It’s a glorious day when you finally get that new lift kit, wheels and tires installed on your truck or SUV. You saved your hard earned cash for the good stuff and now you get to reap the benefits of being the coolest guy on the block. To keep that title, make sure you don’t wreck it in your own driveway.

What?

You’re saying you’d never do that? What about as you pull into your garage for the first time after cruising the streets all afternoon you forget about this awesome lifted stance? You aren’t even thinking about the fact that the wheels and tires alone raised your truck several inches, much less the lift kit that took you into badass status. You swing that bad boy in and BAM! Your light bar, or worse – your roof, slams into the top of the garage door frame, denting both your ride and your house at one time.

And that’s how you quickly find out how good your insurance policies are.

Don’t give the insurance agents a reason to giggle. To make sure your lifted ride fits in your garage all you’ve got to do is take a few measurements. Check this out before you get your lift kit and you’ll know for sure if you can still call the garage home.

You’ll need to know what your current tire height is and what your new tire height will be. If your current tire height is 31” overall and your new tire height will be 35” overall, the difference between them is 4”. Divide that by 2 and you get 2”. Why? Because only the extra tire height below the axle contributes to lifting the truck.

How It Works
The formula for finding out if your lifted truck will fit into the garage is Current Height + Lift + (Tire difference divided by 2) = new overall height.

Example:

Current overall height = 75”

Installing a 6” lift

Difference in tire height = 4” overall – divided by 2 = 2”

75 + 6 + 2 =83”

83” is the new overall height. Measure your garage opening and you’ll know if you’re golden.

And don’t forget about natural lifts, like snow. You may slip into the garage with only a couple of inches to spare, but what about when you get used to it? And in a few months when the first snow falls, you forget about those precious few inches of snow that are sitting right up against your garage door. The snow will raise your vehicle up and easily assist in slamming your roof into the garage frame. Don’t forget about snow and don’t run over anyone while in your driveway and you should be fine.

Now if your truck never fit into the garage, it definitely won’t fit now, so don’t try any of this at home.