Lifting a Prius c?

The Crossover Toyota Prius-X You Never Knew You Wanted | Carscoops

 

Like this?

SPACCER car lift kit / suspension lifting kits - lift your Toyota Prius C

 

I expect @sfv41901 and Hybrid Pit would not be a lot of help. They are more focused on lowering an already low car.

 

Think it's possible a local 4x4 shop could do a lift for you? Your in Pennsylvania, me Indiana, so I'm guessing you have your fair share of those shops around like we do here. I know the guys at Hills 4x4 close to me are experts in fabricating lifts for things not generally available in kits. Might be worth a call at least. They might even throw in labor for free just for the chance to lift a Prius.

As for hitches, I'm not much help. But I have seen C's on the road towing U-Haul trailers and riding lawnmowers on small flatbed's. I wouldn't think it would be much of an issue for what you say you'd be hauling. It's been awhile since I looked this up, but i seem to recall the C in Canada specifies what weight you can safely tow. Yet in the US the manual says not to do it.

As for the C going away here in the states, yeah, I've heard the same thing. It's possible I suppose looking at those sales numbers. But rest assured, you can buy mine. Oh, and I'd buy that Prius beast posted above. I actually think that looks fantastic!

 

I LOVE IT!!!

Seriously - I'd buy this tomorrow.

 

Just to add on to this for anyone else who's obsessed with rally-car aesthetics, Tema4x4 now offers - or at least so they claim - a 30mm lift kit (which translates to 1.18" in Freedom Units) for the C:

 

So, here's the thing. Toyota doesn't actually sell the car here. We import used and auctioned cars, either as individuals, or via importers. So, the cars we get are Japanese spec, which I believe have the same clearance as the American (or European models). When we bought our Aqua (which is the name of the Japanese model), every speedbreaker was a horrifying experience. My daily commute wasn't so bad, but the backroads (e.g. the route to the kids' school) were pretty awful.

I got in touch with the dealer, and he sent us to a guy who does nothing but "fixing" import cars for our roads. For our car, he did the following:

1. Replaced the rear springs. The new springs are the exact same length, but they're narrower (so they're stiffer), but they have one more coil (so they have more stiffness, but more travel).

Old Springs:

New Springs:

1. Added an aluminum spacer to the top of the front shocks.

Before:
After:

The car is a finger-width taller now. The guy told me to get bigger tires too, but I don't want to. It's tall enough as is, and getting bigger tires will change how the mileage is reported.

I haven't noticed a huge difference in handling, but then I don't drive that fast anyway. The rear of the car is a lot stiffer now when it's empty (I've noticed), but not too bad. I can definitely feel a bit more of a bounce when I come off the smaller bumps that are on certain roads. But y'know, no more scraping the bottom of the car. Definitely a win there.

 

Good luck getting a bigger tire in LRR.

 

This guy on ebay used the tema4x4 30 mm spacer lift kit for his prius c

 

I've added the tema4x4 30mm kit (Im going to swap the rear spacers with 40s due to cargo) and got larger tires.

Just went out to get a rough measure and I have 9" clearence.

With the tires (205/70R15),I did modify the body due to rubbing. However, I knew I was pushing it and also had a budget so I went with a wider tire as it was readily available/cheaper (wound up being a tad cheaper than stock tires). And yes, tire is LRR

 

Looks like this thread is resurrected. Did you ever do anything to raise the height?

We don't have a Prius c...but we just got back from a road trip to Utah in our Prius v (wagon). The good news is that the v did great. However, there were a couple of dirt roads I didn't want to do because even the v's clearance wasn't quite good enough. A couple more inches of height would have given me a lot more confidence.

According to a quick search, the v's clearance is 5.7 inches...and a Gen3 liftback appears to be 5.5 inches. Odd...the difference feels like more than that...probably due to seating position in the v vs. the liftback.

 

Wow...that is really neat. I think our Prius v (wagon) would look great with a setup like this.

 

How badly has your actual MPG been hit (assuming you've also calculated how many miles you're really traveling) with the raise and larger tires?

 

Hard to say but I would say it hasn't. If it has, it would be so small that a slight change in driving style would have a way bigger impact (or even just hitting a few extra red lights on my commute)

With the tires, speed/mpg read low by about 10%