D2 - 2 inch lift - how will it tow?

[ozscott]

Bugger...Bugger, bugger...you people with lifted vehicles! My brother has a shop that for the last 12 years has lifted comp vehicles as a speciality and road vehicles also. I cant believe I have not succumbed to a lift given that everyone around me has one!

The fact is that most of the time I dont do enough extreme stuff to warrant it off road - 31 inch tyres and a good line get me everywhere I want to go at the moment. Given that I am doing the poly air and new shock thing, I am thinking of doing new springs...and a 2 inch lift to enable me to do a bit more off road if I want to...having said that I like (just) fitting in 2 metre car parks so I have to consider that also.

My main concern is that my rover tows my 2 tonn boat well. If the lift will adversely effect that then I will leave it standard height.

Any comments greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[Redback]

Bugger...Bugger, bugger...you people with lifted vehicles! My brother has a shop that for the last 12 years has lifted comp vehicles as a speciality and road vehicles also. I cant believe I have not succumbed to a lift given that everyone around me has one!

The fact is that most of the time I dont do enough extreme stuff to warrant it off road - 31 inch tyres and a good line get me everywhere I want to go at the moment. Given that I am doing the poly air and new shock thing, I am thinking of doing new springs...and a 2 inch lift to enable me to do a bit more off road if I want to...having said that I like (just) fitting in 2 metre car parks so I have to consider that also.

My main concern is that my rover tows my 2 tonn boat well. If the lift will adversely effect that then I will leave it standard height.

Any comments greatly appreciated.

Cheers

A 2" lift won't affect the handling, Lovells do a great spring for the D2.

You will need longer shocks if you want a 2" lift though.

The D2s handling is only affected if you go over 2.5", they will wander a bit and turn in when cornering, otherwise they are fine.

Hope this helps.

Baz.

[Slunnie]

The biggest thing that I've noticed with a lift is that its a little higher to get the trailer on. The lift does give the vehicle more compression travel and generally stiffer rates to handle the towing load.

[jmkoffice]

Mate I've had a 2" lift on mine now for some time and only ever had to tow a 7 x 4 box trailer. The trailer did not sit flat as the vehicle's tow ball is higher due to the lift. This setup wasn't ideal, but hey it was only a light weight trailer.

Then came the new Jayco 17" 2 tonne tandem axle caravan. Two things happened now, the vehicle's rear dropped due to the 200 Kg load on the tow ball and the caravan sits high in the front due to the lift. This setup felt and handled terribly as the vehicle and caravan were both pointing upwards. This unbalanced the vehicle and the caravan was unevenly distributing its load on the axles. This also affected the caravans braking efficiency.

So I fixed this problem by installing Polyair bags and replacing the trailer ball mount (TBM). The bags ensure the vehicle remains level when the caravan is attached and the new TBM drops the height of the ball by around 80 mm, ensuring the caravan sits flat behind the vehicle.

I hope this helps, this works for me as it gives me the best of both worlds - off road capability and hard yakka towing.

Cheers

[ozscott]

Thanks fellas - really appreciate all the advice.

Cheers

Oz