Rev up your engines!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It's time for "The Scotty Kilmer Channel."
Today, I'm gonna talk about why it
can be dumb to lift the suspension of a vehicle.
Now, every time I find one of these vehicles that
have been lifted up in the air, I
can't help but remember the story
about the old Canadian NHL hockey player.
He was wearing a pair of these platform shoes
when he went out drinking, not really such a smart idea,
either fashion-wise or physical-wise.
Then he broke both of his ankles and couldn't play ice hockey
for a whole year.
Lifting a truck basically does the same type
of damage over time.
Sure steel is stronger than human ankles,
but over time, even it will end up
breaking from being at the wrong angle all the time.
I'll use this Chevy pickup as an example.
It started out as a regular four-wheel drive Sierra pickup
truck.
But years later, someone came up with the idea of putting
this giant lift kit on it.
It is solid steel.
I gotta admit, it's pretty well made, but by lifting it,
you start to change all the angles of the steering
and the driveshafts and the transmission.
So things that were designed to work at one level
are now at a different angle and it causes
weird problems over time.
As you can see here on the front-wheel driveshaft,
it's at too deep of an angle going down,
so it's gonna strain the bearings and the boots
and make things break over time.
As you can see here, the boot's already ripped here,
and this one's starting to leak grease,
but the internal parts are worn too.
So raising the vehicle often causes
the tires to wear out faster.
It's bad enough that these big tires cost more money.
You don't want them wearing out faster too.
And realize that tires with more aggressive patterns like these
will also get worse gas mileage from the extra friction they
create going down the road.
And most of these vehicles already
get low enough gas mileage.
You don't want to make it any worse.
And raising it up can also make the driveshafts wear out
faster.
I've seen many driveshaffts fall off on these race cars
because they're at the wrong angle.
Then, the joints wear out faster.
And in a worst case scenario, I've
see them where the rear shaft of the transmission
actually broke off.
And if that happens, you're talking about a ton of money
rebuilding the whole transmission because it
was at the wrong angle, had too much stress, and then,
snapped right off.
And of course, it could also lead to premature differential
wear because that's now at the wrong angle.
Instead of being straight, it's cantered up.
And running thousands of miles with it at the wrong angle
is eventually gonna wear out the pinion gears.
And of course, jacking it up higher
makes it harder to work under the hood.
You're gonna need a ladder to get in there.
And I don't know about you, but I
don't feel that safe working on an engine,
teetering on the edge of a ladder.
And climbing in and out of them isn't that much fun either.
But that's nothing compared to how they ride on a road
when you hit bumps.
Blah!
[LAUGHS] Because raising the suspension system really
makes the ride extremely rough.
And of course, it compromises the handling too.
When you take corners, you'd better
be real careful so you don't tip over being so high.
But there is one advantage to having it
that high up in the air.
They may break more, but you can get under them
real easy without jacking them up to fix them when they do.
So unless you live in a swamp or are a professional Monster
Truck driver, I wouldn't advise you to lift the suspension
on your vehicle.
And remember, if you've got any questions,
just visit the Scotty Kilmer Channel.