We will compare the benefits and costs of each type of kit to help you understand what is better for your needs.

There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to leveling kits or lift kits and depends on a lot of factors.

In its simplest definition, a leveling kit is a lift that only impacts the front of the truck and raises the truck to be level with the rear. A lift kit will lift both the front and the back of the truck providing an overall increase in truck height.

Let’s dive into more details about each type and how they compare to one another.

What is a leveling kit?

A leveling kit is a type of adjustment to the height of a truck or car that only affects the front end of a truck.

Pickup trucks naturally come with what is called rake. Rake is the build-in angle of a truck downwards where the front of the truck is lower than the back.

This rake is important for towing vehicles. This allows the truck to sit level when a heavy load is carried or a trailer is pulled.

Leveling kits will keep the front end of your truck equal in height to the back end.

Pros of Leveling Kits

Cheap

The basic leveling kits for trucks can easily be less than $100. At the time of writing this post, the leveling kit for the Ford F-150 was only $49.95! (See product below)

rough country 2 in. leveling kit for ford f150

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Check Price

There are multiple types of leveling kits and what you see here is a spacer leveling kit. If you choose for a coilover, or another kind of suspension leveling kit, you may find yourself spending up to $500.

For more information on the types of leveling kits available, read: What is a leveling kit?

Improve ground clearance in front

Though the difference in the front and back of a truck is usually only a couple inches, when driving in conditions in which large obstacles are present, this could cause scratching to the bottom of the truck.

By lifting the front end of the truck, you reduce the risk of scratching or scraping your truck when going over rocks or large potholes.

Improve front end weight bearing attachments

When you level a truck you provide extra room and suspension sag in the front of the vehicle.

When you add any weight to a truck, you will experience some sort of sag. If weight is added to the front of a vehicle (such as a plow or large grille), the front will begin to sag.

If there is no leveling kit, this extra weight will cause the car to sag more than it already is from the factory rake.

The leveling kit allows the extra room to account for any front-loaded vehicle.

Allow larger tires or wheels

Due to the increasing height of the front of a truck, you can often upgrade your wheels or tires. Remember that this only impacts the front of the truck, so you will now only be able to accommodate the largest tires that are also allowed on the back wheel wells.

Easier to install

With the most common type of spacer lift, and with the need to only install on the front of the truck, the installation process is quite simple.

For those who aren’t as good with their hands, like me, this may be a little overwhelming, but for those with experience this is fairly easy to do.

If you’re interested check out this installation video below.

Cons of Leveling Kits

Reduce fuel efficiency

The rake in a truck also improves aerodynamics. So when you level your truck, you inherently create more space underneath the truck reducing fuel efficiency.

Do not adjust vehicle height

Those who want a large truck on the road will be dissatisfied with a leveling kit because it does not add any additional height to the truck. It only brings up the front of the truck to match the back.

This means that any leveling kit will only adjust the truck to the set height in the back and there is no customization.

Increases sag with cargo and towing

Rake is put in place to allow the truck to sit level when carrying large loads and towing.

If you install a leveling kit, the truck will sag in the back if additional weight or a trailer is added.

This can put strain on the vehicle and will decrease fuel efficiency even more than the stock counterpart.

Should I install a leveling kit?

Leveling kits are best for those who:

• do not plan to tow
• do not plan to carry heavy loads
• want to get rid of stock rake
• plan to plow or add other front end weight
• increase front end clearance

What is a lift kit?

A lift kit is an upgrade to a truck that increases the height of the entire vehicle. It both increases the height of the front and the back of the truck.

Cars can be lifted by either body lifts or suspension lifts.

Body lifts will add a spacer between the frame and the body of the vehicle. Suspension lifts will alter something within the suspension to lift the truck.

For a full list of the different types of lift kits, read: What is a lift kit?

Pros of Lift Kits

Can adjust to different heights

The major draw to lift kits is that you can add a lot of height. Lift kits come in many different sizes. There is no minimum or maximum height specified.

Of course there are other factors that impact the maximum height that can be installed, such as local laws or internal support, but generally, there are many heights to which a truck can be lifted.

Allow large wheels and tires

Other aesthetics that truck drivers like to add are large wheels. With a higher truck, the wheel well becomes less restrictive to install larger tires.

Cons of Lift Kits

Poor fuel efficiency

Fuel efficiency can be really poor with lift kits. Because the lift kits raise the truck from the ground, the aerodynamics are significantly worse.

The additional suspension system may also decrease engine efficiency. Often lift kits come with larger tires, too. Larger tires mean that the engine has to work harder to rotate the wheel to produce the same speed as before.

