Back story, bought my first Jeep this past summer. I knew it needed a suspension upgrade. Went against the overall public rating of Rough Country and bought their 3.5 inch lift kit. Already blown out 4 rear shocks, one front shock, upper front bracket broke and pulled the whole shock through the shock tower.


Broken Shock tower, shocked ripped out.
Rough Country has no explanation on why I am going through rear shocks the way I am. But, they did say the bracket breaking was my fault because I didn’t tighten to torque specs. Not sure how they would know this, because I had them installed at a professional shop, it even shows on the receipt. I did check the shocks but didn’t mess with torquing them because the marks from the shop never moved.

Rough Country will not help pay for any of the cost to repair the shock tower. But they will be nice enough to send me a new shock mount bracket, and another replacement shock.

I am now told, if I have anymore issues they will just refund my money. I am counting on more issues, and looking forward to the refund.

Now I need some recommendations to do it right this time. I don’t need the most expensive setup on the market. But I need something that will fit my needs.

The Jeep is basically my grown-up toy, and I use it to hunt coyotes. So I am driving on a lot of dirt roads, rough pastures, and crossing creeks and other Midwest landscapes. I am not a rock crawler or anything extreme. I also use the Jeep to commute to work, but it’s only 12 miles one way, on a dirt road.

Let the recommendations begin!

 

Metalcloak is hands down the best out there for our JKs IMO. They are reasonably priced and high-quality parts. When you look at individual components you'd be shocked to see many of their offerings are not anywhere close to the highest-priced things out there, but are still some of the top designs. They are a smaller company with good customer service as well. They are primarily direct to the public so you don't see them in the local shops, and often not even with the online retailers. Sorry that you are kinda learning the hard way.

Keep in mind that you can build a pretty decent rock crawler with cheap parts cuz that vehicle ain't moving very fast and is primarily off in the rocks. All the effort building a weekend warrior toy is maintaining pavement manners at both low and high speeds, and that takes good design and quality parts.