I am looking for a good suspension lift for 01 wrangler sahara. This is my first real 4x4, and I want to do some wheeling. I have looked at probably 3 dozen different lifts online, but have no idea what is good and what is crap. I would like to get good wheel travel, but dont want to kill road driving. I am somewhat mechanically inclined, but not much experienced with automotive. My price range is under $1500. Any help would be awesome. Thanks Tom.

i went with the rough country a good starter but i now wish i had done the long arm which is in my future. what are your plans also do you want to do some serious crawling or some thing for trails and some crawling.

Mostly just trails and some light crawling.

Hi Tom,
A few things to think about on your lift.
What size tires do you want to run?
Do you want to spend a little more now and be able to upgrade as you go or do you want to scrap the first lift and get something better down the road.

Short arm lifts= Meh... I wouldnt waste my money unless you just want somthing to get the jeep a little taller and some bigger rubber under it.

Long arm lifts= The ride is great. Lots of flex. easy to upgrade if you want to do a trail only rig down the road. They are more money and harder to put on.

Lifts= I would look at rock krawler(RK) first. I love the lift I had and it flexed like a mofo. The other lift to look at is Rubicon Express (RE) They make a solid long arm lift that will work great for you. They did change ownership not long ago and I hear good things.

If it was me I would get the long arm RK lift in 3-5" range and do it one time and do it right. You will be happy you did.

fatbob309 wrote:If it was me I would get the long arm RK lift in 3-5" range and do it one time and do it right. You will be happy you did.

X2. Solid feedback.

I agree with Bob and Alan. I originally put on the short arm lift, its done well for dirt roads and light trails. But I wish I had done the long arm to begin with. My TJ is my daily driver and I constantly wish I had done the long arm kit because of the better handling

I know Rubicon Express has had several different owners the last few years. They had gone through a few years of poor build quality and customer support issues. I think they got too big and started outsourcing their builds overseas. They had some issues with overall quality and durability. From what I understand the issues have been resolved and they are back up to speed with stuff now. For what its worth, my TJ has had an RE 3.5" superflex lift on it for almost 10 years. Only issue I have is the bushings are worn out, but thats expected

Definitely go with a long arm kit. If you dont have plans of doing serious crawling Rough country recently came out with a new long arm kit that is pretty nice and very affordable at about 1500 for everything you need including shocks, trackbars and brake lines. If i wasnt going to do crazy crawling I'd go that route!
Here's the link to the kit for your rig:
http://www.roughcountry.com/jeep_tj_4xla.html