I was watching a video the other day and they said that after installing a lift kit on their Hummer it now only got 8 miles to the gallon……..others can be as low as 2!

Expensive

Though body lifts can be as low as a couple hundred dollars, suspension lift kits usually sit at around $1000 and that is on the cheaper end.

Some high-end suspension lifts can be upwards of $6000. There is also the installation cost which needs to be taken into account to make the total estimate.

There are some cheaper alternatives to getting a lift kit, but there is risk associated with that. Some kits don’t come with all the necessary components to make all the internal changes. Some are very poor quality, some will decrease ride quality significantly, and some may just not work right.

Increases sag with cargo and towing

When a lift kit is installed it usually adjusts the truck so that the truck sits level after lifting.

This means that similar to leveling kits, there will be increased sag on the back of a truck when any cargo or trailer is added.

More difficult to load passengers and cargo

Though this may seem obvious, sometimes people forget to consider the impact that the height will have on the day-to-day functionality of the truck.

Sometimes this makes it more difficult for passengers to load and some people need to install a running board.

A higher truck also makes it more difficult to load anything in the truck bed.

Consider the use of your truck to consider whether or not this may be a major change for you, your business, or your family.

Need a running board?

Should I install a lift kit?

Lift kits are best for those who:

• want to install larger wheels and tires
• want to improve ground clearnace
• want to go off-roading
• want a higher truck look

What’s the difference between a lift kit and leveling kit?

Cost

Leveling kits are almost always cheaper than lift kits.

Leveling kits are often spacer components for just the front of the truck making labor and parts cost a bit lower.

Due to the potentially significant impact of a lift kit, suspension component parts can be very expensive to minimize the ride quality.

Installation

Leveling kits to my understanding are easier to install than lift kits. Though this is not a statement that is true all the time, it follows a general pattern.

Ride quality

Depending on the type of kit used for either a leveling kit or lift kit, there can be varying levels of ride quality.

Different types of kits impact the output of the truck.

Poorly installed, cheap kits can significantly reduce ride quality. If you are not experienced, it is best to have an auto shop install your kit to ensure proper installation for both safety and ride quality.

Tire size

Lift kits can accommodate much larger tires than leveling kits in general.

A leveling kit only allows an upgrade the maximum wheel and tire size on the stock truck whereas the lift kit can raise the height and clearance allowing a larger wheel to fit in the well.

Ground clearance

Lift kits have the potential to increase ground clearance more than leveling kits.

Leveling kits increase the ground clearance in the front but maintain height in the back. Leveling kits allow both the front and the back to be raised off the ground.

Can you install a lift kit and leveling kit together?

It is NOT ADVISED to ever install a lift kit and a leveling kit together. There can be many incompatibilities between the two different types of lift kits and depending on the type can significantly damage your suspension.

Naturally most lift kits will in fact level a truck. The best way to explain this is with an example.

Let’s say you have a truck with a 2 in rake. This means that the front of the truck sits 2 inches lower than the back. Let’s say that is 34 inches in the front and 36 inches in the back.

If you were to buy a 3 in lift kit, this would raise the front of the truck three inches for a total of 37 inches.

Since the back of the truck already sits at 36 inches, the back would only need 1 inch to level the truck.

Before you select a lift kit, you should always make sure what the final product of the truck will be. You will want to confirm whether or not this will level the truck, but this is usually the case.

Final thoughts: Is a leveling kit or lift kit better?

Choosing between a leveling kit and a lift kit is dependent on a lot of factors.

You need to know your final goals in order to make an informed decision.

Are you going for looks? Are you going for a specific type of driving (such as off-roading)? What’s your budget?

Only until you know these things will you be able to make a final decision on which is best for you.

The big difference here is that a leveling kit will only lift the front end of the truck and a leveling kit will lift both ends.

If you want to get rid of factory rake and add a plow in front, a leveling kit is right for you.

If you are going for a really high lift look, want to put in larger tires, and have the extra budget to do so, you may start looking into lift kits to suit your needs.

It is also important that you consider the other changes that need to be made when adjusting your truck. This includes:

• adjusting the headlight angle
• reviewing the impact on payload and towing capacity
• adjust gear ratios
• adjust speedometer with speedometer calibrator if larger tires were installed

If you go to a quality auto shop, they should be able to assist you in these changes. Make sure to discuss with them these changes before you upgrade your truck.

You may know that your friend recently got a lift and want to know how it works, you may have a new car or truck and want to research the different types of lift kits, and you just might want to know what a lift kit will actually do to your truck.

Any of these questions will surely be answered in this article.

