If you are planning to squat your truck, you should know the proper methods and their pros and cons.
What Does Squat Your Truck Mean? Squatting the truck is a fashion or craze that emerges from the US California state situated in the western region along the Mexican border. People achieve squatting by raising the front end of the truck to elevation and lowering its back end. Sometimes only elevating the front end will serve the purpose, and the rear end is left alone in its original position.
What Does Squat Your Truck Mean?
We will discuss a brief overview of squatting, its purpose, different methods to alter the trucks, finances involved, downsides, and associated legal repercussions.
Its name squat comes from its resemblance with the squat exercise position of the human body. Alternate terms used for squatting are “leaning” or “tilting.”
It is useful if you have to travel offroad in bumpy areas at very high speeds. It is helpful to reduce the chances of nose-diving the truck in case of high jumps.
Besides this single benefit, it consists of multiple drawbacks and harmful aspects with this craze for both the general public and driver on the roads and the squatted truck. Therefore, the general public has filed several petitions to declare the squatted trucks illegal.
The Purpose of Squatting a truck
Squatting is a term associated with trucks amongst the other vehicles. In this technique, its front end is higher than the back end.
When it meets a bump at high speed, the rear side hits the land first. It reduces the chances of severe crashes. It is useful in cases of driving fast on bumpy tracks, especially in offroad areas.
Most people squat their trucks just from the aesthetic point of view as they like the look of the vehicle with an elevated front.
Sometimes the truck drivers participating in desert racing also get their trucks with these modifications to avoid severe accidents in high jumps.
When their vehicle faces a bump at high speeds and gets airborne, squatting ensures the solid landing maximum chance the truck as both sets of wheels hit the ground at a time.
Methods to Squat a truck
There are a variety of squat kits available from different manufacturers to use with various truck models. The driving force behind the availability of these kits is their popularity amongst the youngsters.
There are plenty of techniques to achieve the squatting of your truck by using these kits. You can get the desired lift from 2 to 10 inches at the front end of the vehicle with parts removal.
Purchase a Lift Kit: One of the easiest ways is to acquire a lift kit of the compatible model with your vehicle and install only the front half. The vehicle’s front end elevates than the rear this known Reverse rake orientation process. You can easily install a lift kit on your truck.
Lift through Suspension System: The second method to lift the front end of your vehicle by elevating the suspension system ball joints. You can achieve this by adjusting the height of the torsion bar in the suspension system.
Remove the Rear Blocks: For the high squatted look, some owners buy a lift kit for the front end and a kit for the rear end lowering to remove this.
Removal of the rear blocks along the installation of a lift kit on the front end will provide the extreme squatted stance for your vehicle. Drop shackles springs can further lower the back end of the truck up to 2 inches.
Purchase a Long Travel Kit: Some experts recommend the long travel kit to achieve the desired lift instead of a standard lift kit. It is costly but has better performance results.
How Much Does it Cost?
The cost of lifting your vehicle can vary depending upon the kit used and the extent of squatting required.
For a smaller lift up to two inches, a rough estimate is about a few hundred dollars. For elevation of more than six inches, the cost involved is about 10,000＄ or more. These costs quoted are as per some online resources.
Drawbacks of Squatting a truck
Modifications in your truck to achieve the desired lift result in a deviation in its design performance parameters.
It causes a downfall in the performance of different components of the vehicle. Suspension parts also wear out quickly as they are the direct victim of this lifting process.
There are various campaigns in different USA states, especially California, where there is a craze for squatted trucks. People have filed petitions to declare it illegal.
People have launched several campaigns on social media to portray squatting the vehicle as an obnoxious activity. It increases the social awareness among people to avoid it to ensure the safety of the general public.
There are several problems associated with squatting your vehicle. Therefore it is better to be avoided.
Poor Braking and Steering Control
Lifting the front side of the vehicle also changes the driver’s sitting arrangement. The seat will also lightly tilted towards the backside to adjust the view angle and elevation of the front side vehicle.
It results in poor braking and steering control. Moreover, they have to look over the steering wheel to the incoming traffic in front of them.
Poor Headlight Aim
The front end of the squatted vehicle lift and drivers of these vehicles have to adjust their headlights to compensate for this elevation. Otherwise, headlights fall directly into the eyes of the drivers of oncoming cars that will result in loss of their visibility and catastrophic accidents.
In this way, squatting becomes dangerous and unsafe not only for the owner of these vehicles but also for other people drive on the road with them.
Some people install high-intensity lights in original factory place built bulbs that make the visibility zero for other incoming vehicles in front.
These upward-directed light beams also fall on the rearview mirrors of other vehicles and cause mental stress and obstruction in the vision of the transport in their rear. It causes serious social problems as well as severe accidents.
Moreover, these upward lifted headlights will not help the driver to view the road and oncoming traffic in front of him.
Rough Ride
Unequal lifting of the truck affects the performance of its suspension system. This degradation in the suspension system efficiency, shocks, and extra wear and tear in parts makes the ride uneasy in these vehicles. You can face high jerks while traveling in these vehicles.
Trailer Sway
The trailer sway phenomenon occurs when the rear side of your vehicle is overloaded. In the case of a squatted truck, it is already in the state of a heavily loaded backside. Therefore there are high chances of swaying the truck sidewise when it hits a bump while running at high speeds.
Body Roll
There are several reasons behind the body roll effect on your truck. Excessive body roll is a result of malfunctioning of different parts of the vehicle. Its main reason is the issue in the suspension system proper functioning and shocks of the truck.
Modifications in wheels and shocks for squatting reduce the body roll handling capability of your vehicle. The chance of sailing away from its usual path increases at sharp turns and corners.
Loss of Towing Capability of your Vehicle
Squatted truck loses its towing capability, or it reduces its capacity to tow other vehicles. When one vehicle is towing another, it has a lift on front and sag on the rear end up to a certain degree. Therefore squatted truck cannot perform this towing activity as it has already squatted.
It is Costly
Lifting your vehicle just for the sake of fun is not a good idea as it involves thousands of dollars to purchase lift kits to give it that squatted look.
Conclusion
There are pros and cons of this squatted truck activity. It can be helpful to improve certain features of your vehicle if you do it within limits.
Excessive squatting like a 9-inch lift in the front and -4 inch sag on the rear end of your truck to give it a cool look while compromising your safety is just a mad idea. Avoid it as it is dangerous for you as well as other people.
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