Leveling VS Lifting - Pros and Cons

what's up guys Mitchell watts with tiny country TV and today I'm here to bring you a video talking about the pros and the cons versus leveling your truck versus completely lifting your truck and so in today's video we're going to talk about some of the pros and the cons of each one of those and we're gonna kind of help give you a little bit of information so that way you can make an informed decision on what's best to do for your truck itself now I know you what you're probably thinking like what in the world is going on with the building the dealership behind us right now we're in the middle of a massive five million dollar renovation one of those is going to be adding a completely customized showroom 1,700 square feet full of lift kits leveling kits custom bumpers and so if you're ever in the Birmingham area I would love for you to come by just shake my hand even if you don't buy anything man I just love meeting all the subscribers and so thank you to every one of you guys that have helped make this renovation possible so without further ado let's go ahead and jump back into the video and let's talk about the pros and the cons of this truck right here let's first up let's talk about this truck this is obviously an XLT f150 2019 model for reference but we're not in on this video trying to showcase the vehicles themselves really just going to talk about lifting versus leveling you'll notice this particular truck is fitted with a set of 35 inch Nitto Ridge grappler tires 35 by 1250 on a 20-inch wheel now the suspension system that is on this vehicle is completely stocked with one exception and you're not going to be able to see it but you've actually got an actual leveling kit it's a two and a half inch BDS leveling kit that you can brought buy directly off of their website and what that does is it allows the truck to level the front with the rear and that's the reason they call it a leveling kit as far as the tires are concerned you have the ability to go up to a 35 inch tire if you're doing the two and a half inch leveling kit now if you're doing a two inch or a one and a half inch your sizes are gonna vary drastically and that's the reason that we stick with this BDS is because with the BDS two and a half inch leveling kit you have no problem with clearance now sometimes if you turn it to complete full lock you might can get it to rub on the inside of the the frame itself but it's very rare that that happens now if you're gonna go with a 2 inch or a one and a half inch I would recommend stepping down to the third three inch size but with this two-and-a-half inch you're not gonna have any problems that's what I personally run on mine is a 35 I would not go any larger than that unless you're doing some heavy heavy modifications and so that there's that now another question that has popped up is the headlights themselves because if you think about it the truck is normally doing a nosedive right if you level the truck what's gonna happen with the headlights so if you the trucks normally doing this in its exaggeration right but if it levels out is the the headlights gonna be pointing in people's eyes the answer is yeah roll tide so you do have the ability to adjust the headlights obviously to get them back down a little bit further I have had that happen a couple times in my truck where people think oh he's got his brights on but it's just the fact that I've never personally recalibrated in my headlights it's real simple to do you basically just park your truck in front of a wall at night and you can adjust those pretty simple so there's that that is kind of a common myth or common question a couple people have had about leveling your truck and guess what if you're gonna have that problem with the level truck the lift kit is also going to be more level than a factory ride as well so yeah you probably need to readjust those as well so that's really not a con for the leveling kit it's con for both of them one of the things that you're gonna love about it is the cost associated with the leveling kit it's extremely inexpensive to level a truck I think you know five or six hundred bucks or something like that to actually do the leveling kit to do the installation to do the alignment to basically do everything to the suspension there and then all you have to do is buy your tires and so it's very inexpensive the other thing is is you can reutilize the same wheels that are on the factory truck itself and so that's kind of a nice benefit as well you don't have to buy an extra set of wheels if that's not something that you want to do and so what are the cons of the the leveling kit well there's a couple of people that have said well hey if you're going with a leveling kit if it's too much of a leveling kit over the lifetime of the vehicle you might get some some suspension wear and tear a little bit more excessive i've got you know i think fifteen thousand miles on my f150 there's got a two and a half inch leveling kit and i've had zero issues with it and absolutely love it so that's kind of a full disclosure thing this is not my truck months there be read one way behind Josh on the other side of that camera well but but that's kind of the the biggest con that you'll have to it then another con that you could have and I guess you could say this is a this is a pro is that it retains a very much similar to stock ride height I kind of like it because it