Life with Kings vs Fox vs Icon

Looking for people's experiences with these brands complete lift kits. Mostly looking for why you chose one over the others, features that yours have that others don't.

I'm considering a complete kit, either the king with compression adjuster or fox. The biggest difference in my eyes is having one adjuster on the kings vs 2 on the fox. I can't figure out which one is better to have. I don't see a reason to chose a similar priced icon kit, but please let me know if I am missing something.

I plan on off-roading every other weekend and mostly daily driving. I would like to plan some rock crawling trips in the future so a simple lift doesn't appeal to me. Plus, I'd rather have the capability and only use it a couple times rather than not being able to do it at all.

Thank you!

Edit: When the day comes (hopefully soon) I will be going with Kings. Too many recommendations all across the board to choose something else. Thanks for the great information!

 

I settled on icons because I had a chance to pick it up for a really good price. Kings are progressive, Icon is digressive, so do your research on that.

I'm really happy with how mine turned out and I love the ride both on road and off. The ride over stock is night and day - not even close. Icons seem to get a lot of sh*t on this forum, however, take a look at the third gen forum and you'd think it's the worst truck ever... there are lots of people out there very happy with their truck whether it rides on kings, icon or completely stock.

Good luck on your decision.

 

i cannot compare, but speaking from my experience the Fox kit is terrific both off and on road everywhere i go. i haven't done any proper crawling, but from moderate trails and washboard at low to medium high speed I've been impressed. on road as well but i tweaked my setup to make the on road work how i like.

 

I have 2.5 Kings w/adjusters all around and they ride super smooth. Just don't preload the front coilovers too much, if not your ride quality will suffer.

 

That is a very good point. I am very critical of products myself, and when options are available I like to know what the differences, pros and cons of the options are. I have had too much buyers remorse and often wish I would have shelled out the big bucks the first time, because you almost always get what you pay for.

Do the icons have adjustable compression? I really like the idea of this feature for tuning on/off road driving. I don't know how practical this feature is and wonder if it is worth having.

 

So you have tuned the compression once and left it at that? Is this to avoid a hassle of adjusting everytime you off road? I have an idea of adjusting for off road and remembering the settings and adjusting for on road and remember the settings. Is it a hassle to adjust or is it just as easy as turning knobs? Do you like have 2 adjustments per shock?

 

Absolutely, I am only lifting enough to better fit my 285/75/16's. I really don't want the cab any higher. I only want ground clearance and wheel well clearance. I am actually okay with the TRD OR ride quality. A bit too loose at fast highway speeds but still manageable.

Do you change compression for on vs off road? What made you choose kings over fox and icon?

 

I like the floaty "cloud" feel so I got kings. I also like to hit things fast off-road though so maybe my application is different from some folks. As far as on road I always enjoy the ride because my suspension soaks things up. I recommend if you like digressive like icon, to really try to ride in someones rig. Icon makes a decent product, but digressive is not for everyone. I have two friends that used to love their icons until they rode in mine. They went to kings after.

 

I purchased the icons, there OK but I think the quality has taken a hit recently. Fox has a great name and there getting very , very popular recently. Out of the three I think king shocks are the quality and customer service leader.

 

Kings. Done.

 

I have 285/70/17 tires and about 3/4" of preload. I still had to cut the cab mounts.
On road driving depending if I have a load in the bed I'll change it to about 10 clicks and that seems the help a bit. Offroad I have it set to the lowest and it rides on clouds.

 

Bought the kings from
@Downsouth Motorsports because they had a group buy earlier this year. Can't beat their customer service!

 

Thank you for the reply. I can actually fit my new tires/ wheels with all the modifications I've done (cmc, heat gun to plastic, cutting cab pinch weld down a bit). It's just too close for comfort on the cab side. Maybe a 1/4" of clearance to plastic at the right steering angle. So I presume adjusting is quick and easy, so long as you know how many clicks to turn?

 

Super quick, iirc there was 20 clicks of adjustment so you have lots of room to play and experiment with. In my opinion it was worth the extra money for the adjusters.

 

Correct it has 20 settings. Worth every penny IMO..... well for the Kings they are

 

Running Fox 2.5's, nothing bad to say. I'll prob swap to kings just to see what the hype is about and make my own comparisons.

 

icons do have compression adjusters but I don't have them on mine. If you're within a 100 bucks (or whatever amount is reasonable to you) of kings, get them, customer service will be the biggest part of the equation in all of this since eventually you'll have to get them rebuilt. That's my only concern with going icon - they stopped rebuilding their own product and I have to find someone else to do it when the time comes.

 

I didn't know icon stopped offering this. I wont be buying icon then.

 

What is the maintenance schedule like for each brand? ie. How many miles before you have to take them off and rebuild them?

 

Depends on your application and how hard you run them. If you're just like me and just go wheeling every other weekend then you most likely won't need too.