I drove the supercab today with the 133" wheelbase (5 1/2" bed)
and it didn't seem to have as nice a ride as the supercab with the 144" wheelbase. Maybe it is just my imagination or is there really that much difference in road feel with smaller wheelbase vs larger wheelbase? Can you tech guys fill me in on this?

 

I'm not a tech guy but I've always noticed a better ride in longer wheelbase trucks. My first ranger was an extended cab and my second was a standard cab and there was definately a difference. The extended cab had a smoother, less harsh ride.

 

Almost always, longer wheelbase will give a smoother ride. This has to do with the geometry of the situation.

Image thing, pretend the two wheelbase options are 100cm, and 200cm (c'mon.. just pretend) If you are in the 100cm rig, and your front tire hits a 10cm bump, then the front of the truck had to move upwards 10% of it's length, or roughly a 6 degree rotation.

If you are in the 200cm rig, the front lifts the same amount for the same bump, but it becomes less than a 2 degree rotation. The linear vertical movement when going over this bump will be felt in your ***, and along your spine, with roughly the same resulting from each truck, however, the perception of stability is often tied to how much your head moves around. If you twist the truck up 6 degrees and drop it down quickly, your head will bounce around a lot more then a 2 degree twist.

FMC actually did a very nice study on this a number of years back when they compared the taurus to a beamer. They found that the taurus actually took corners better then the beamer, but the suspension system of the beamer kept the drivers head from flopping around so it felt a lot smoother than the taurus.

So.. short answer, the longer wheelbase should almost always feel like a smoother ride.

 

That was a better answer than mine.

 

Mr.McFeely, that's much better than what I had!