gives me the opportunity to go with the bigger tire but it's not so gaudy that it just kind of attaches you know it just claims for attention now the other nice thing is is because you're not doing a full-blown six-inch left kid you're probably gonna have the ability to fit into more parking decks with this setup then you would with this monstrosity behind me now let's talk about a full-blown lift kit this is a six-inch BDS lift kit which we've done a lot of custom things to this truck if you want to watch the full-blown video on this truck make sure you click on the link right there up in the cards and it'll kind of give you a full walk around of this vehicle we're not doing that today today as I've already mentioned pros and cons of lift kits versus level so let's talk about that this is a six inch lift kit with a set of 35 inch tires but wait a second this truck over here has only got a two and a half inch leveling kit and it also has a third set of 35 s well the reason for that is pretty simple you'll notice these wheels on this truck is a 22 inch wheel by 12 inch wide with a negative 44 offset basically what does that mean these tires are pushed way out and if you think about that if the tires are pushed way out when you turn the tires are going not going to be they're not going to be pivoting they're going to be more of a swinging motion and so it makes it a lot harder to actually fit a set of 35 s with this wheel pushed way out than it is with just a simple leveling kit if this truck had you know a smaller wheel to it like a 20 by 9 and a half or 20 by 9 you can actually fit a set a 37-inch tires as you can see right there on the screen so if you're doing the full six inch lift kit with BDS now keep them on every manufacturer of lift kits gonna be a little different I know that rough country has got a different tire recommended tire size I know that fab Tech's got a different recommended tire size so you need to look into what the manufacturers suggest for your scenario but in this scenario they actually offer up to a 37 inch tire with the proper wheel keep in mind you got to keep those wheels tucked in so that way you're not going to rub and run into any rubbing issues if you're gonna go with that wide stance we're gonna go with that wide offset wheel you're gonna want to go with a smaller tire the 35 or maybe even a little bit smaller just so you don't have any rubbing issues and one of the things you're gonna love about this suspension system is that it recalibrates and recalculates everything as far as the suspension is concerned to have a nice and correct as far as the geometry of the suspension so over the lifetime of the vehicle your suspensions gonna thank you for having everything corrected instead of just having everything cranked down with the leveling kit so keep that in mind now keep in mind that having this drop bracket it is a lot more expensive for the parts it's also a lot more expensive for the installation as well because it's a lot more intensive and so there are some pros and some cons with that one the better drive the the con is going to be the fact that it's just more expensive to do it now the other thing that you're gonna also run into is a significantly higher truck don't expect to pull this into every single parking deck that you can find you're gonna run into some issues even though they both have 35 inch tires the extra height is gonna cause you to run into a few extra issues if you're trying to park inside of a parking deck on the regular another con in addition to not being able to fit in a parking garage you might not be able to fit this in your garage at all another thing you need to understand between both of these trucks is that you need to re torque the suspension so it doesn't matter if it's a leveling kit or a full-blown lift kit after first five hundred miles we recommend that you read talk the suspension because there's a lot going on there and then we also recommend that you have everything retort every time you get your oil change or about 5,000 miles every 5,000 miles should just about take care of it so the question remains which truck is a better fit for you do you go with the two and a half inch leveling kit or any leveling kit for that matter or do you go with the full-blown six inch lift kit I hope you enjoyed this video if you did and you're feeling like being awesome make sure to smash that thumbs up button and if you guys didn't notice there was a random Amazon gift card somewhere in this video you may not have found it because it's very very difficult to find it but I want to make sure that you subscribe to the channel because hey oh and make sure hit that notification bell because if you don't you're not going to be able to when any of those Amazon giftcards in the very near future every time we post up a new video so I hope you enjoyed this video like I said smash that thumbs up button smash that notification bill and let me know in the comments down below which truck is a better fit for you thank you so much for watching this video and have a great day [Music]

Channel: Town and Country TV

Views: 276,155

Rating: 4.8417907 out of 5

Keywords: town and country, auto, review, walk around, car, comparison, specs, doug demuro, vehicle virgins, autovlog, Salomondrin, Vehicle Virgins, ThatDudeinBlue, the fast lane truck

Id: dLiYZlFkQY0

Length: 9min 27sec (567 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 08 2019