How Much Does It Cost to Lift a Truck?

The short answer

There’s no single price because “lifting a truck” covers everything from a two-inch leveling kit to a long-travel suspension build. Kelley Blue Book’s ranges for the kits themselves show how wide it goes:

The kit is rarely the expensive part. The tires you’re lifting it for usually are.

What the kit price doesn’t include

A kit price online is parts only. Getting it on the truck and driving right adds several things most people don’t budget for:

• ·Installation labor — more for suspension lifts than for a leveling kit.
• ·An alignment. Lifting changes your geometry, so the truck needs aligning afterward.
• ·Wheels and tires. Almost nobody lifts a truck and keeps stock tires — they look lost under the fenders.
• ·Mounting, road-force balancing and a TPMS reset for the new wheels and tires.
• ·Trimming or clearance work on bigger tire sizes.
• ·Re-gearing on 37s and up, especially if you tow — so the truck doesn’t feel sluggish.
• ·Steps. A few inches of lift is a few inches everyone has to climb.

What a full build actually costs

Because the lift and the tires go together, we price them together. These are our starting prices for a complete package — lift, four wheels, four tires, mounting, road-force balance and the post-lift alignment — installed:

What moves the price

• ·Lift height — taller lifts need more parts, more labor and usually bigger tires.
• ·Kit quality — a spacer lift costs far less than a full system with matched shocks, and rides like it.
• ·The truck — half-tons, three-quarter-tons and Jeeps all price differently.
• ·Tire and wheel choice — size, brand, all-terrain vs. mud-terrain and wheel diameter.
• ·Driveline work — trimming, re-gearing and other clearance work on the biggest builds.

The costs that show up after the install

A lift is worth it for a lot of trucks, but Kelley Blue Book is right to list the trade-offs, and they’re real money over time:

• ·Fuel economy — bigger tires with deeper tread “sap fuel economy.”
• ·Handling — a lift “raises the center of gravity.”
• ·Getting in — a 6-inch-plus lift “could make getting in and out of the cab a hassle,” which is why steps are usually part of the build.
• ·Towing — you may need a drop hitch, and a lift will “most likely reduce the truck’s maximum towing capability.”
• ·Driveline wear — “the driveline experiences additional wear” from steeper driveshaft angles.
• ·Insurance and warranty — some insurers adjust premiums, and a lift can affect coverage on related parts.

Cheap lift vs. the right lift

The fastest way to overspend on a lift is to buy it twice. A bargain spacer kit on worn factory shocks rides harsh and wanders; the fix is usually buying the proper kit later. A quality lift with matched shocks and a correct alignment often rides better than a tired stock setup.

The same goes for fitment. Lift height, tire diameter, wheel width and offset all interact — buy them separately and you find out what rubs at the install. That’s the whole reason we spec the lift, wheels and tires together.

Getting a real number for your truck

Tell us the year, make, model and trim, the tire size you want, and how you use the truck — daily driver, towing, trails. We’ll confirm fitment before anything is ordered and quote the full build, not just the kit.