Lift kits are modification parts that can adjust the height of a truck. This can be done by adjusting the suspension or lifting the body of your truck. The main types of lift kits are: strut spacer, torsion key, coilover, strut replacement, and body lift kits.

We will go into more detail on how each of these work and what is best for you.

What does a lift kit do?

A lift kit raises your truck higher in some way. There are two main types of lift kit categories. These are body lifts and suspension lifts.

Since there are many components in suspension systems, there are 4 different types of these kinds of kits.

Commonly the terms lift kit and leveling kit are confusing to many people.

A leveling kit essentially is a lift kit for only the front of a truck.

Trucks, when manufactured typically come with what is called rake. This means that the front of the truck sits slightly lower than the back of the truck.

A leveling kit will lift the front of the truck to meet the height of the back of a truck.

If you need more explanation on leveling kits, check out this article.

Does a lift kit level my truck?

Most lift kits will in fact level a truck.

Let’s give an example. Let’s say your truck has a 2 in rake. That means the front of the truck sits 2 inches below the back.

If you get a 4 in lift kit, the components within the kit will allow you to add 4 inches to the front of the truck, but will only add 2 to the back so that your truck sits evenly.

This is not always the case, but it can be the case.

Sometimes due to adjustable components and lack of rigid heights, the final level of a truck with a lift kit may vary.

Need more information on a leveling kit vs lift kit? Read here for a thorough breakdown.

Pros of a lifted truck

Ground clearance

When you lift a truck, you have the ability to travel over higher things. This is great for off-roading conditions and reducing the risk of bottoming out while driving.

Improved Suspension

Some, but not all lift kits include suspension upgrades. This can improve the overall quality of your ride depending on the application.

For those with tougher working conditions, you may be able to create a more comfortable ride while taking on larger obstacles.

Larger Wheels and Tires

As a truck gets higher from the ground, it allows for larger wheels and tires to be installed. The distance between the top of the tire and the wheel well increases for larger clearance.

Aesthetics

A lifted truck can just look cool!

Cons of a lifted truck

Expensive

For most lift kits, you can expect to pay $1000 for a quality lift kit. Higher-end suspension lift kits can cost $3000 or more!

And then there’s labor.

Void warranty

Most of the time a lift kit will void any warranty on the car since you have not altered some of the primary components of the stock car.

Poor fuel efficiency

I was watching a video the other day and they mentioned their car was getting nearly 8 miles per gallon, highway. I’ve seen even worse.

Larger tires, leveled trucks, and increased distance under a truck will all account for poor fuel efficiency and aerodynamics.

Decreased towing capabilities

When you lift a truck, you often lose power due to the changing mechanics within the system.

Less stability

A truck high off the ground has a higher center of gravity making stability more difficult. Turns with a lifted truck will need more caution.

Do lift kits hurt your truck?

If installed correctly and used correctly, lift kits will not hurt your truck. However, if a kit is not installed with professional help, the likelihood of something going wrong significantly increases.

A lift kit requires a number of components and adjustments to a car, and we recommend you get professional help to do something like this.

Types of Lift Kits

There is not really a one size fits all lift kit. The parts needed and the best option is dependent on the make/model and the desired functionality of a truck.

You may not have many options when it comes to your truck depending on how it is made, but there are 5 main lift kits. Here’s a quick summary before we dive into each one in more detail.

Before we go into the depths of each of these types of lift kits, this video is a great visual to help you understand what I’m talking about here.

Strut Spacer

By far the most common lift kit is the strut spacer. This is one of the cheapest on the market, and fairly easiest to install.

A strut is a shock absorber that is part of a truck suspension system that carries most of the weight of a vehicle. It typically is surrounded by a spring.

What this type of lift does is add a spacer block above the strut in your car to raise the truck over the suspension system. This allows the other parts of the stock suspension to continue to perform as desired. This allows the truck to maintain the stock ride.

The downside of having this type of lift kit is that it is not necessarily made to handle very large lifts.

The ride quality of this type of lift kit is best suited for those just looking for a simple cosmetic lift for their truck without wanting to add very large tires.

Strut spacers, do require other hardware components to adjust for the changes in the inner geometry. This is going to vary based on year, make and model.

For example, this F-150 2wd lift kit comes with 4 in spacers, but can also see the additional knuckles, torsion key, and other components.

Coilover Lift Kit

A coilover is a spring that is fixed surrounding a strut. As mentioned previously, a strut often has a coil spring surrounding the part, so the entire unit may be referred to as a coilover.

The biggest difference between a coilover and a regular strut is that a coilover is adjustable, sometimes in more than one way.

