Lift kits may seem complicated, expensive, and unnecessary for a good off-roading experience. And while you can have a good time off-roading without a lift kit, installing a lift kit can enhance your experience in several ways.
Lift kits are good for off-roading as they raise your vehicle’s ground clearance, allowing you to take on deeper puddles or enormous rocks. Raising the vehicle increases the space between the tires and the vehicle’s body, giving room for larger tires and more aggressive angles when attacking obstacles.
In the rest of this article, I’ll dive deeper into each lift kit’s benefits. I’ll also explain how the modification translates to enhanced off-roading capabilities and how it will help you take on more extensive terrain while still staying safe.
Improved Ground Clearance
When you raise a vehicle using a lift kit, naturally, the body of the vehicle will be higher up off the ground than before. This is a massive benefit if you are an off-roading enthusiast. This will allow you to cross streams of water that you weren’t able to before and possibly climb over more enormous boulders or logs.
This new terrain that opens up when you install a lift kit makes the off-roading experience even more fulfilling. It is enriching to come across a shallow river and successfully cross it in your vehicle. The feeling of conquering new terrain in the wild is unmatched.
Lift kits play a crucial role in achieving this feat. If you don’t have a lift kit and try to cross water that is too deep, you risk flooding your engine and destroying it if you don’t have a snorkel attached to it.
Things could get really dangerous if you try to climb over something too big for your vehicle without a lift kit. You could get stuck or even flip over. A lift kit provides a way to expand the types of terrain that your vehicle can safely take on.
We don’t typically think of a lift kit as a safety measure. It is generally seen as something used for aesthetic purposes. But installing a lift kit on your off-road vehicle will undoubtedly make it safer by significantly decreasing the odds of getting stuck or stranded.
Giving your vehicle plenty of room for things to pass under is handy when you’re off the beaten path. Small boulders that would ordinarily cause issues for other cars or trucks will pass right underneath you, making the lift kit an invaluable tool for off-roading.
More Room for Larger Tires
One benefit of a lift kit that is not as apparent right off the bat is the extra room for larger tires created when you install a lift kit. This allows you to go big on your tires, which aids your vehicle’s performance when you take it off-road.
Larger tires create more surface area for gripping purposes. The wider the tires, the more grip they have. Very thick tires with a large wall will add even more ground clearance underneath the vehicle, raising it even higher.
You can also get tires that have very aggressive, thick, knobby tread patterns. These large chunky tires are perfect for gripping and pulling your vehicle out of whatever mud hole you may find.
Big knobby tires are a must-have for off-roading. The tires are like your vehicle’s shoes. If you were going to take a hike in the woods, you would want to have on appropriate footwear, right? The same is true for your vehicle if you plan to go off-roading.
When hiking, you would probably want to wear a pair of boots with an aggressive outsole and tread that would provide plenty of grip. For your vehicle, this means installing a big set of knobby, chunky tires made for gripping and crawling through mud and slippery conditions while maintaining control.
When off-roading, the vehicle’s control is imperative to your safety. The more chunky your tires, the more grip you will have, thus the more control. A good set of tires for off-roading will help you keep much safer when you hit the trail. Installing a lift kit will allow you to install much larger tires than you would have before the lift kit.
Better Angles When Tackling Obstacles
If you’re a seasoned off-road expert, you understand how important angles are when attempting to conquer an obstacle. The angle at which you approach, cross, and dismount an obstacle is essential to your success in doing this safely.
A lift kit allows for more exotic angles when attacking objects. This is because of the extra clearance room between the wheel well and the tire itself. Even if you install larger tires, you will still benefit from increased flexion and the new angles.
These new angles are especially beneficial to four-wheel drive vehicles because each wheel can be used individually to crawl over objects slowly. Being able to isolate each wheel and operate with only one or two wheels touching the ground will greatly expand the scope of what your vehicle can conquer.This is simply because the wheel and tire have more room to move around with the introduction of the lift kit.
The increased flexion created by installing a lift kit can change the way you think about off-roading and take it from a hobby to something you use to challenge your mind.
Incorporating proper angles of approach into your off-roading will transform the experience. It offers a new way of seeing obstacles, making it easier to conquer the terrain. It’s an almost scientific or mathematical way of going at this rather than applying a brute force approach.
This smarter and more calculated approach to off-roading will help you become more analytical in your approach and keep you safe. Approaching off-roading more methodically while taking your time will undoubtedly reduce accidents.
Conclusion
Lift kits may seem like they’re merely aesthetic, but they actually provide a lot of benefits that are directly applicable to off-roading. Lift kits also make your off-roading experience much safer.
If you plan to go big, installing lift kits is a great idea since they will greatly expand the variety of terrain that your vehicle can successfully conquer. So, if you’re a regular off-roader, you need to get a lift kit.