So you’re finally got your 4x4 and well in its stock form it will do a pretty good job in its average off-roading. Maybe you wanna get to the mountain cabin or something like that…but you’re a little bit different than that and you wanna do something a little more serious.

Well in order to do that that means you’re probably going to have something that gives you more articulation in the suspension of your vehicle. So, you go on the internet and find all kinds of kits on there from the ridiculous to the sublime but how do you make a decision.

Well one thing that I’d suggest is to go back to the manufacturer of your particular make and model …cause lots of times you’ll find that they have already made up kits that will give you what you need. They come complete with control arms and extenders for the sway bar links and extended shock absorbers. Things like that that you might not get in one of these economy kits which also gives you well economy. Lots of times they don’t give you driveability where the factory kit will.  So do your homework and make sure you are buying the right thing. 

Now if you wanna go further than that and want to get into some serious rock crawling and things like that well that means you’re gonna have to do something like we see over here. Well that’s huge tires and lots of articulation in the suspension. You may have to change hubs, bearing and all kinds of things but again do your homework and make sure you do quality work otherwise you’ll have something that doesn’t function as it should. 

Other things to consider, well, if you put bigger tires on your vehicle you’ll probably need a kit like this which reinforces the spare tire carrier because bigger tires are heavier. You will need a repositioning kit that repositions the third brake light.  And you will also, in many cases, need something like this. This gives you an extended jacking height for your jack…but do it all right and you’ll have a vehicle that does what you want and is still serviceable, still drives decent and is a lot of fun.

And if you have a question or comment, drop me a line right here at MotorWeek.