These lift kits tend to be more expensive than spacer lifts. They look very similar in terms of parts, but come with dampening adjustments and preload adjustments.

This means that with some coilover lifts you can actually adjust the lift of the car with a singular coilover, and you can adjust the dampening by either softening or stiffening the ride.

A coilover kit does not mean that you will get the softest ride, but it will typically lead to the best performance. This means the handling and drive quality will typically be better than other kits.

These kits are great for offroading!

Below is an example of one of the Rough Country Lift Kits with a coilover.

Strut Replacement

Similar to coilover kits, but not the same are strut replacement kits. These will actually replace an entire strut component to create a lift whereas strut spacers keep struts in their stock form, but add a block on top.

The strut replacement will not have any adjustable components to the suspension. It will, likely, still have a coil surrounding the strut and will require the uninstallation of a strut for replacement.

Coil Spring Spacer

As mentioned earlier, coilover kits can allow you to adjust the height of a lift kit, but you can actually add a coil spring spacer which seems to act similarly to the adjustable aspect of the full coilover kit.

What this spacer does is create spring compression that increases the spring rate so that the spring doesn’t compress as far when the body weight is added.

For example, a spring compresses 4 inches when the body of a truck is added, but if you add an inch of compression, the truck will only compress 3 inches, therefore, creating a 1-inch lift difference.

Below is an example of a coil spring spacer for the Ford Ranger.

Body Lift Kit

Body lift kits also tend to be cheap units in list price but can be costly when applying.

This type of lift kit adds spacers between the frame of the truck and the body of the truck.

This prevents any need for adjusting the suspension components in the truck. However, with new trucks, this can cause a problem in the electronics.

When you add a body lift spacer, you increase the distance between the frame and the body, so any electrical components need extra slack to be able to make the gap across the space.

Older trucks are less likely to have this issue due to the fewer electrical components and wiring installed.

Body lift kits will create some cosmetic issues within the truck. The space created between the frame and body will likely be visible, especially from the side above the wheel.

You may also notice some misalignment in the exhaust, too.

Conclusion

The type of lift kit you will need will depend on your make/model/year and how what you are looking for.

If you are going for pure aesthetics without a crazy lift, a strut spacer is best!

If you are looking to lift your car for offroading, you’ll want to use the coilover suspension lift kits.

I rarely recommend body lifts because they come with many risks and aren’t cheap enough to justify.

A lift kit will raise your truck higher than the ground, so there may be a few things you need to consider with this move. Not only will you need to need to find the right kit for your truck, you will also need to decide whether or not you want to add a running board to make it easier for you and your passengers to enter and exit your truck.

You may notice that your stock truck comes with the front axle slightly lower than the read axle. This is called rake.

The purpose of this is to create a level truck when towing or carrying heavy loads.

A leveling kit is a truck lift that only affects the front of the truck. It lifts the front a couple of inches to match the back suspension. This is done mostly for aesthetics. The front of the truck can be lifted with a spacer, coil spring, adjustable strut, and a torsion key.

How do leveling kits work?

When a car comes out of a factory, the front of the truck sits slightly lower than the back of the truck.

This is called the rake. Rake in a truck refers to the position of the front of the truck lower than the back of the truck. This usually is a difference of 2-3 inches.

The purpose of a truck rake is to improve aerodynamics when nothing is loaded on the truck, but more importantly, it allows the truck to level out when weight is either added to the truck bed or a trailer is towed.

The extra weight in the back of the truck makes the rear sink so that the truck sits level when towing.

Leveling kits simply heighten the front of the truck so that the truck sits level without any cargo or towing.

This means that a truck with a front axle that sits 2 inches below the rear axle will need a 2-inch leveling kit to flatten out the truck suspension.

Types of Leveling Kits

Strut Spacer Leveling Kit

This seems to be the most common type of leveling kit. What this does is add a small piece of metal that sits above the strut.

It is cheap, relatively easy to install, and performs similarly to stock trucks for most everyday use.

The metal thickness provides an exact amount of how much a truck axle can be lifted.

A strut is a component of the car that holds the weight in the framework of the truck. It is a major part of the suspension system but it is designed so that it doesn’t compress.

It is more of a structural support to hold the weight of the vehicle. They connect the wheel to the body of the truck (JD Power).

For a good visual of how these work, check out the video below on a full installation on a Toyota Tacoma.

Adjustable Height Strut Leveling Kit

Another way to adjust the height of the front of your truck is to use an adjustable strut leveling kit.

One of the best examples of this is the Bilstein 5100. This is a strut designed to be used for various heights. It is best used for half-ton trucks, though (See product here).

