Lift kit

I got my lift kit installed from Off Road Prius. In about a days easy work, less actually but I also mouse proofed it while I have it tore apart. I am a moderately adept wrench, and it was no big deal for me, but I guess I'd have to recommend having it done by a shop if your not comfortable with much more then changing your own oil.

You do need to have it re-aligned, but I was going to do that anyway, having just bought new tires and then getting rear ended, and my insurance covered that. It's now about 26% higher, that's what I figure anyway, and for me and the places I take mine it was worth it. It cost about $300.00, the quality of the parts and the design was perfect. Besides gullied out dirt roads, it will be handy in the winter, and of course also good in town on those steep departure driveways and parking curbs.

 

I've already "used" it a few times: on a driveway with a steep departure, that I bottomed out on before, and in a early snowfall. Can't see any difference in mileage.

 

Doing great, no issues at all. I forget I have it until, like today, I was going down a steepish driveway, with an upgrade at the bottom. Not much snow here yet, that will be my best use of the lift, at least in the winter! I love to push it as much as possible, keep on driving the PIP, only after I get stuck a few times and can't make it home do I break out the '99 Rav4, which seems absolutely primitive after the PIP. As does any conventional car or truck, scrubbing off speed with only mechanical friction, with no regen, is crude and primitive.

 

A few pictures, keeping in mind I have about 50K miles of Prius driving, pre lift kit, so I had a good idea of what I could get away with in the past. It's much better now, pretty amazing for only 1.5" of lift.
I really didn't want to get stuck or screw up my belly panels, so tried to safely max out what it could do, no way could I have straddled the berm, or driven over that large rock before. These pictures were 1/2 mile from home, but on a part of the road to my place only used for AG purposes, and not maintained in the winter. In a few weeks the snow will be 2 or 3 foot deep.

 

I didn't want to post pictures, and have someone say they could do that with their stocker! I also didn't want to get stuck or tear something up, so yeah they turned out pretty good for showing what a bit of extra clearance is worth. I'm sure, POSITIVE, I'll get epically stuck a few times this winter before I break out the RAV4, as I push the envelope on how deep of snow it can now handle.

 

I drove off a curb yesterday leaving a parking lot, snow had made it easy to do/hard to see, no problem! Same with some big speed bumps in a subdivision, I got jounced up pretty hard, but didn't bottom out.

My driveway has about a 15' area that can drift in like crazy, while the rest of my lane gets blown clear mostly, that will be the real test, any day now.

 

In a big hurry yesterday, I pulled into a convenience store parking lot and hopped out, apparently forgetting to put it in park OR shut it off, and as it was on a slight upgrade, it rolled forward a bit but real slow. It stopped just as I got back inside, (I never got fully out the door) when the tires came up against the raised sidewalk. POINT BEING: without the lift kit, I would have scraped my bumper on the curb, with it, I had about 1/2" of clearance. I thought to take a picture to show here, this inadvertent advantage of the lift kit, but I was already so embarrassed (a guy in a big jacked pickup parked next to me saw the whole thing, just another clueless Prius driver....) that I didn't. I think I hit the heater button instead of the park button, my bad.