Originally Posted by skylinekw

I am hopefuly getting my truck in the next few days and want to order a kit. I was going to order the 2". but I saw the 2.5" and seeing that you said the front was still an inch lower i thought the .5" would help.

Originally Posted by EpicCowlick

Hey Guys,

This is has been a great thread. It started out just being a cosmetic comparison to see the visible effects of a leveling kit but has evolved into a really useful conversation on the consequences of leveling. I was so intrigued by Ranger's explanation above that I dropped what I was doing and took the truck to a very good alignment shop. Here's what I've learned:

1 - Pretty much everything discussed in this thread is true. My alignment shop quickly confirmed that my caster was lost and the axle was shifted to the driver's side by 1/2 inch. I've got to say, that was a huge revelation to me on how all the steering and suspension parts work together. Anything you do to one, will affect the others in some way. In my case, the caster was essentially zero which resulted in the "looseness" of my steering wheel or a feeling of driving on top of a ball (if that makes any sense). I hadn't realized that my truck's steering wheel was not returning fully to center on its own after a turn but sure enough, it wasn't.

2. Correcting the caster by one and a quarter degree makes a huge difference. The steering wheel now behaves normally and the freeway wander is absolutely gone. I'll be dog-gone.

3. A small amount of horizontal shift of the axle can be corrected by the alignment shop without making changes to the tracking bar. They said the truck will drive like factory now and I don't HAVE to adjust the bar if I don't want to. They said once they correct the steering wheel position, it would be difficult to tell by looking that anything was different from factory. (I'm thinking I will get an adjustable trac bar just because I know now and that kind of stuff bugs me).

4. The factory suspension is highly engineered and tuned for precise and reliable performance. When Joe Average (like me) goes and messes with it, the results may look good but top performance will have been lost. The tragedy of it all is that a person may not even know they screwed things up and, like Ranger said, live with a poorly performing vehicle for years.

So it started with a desire to improve the looks and performance of the truck by a adding leveling kit and larger tires. That necessitates a quality alignment and optionally requires a replacement tracking bar (trac bar, pan bar, pan-hard bar, all the same). Once a person does all that, he can feel good that everything was done properly. But if you think that for $112.50 plus shipping you can level your truck and be done with it, that is a mistake.

Dang, this is a great forum!

Originally Posted by 6.7Fan

Epic, since picking up my truck, I've noticed that the truck seems to feel like it's "floating" at freeway speeds. I had LHM install the leveling kit before I picked up the truck. I had the tires put on immediately after leaving the dealer. Anyway, I remembered reading this thread so went back to find it. I was thinking of taking the truck back to LHM, but for time and convenience I thought I'd take it to the same alignment shop you went to as they should remember and be a quick fix. Can you tell me the alignment shop and the approximate cost? If not appropriate here, please PM me if you don't mind.

Thanks again - another extremely useful thread!