How this works is that you replace the stock strut with this adjustable strut but fit directly into the coilover springs and mountain hardware.

In the video below at 3:52 they start actually talking about this type of leveler.

Essentially they say that although this can change the height of a truck, adjusting the strut does not change the stiffness of the spring. This height difference creates more compression travel and less droop travel in the end.

Coil Spring or Spacer Leveling Kit

Coil springs are part of a suspension system that surrounds a strut. These are known more under the term of coilover; standing for coil spring over shock absorber.

Like adjustable heigh leveling kits, these types of components are most commonly associated with lifting a truck rather than leveling a truck, but if only applied to the front end, it certainly has the capability to level a truck.

Coil springs actually restructure the suspension unit and require many more modifications to other parts such as steering components and extra brackets to fix geometry.

Unfortunately with these types of replacements, the exact amount of lift is not as predictable. Because it changes pieces within the suspension system, it doesn’t take into account the wear of the current suspension or lack thereof.

It is not recommended that this type of lifting mechanism be used for leveling because it will be hard to align the front with the back due to the unpredictable nature of the lift and rigidity.

The video below does a good job explaining the difference between a coil lift and a spacer lift. Check it out!

The coil spring spacer is slightly different than the spring lift because it adds a spacer that sits on top of the coil spring. It creates spring compression yielding a lift and stiffer spring. This type of kit typically yields a stiffer rid.

Torsion Bar Key Leveling Kit

This process involves changing out the torsion key of a car. The torsion key is connected to the torsion bar of the car.

The torsion bar is a ”long spring-steel element with one end held rigidly to the frame and the other end twisted by a lever connected to the axle” (Brittanica).

The torsion key is responsible for keeping the torsion bar at the right height. So altering the torsion key can change the torsion bar which can then, in turn, lift a truck.

Doing this type of leveling does not require any new shocks and integrates with stock suspension systems (Suspension Maxx).

For a great visual on these types of kits, take a look at the video below! This shows the removal and installation of torsion keys in a GMC Sierra.

What do leveling kits do?

Some of the main reasons that you would want to install a leveling kit are to accommodate larger tires/wheels and for aesthetics. There aren’t many functional reasons to level a truck other than adding ground clearance to the front of the truck for something like offroading and attaching a load on the front of your truck such as a plow.

Take a look at the pros and cons of installing a leveling kit on your truck

Pros

• Higher clearance
• Easy to install and remove
• Improves off road capability
• Operate equipment on front end (such as plow)
• Fit larger than stock wheels
• Inexpensive
• Aesthetics

Cons

• Potentially void warranty
• Lower gas mileage
• Wear and tear – altering geometry could put stress on components
• Creates sag if heavy cargo or towing is attached

Do leveling kits hurt your truck?

For the most part, leveling kits will not hurt your truck. If installed correctly, the minor changes in a couple of inches should not damage truck suspension too much for day-to-day driving.

For offroading, towing, or carrying large cargo and more aggressive driving, you could see a negative impact on the suspension.

The most common spacer leveling kit does not typically come with any other suspensions components, but this shouldn’t affect the ride all that much because the factory suspension system stays in tact below the spacer.

However, with other lifts, such as coilovers, this can add a change to the geometry of the front suspension. What can happen here is that the other components such as control arms and other geometrical components may experience stress.

Certainly if installed incorrectly, you could experience serious damage to your truck.

Though I disagree with the statement made in the video below, it does demonstrate the potential impacts you could see in your truck if you don’t adjust the rest of the suspension system.

Finding the right leveling kit for your truck

Depending on your year and model, you may require a different leveling kit for your truck.

There is no one-size-fits-all necessarily.

Custom Offsets has an extensive shop to search by year, make, model, and drive to ensure you get the right fit.

Shop Custom Offsets

Ford F150

Toyota Tacoma

Chevy Silverado

Chevy Colorado

Toyota Tundra

Ram

Leveling kit Brands

These are some of the top leveling kit brands.

Rough Country

MotoFab

Kryptonite

YitaMotor

ReadyLift

BDS

Cognito

ProRyde

Conclusion

Before making the decision to level your truck you need to ask yourself this question.

Do I plan to tow or carry equipment frequently with my truck?

If you answered YES to this question, you should not level your truck.

If you plan to only use your truck for regular driving and light loads, want to upgrade your tires, and just want to remove stock rake, then a leveling kit is for you.

I suggest you do your due diligence before you attempt to install these yourself as you could damage the suspension if done incorrectly.

Find the right leveling kit for you right now!