Lowering Kits

Know what's cool? Lowered trucks. Lowered cars. Lowered SUVs. Heck, lowered golf carts are pretty cool, too. And what do they all need to make happen? Lowering kits. Here at Switch Suspension, we sell a ton of lowering kits. They're sort of our bread and butter, and so we know a lot about what works and what doesn't. Do you? If not, let's guide you down the path.

We'll start with the basics. Your suspension is made up of a lot of components, and they all change based on the vehicle. As a general rule of thumb, a lot of lowering kits come with lowering springs. These springs support the weight of your vehicle and allow the suspension to travel up and down. They also set the ride height, which is pretty critical — particularly if you want to install one of our lowering kits.

Springs are usually one of the first parts you can buy to lower your ride. For example, say you have a 2005 Honda Civic. You can buy drop springs as part of a lowering kit to take the whole car down a few inches. If you have a 1998 fullsize Chevy truck, lowering springs only work on the front of the vehicle. Out back you have to do a whole different thing, because they have leaf springs and those generally don't come in a drop form.

Your lowering kit should also contain lowered shocks. When you lower the ride height of the vehicle, you also usually lower the amount of travel in the suspension. This means you can't go up and down as much as you would have previously, and if you keep your stock shocks, you will bottom out. Your lowering kit should therefore come with lowered shocks. These have less travel than stock, and are valved differently to accommodate the loss of up and down movement.

In some cases, the shock absorber is actually contained in an assembly called a strut. This has the shock and coil spring in one unit, although you can separate them for servicing. These struts also come with some lowering kits, and sometimes the lower perch of the strut is adjustable. This means you can raise or lower that part of your car by raising or lowering the perch. It's pretty cool stuff.

Depending on the vehicle, your lowering kit could include other parts like a flip kit, shackles, or hangers. Those all work on the rear of a vehicle with leaf springs, like the aforementioned 1998 Chevy. The shackles and hangers raise up the mounting points for the leaf spring, lowering the rear in the process. A flip kit takes the axle and puts it underneath the axle instead of above, lowering the truck even further.

Some lowering kits are quite extensive and may also include parts for frame modifications. If you lower the rear of your truck far enough, you will need to allow the axle to travel up into the frame. That requires a c-notch, which comes in some of our lowering kits as well.

Whatever kind of lowering kit you need, we're here to help. We have a staff full of people who know these trucks really well, so we can help you pick out the best lowering kit for your vehicle. Just call or email your questions, and make sure to let us know what kind of car, truck or SUV you're driving. Or, if you're in the area, swing on by and chat. We can answer all the questions you can ask, and if we don't know, we'll find out. Hit us up whenever and we'll be there.