Im thinking about putting a 2.5 or 3" leveling kit on my 05 4x4 xlt. I would prefer the 3" to make sure there was enough room for 35x12.50 17 on stock rims. Although i have heard it could cause problems in my cv joints. Could anyone with a 3" kit tell me if they have had any problems and how long its been on the truck. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

 

personally Id say 2" leveling kit and a 3" Body lift.

But DEFINITELY dont do a 3" leveling kit, it causes horrible angles on your ball joints

 

3inch is way too much. Most members will agree with this as well. Some do have 3inch leveling kits though. Not too sure how well their ball joints, cv's, and etc have held up though. But even with my 2inch leveling kits i've gone through several ball joints, cv boots, half shafts, and all that good stuff. So id say stick with 2.5" at the max

 

^x2

 

We need to make a sticky on these leveling kit crap. I mean like a whole detailed one so we don't have so many leveling kit threads

 

2.5" with some trimming - I believe some members are running 35x12.50's on the stock 17's with just a level.

 

I am running a 3" kit on my 2005 4x4 and yes the angles are bad but I came from a 2.5" kit and it made a big noticeable height difference. The ride is rougher as well but basically I wanted the biggest lift and it was $80 off ebay versus a $1400 4" Lift kit. My truck has 90,xxx miles and even with this kit for about 6 months no problems yet. I would say go big and just get the 3" kit the balljoints are $175 each and it will probably take at least 40k plus miles for them to blow out. If anyone with some actual experience with a 3" leveling kit causing failures please chime in otherwise everyone on here allways says No NO dont do a 3" and the ones that do normally dont even have a 04-08 model lol. I have no regrets with my 3".

 

You don't need to have a 04-08 f150 to see the issues a 3" leveling kit causes.

Go big... if you were going big you would have got a real lift.

 

Anyone with a 3" leveling that has had probs needs to chime in

 

I agree.... Though some guys have been running the 3" for 2yrs+ with no issues. I have had my 2.5AS on for about 6 months without issue or worry because my ball joints are not extremely over canted... I think weight of rim and tires are also a factor in how long the ball joints will last... I have 22 inch rims and 35 inch tires.... Alot of weight...


For some reason I cannot post pics....

 

Please remember that the F-150's have had the same front suspension design since 2004. In the past 7 years a lot of members have come and gone and a lot of threads have been buried. I'm just saying that a new member with a late model F-150 hasn't been seeing posts for the past 7 years about issues with these trucks.

 

Exactly, well put. In the past few months alone I've seen a decent amount of threads pop up about people not knowing why they're eating through balljoints and saying they have a 3" level. While most are newer members (generally somewhere between their first to fifth post) after hearing the what's causing it and the solution by bringing it down some, they generally never post again. So not too many people are going to chime in about their problems with them.

And some people do get lucky and never have a problem, but the majority see adverse effects of it within the first few months of install.