If it's in this story, at least one member of the Jp staff has lived with it for a minimum of a couple thousand miles. We've thrashed them off-road, whanged 'em with reckless abandon down washes, and critiqued them on the street. These are the traction devices tested by the staff and our opinions of them. No press-release regurgitations, no worries about stepping on advertiser toes, or lighting up Donnie-Web-Wanker's e-mail circle. Just the truth, as brought to you by our hands-on testing.
Scale: Five stars is the highest rating, one star is the lowest.
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Arb Air Locker
Overview: An ARB Air Locker operates as a normal open differential when not engaged. When engaged, a collar is pneumatically moved to lock the spider gears, creating a spool. When locked, both axleshafts turn at the same rate, whether in a front or rear application.
Street: *****
If you like the way your open diff behaves on the street, then an ARB is for you; it goes unnoticed. Or you can lock it up and chirp tires when parking to impress the ladies.
Off-road: *****
As long as you feed it the required air pressure, the ARB locks and unlocks crisply and predictably off-road. We haven't had any need to jockey the vehicle around to get gears and pins to line up. It's on when the button is on and off when the button is off. When engaged, both wheels spin at the same rate but offer the flexibility of being turned off for super-tight turning. Makes a great front differential for twisty trails.
Good:Highly versatile, delivering excellent balance between on- and off-road requirements. Differential is very strong and can take the shock of an axleshaft snapping under load without failing.
Bad: One of the most expensive lockers out there per application. The air lines can be vulnerable to obstacles. Requires a source of onboard air. Lots of things that can go wrong if not installed properly. We've suffered a few internal seal leaks either from high mileage or contaminated oil. The result is gear oil traveling up the air line and out the solenoid purge orifice. On two of our units, air leaks from the seals kept the unit from locking.