So I just picked up a Vivid Air Ultimate, it's not the newest one that just came out.
I'm pretty sure it has been sitting on a shelf in a box somewhere for multiple years. Is it reasonable for me to suspect it's IFP pressure dropped a bit below the optimal PSI? I haven't ridden it yet, still winter conductions where I live. But if there is any service that needs to be done, I wanna get it done now and not when I wanna ride.
Is charging the IFP straightforward? I checked the manual and it looks like it uses a schrader valve, so can I just pop my shock pump on there and go to town? Or dors the low volume in the IFP make it too tricky to set w/ a shock pump?
https://www.sram.com/globalassets/document-hierarchy/service-manuals/rockshox/rear-suspension/2024-vivid-service-manual.pdf
Page 116 says 200 psi.
It's annoying that it uses a shrader valve, but requires that weird adapter as well. Would be so nice for shocks to just have normal ways to fill IFPs, like dvo does it.
DVO does it because you need to constantly check their IFP pressure because it loses pressure... they bill this as a feature and I would say that is clever marketing as it's an issue. There is honestly a bigger risk of consumers just draining or improperly checking and not re-filling an IFP... so a plain shraeder attachment is not something that I would feel will benefit consumers.
There is no reason that the IFP pressure should have reduced over time with storage. Over the course of 5-6 years of no use, maybe... but not an issue with how new the vivid air is.
Hmm, I guess I'm just an odd ball haha. I always prefer to have easy access to everything that can be changed or adjusted.
As for my vivid, according to the sticker on the box - it was shipped out of the RS factory in 2024, so perhaps it is fine but I wouldn't be surprised if it has lost a bit of pressure. I'd rather know for sure than end up with aerated oil or poor performance haha.
I got an ohlins which that was sitting for maybe a year longer than this vivid, and it did need some pressure added. I don't recall the exact numbers but it seemed like more than would have been lost from connecting the shock pump hose to it.
It is not super common but there are a couple things that can cause this. Of course IFP pressure is set with air or nitrogen- many Rockshox just do air. Air molecules are smaller than Nitrogen and can escape through poruous rubber just like a tire. Nitrogen leaks slower (it is not the reason performance wise we use Nitro) than air. For a shock to leak out that quickly is kind of odd and so I would suspect a poor sealing valve core which is very common on a .01 cent part. The valve cores are standard car tire ones for the most part.
Man, if you don't like Rockshox' proprietary suspension tools, let me tell you that you are NOT going to like working on Fox shocks.
It shouldn't lose pressure in that time - and it's not something you use for tuning, so theres no need to access it easily. Constantly checking it would be more likely to make it start leaking if anything. Most companies use a shrunken valve to improve clearance in the frame by not having a valve stick out, and allowing a shorter reservoir length.
The adapters are cheap so you can top it up with a shock pump before riding if you really want to, but screwing the pump on will make it drop a huge amount so its pointless "checking" it that way.
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