Spacer lifts - How bad are they really?

Hello all, Ive been doing a ton of reading lately on suspension lifts and the "dreaded" spacer lifts on here as of late. I have a few questions regarding spacer lifts though, how bad are they really? Im asking those who have ran them in the past and those who are currently running them. I know the theoretical list of Cons on running them but am wondering if any of those are warranted or if its just all the "bros" bashing them because at the end of the day they are just a spacer. Ar they all that bad as far as ride and do they really kill suspension components faster? I am talking about a 2-2.5" spacer. Thanks all!

 

This is what they can do.



https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/why-exactly-are-front-spacer-lifts-bad.345272/

 

Having ridden in a friends tacoma many times with 2” spacers, my impression is yes the ride was jarring and stiff. Clunky over speed bumps and stuff. His front shocks were also blown after a couple years. He never went offroad or anything.

If you never offroad and drive like a grandma over every bump, sure go for them.
If you go offroad, you will probably break a front shock.

Personally, I couldn’t ever drive a truck with spacer blocks daily. Especially when a set of bilsteins 5100 are not much more $.

 

They're not bad as long as you stay within their operating limits. (In all honesty the same can be said about all suspension upgrades.)

Spacer "lifts" are really more for aesthetics and are in no way performance oriented. Your stock suspension remains in place, but you have now placed it in a position to perform outside of it's designed parameters. Spacer lifts are popular because you get the aesthetics of a lifted truck without the bigger investment of a complete suspension lift. Where people run into problems are when they drive their spacer lifted trucks like an actual suspension lifted truck and things start to break- namely shocks reaching the end of their travel and bottoming out or over extending.
There is elitist mocking when it comes to spacer lifts, but if I was just using my truck to drive around town and take the kids to practice, then spacers would not be an issue.
For the most part people that buy spacer lifts either don't know about what it really takes to lift a vehicle in the first place OR, they start to learn and eventually "upgrade" to a full suspension lift.
My advice to you is to purchase what is best designed for your intended use of your truck. If you don't have any plans to go off-road and just want the look of a lifted truck, spacers are fine for that application. If you think that you'll eventually end up getting into off-roading or more remote camping/traveling, then save your money for something more suited to that.

Good luck.

 

Thanks to everyone who’s grown enough to simply answer the question with facts and not make a smart ass reply. It’s not for my truck I have 5100’s all around. Have a buddy who just got his first tacoma a few weeks back, 2009 access cab that’s 2wd. Simply just asking around because he does not off-road whatsoever and just wants to raise the front a bit and has a small budget.

 

Maxtrac spindles
​

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/maxtrac-spindle-lift-for-2nd-gen-prerunners.203889/

Thank me later!

 

well that didnt take long

 

interesting, on my friends truck, they definitely felt bad, but i have also never ridden in a truck with bilsteins before. i know a good amount of 2nd gens have them though. i went from oem, to fox 2.0 peformance series (basically a bilstein 5100), to Fox LT. The current LT shocks feel the best to me.

 

My Tacoma had the Toytec 3" Spacers on it when I bought her. I always knew I was going to upgrade the suspension.
If you aren't 4 wheeling and can handle a terrible bumpy shaking ride than spacers are the way to go. After installing
my Fox's I wish I would have done it sooner than later cause the Tacoma drives like a dream now.

 

A friend of mine has a 2nd gen with a spacer/block “lift” and he has 309,XXX and never had an issue

 

Someone must have forgot to tell my struts they are supposed to fail. 4 years now on top plate spacers and my truck basically lives in the mountains and I guarantee it's wheeled harder than most of the interweb pros on these sites. In other words 90% of the anti-spacer hipe you hear is as much bull@$!# as the whole oem or die theory yota guys seem to live by.

Is a spacer lift as good as a high dollar lift? No, but your front ends not gonna simply fall out cuz you used a spacer lift.

Their are also 2 kinds of spacer lifts, top plate and coil spacers. Coil spacers simply compress the coil more to give it more preload. This is EXACTLY how the adjustable bilsteins create lift when you move up the snap ring. So if your fine with that style of bilsteins lift, you should be fine with a coil spacer lift.

Top plate spacers, as others have said, simply move the whole strut down. The ride will be exactly the same as it was because it is the same suspension. However, as someone stated, you do have the issue of the strut taking the full force on a bottom out which could result in strut damage, but I believe you'd have to bottom out pretty hard to do so. Like I said I've been very rough on mine and they're still fine, however mines a 1st gen which has the bottom eye of the strut attached right to the body of the strut. No 2" little stem on the bottom like on the 2nd Gen struts, that's just a poor design.

 

I removed a 1" spacer lift from a Tacoma I recently bought.

Spacer lifts are cool if you like this.

 

If your referring to the upper control arm and balljoint angle, they will be 100% in the exact same place no matter what lift you buy. The only way to fix that is aftermarket ucas.

 

I certainly appreciate the "dumbass" part of your comment. Thanks! Keep your mouth shut next time you feel like typing such things. Its rude and disrespectful. Yup, I'm irritated by it.

Aaaannnnyyyywwwaaayyyy.

Consider the nature of what a spacer lift is. Cheap. In so being cheap, one would more than likely avoid buying UCAs.

So to those considering a spacer only lift, that is what happens at droop. Things hit things they shouldn't hit. So don't be a cheap ass and buy the right kind of lift.

But just for reference, for you wonderful 2. Spacer lift came off, bought the truck with on it. Installing a real kit.

 

I'm irritated by your inner CV boot.

 

I have a spacer lift and aftermarket ucas

 

I almost did a spacer lift and block lift but decided to do the struts and springs instead. I did have the blocks in for about 2 weeks and took them out once my AAL came in. So now I have a spacer lift and block lift gathering dust in my garage which I will never use. I guess I can sell them on ebay and recoupe some of my money back. I feel much safer and more confident on the springs and new struts!