

[swkynard]

Its funny to hear the old owner tell the new owner to take the lead on explaining the suspension, old owner takes over explaining which is the exact opposite of what the plan was.

[frkndave]

I always thought medium/long travel were meant for dirt/sand/trail seekers. I do mostly trail/crawl here in the front range of the Rockies. Does medium/long travel just as important when crawling?

[bartbarnett]

why does everybody like the nitto tires so much is it because of the price? unfortunately Mickey Thompson discontinued the tire I was using but compared to the nitto. traction in all conditions except for wet road was better. the nitto did excel in wet road. but in mud snow ice sand the Mickey Thompson outperform the nitto in ride tenfold. and with the Mickey Thompson's I didn't ever get stuck. I got 30, 000 miles out of the nitto trail grappler and 50, 000 good miles out of the Mickey Thompson Baja MTZ. not going to lie I did run them for 80, 000 miles. off-roading every single day working in a mine. Street applications you can't beat a Cooper tire.

[MrDukeofearls]

Both tacos are mid travel, unless you have removed the factory coil over bucket it’s not long travel more over a chase truck “mid travel”