pointerDixie214 said:
...
... but most just look like the driver is compensating for something...
I've always been at a loss for WHY such things are done.
You take an expensive vehicle, engineered as a whole, then start spending big bucks to mod it in ways that ruin the handling and impair safety. I can understand a lift to some extent if you're offroading, but seriously, how much is enough? Maybe it's just the engineer in me that thinks in terms of form following function and efficient use of limited resources.
But as for the safety aspects - I speak from first hand knowledge as well as an academic viewpoint. You lift the vehicle, you raise the center of mass, you put larger, spongier tires - the combination seriously impairs rollover resistance, body roll and pitch, and, combined with the larger rolling radius, braking ability. You can compensate for the rolling radius with bigger discs (that's diSC

), but the roll and pitch effects of the lifted mass will result in additional weight transfer during evasive maneuvers and braking, which you can't resolve without adding a huge amount of unsprung mass -which then further impairs handling and ruins the ride.
More importantly -the experience part- just a few years ago, some teenager with ego issues ran into the rear of my wife's 9 day old Honda Odyssey with his lifted pc o crap Ford pickup. (we had been stopped at the signal light, on a bright sunny afternoon, for several minutes) He claimed his brakes failed - I think he just wasn't paying attention because the lane adjacent was empty, yet he smacked us nearly dead center. His (lifted) bumper hit the tailgate at mid-height, destroying it, ruining the qtr panels, throwing glass all the way to the dash board, and even crumpling the roof of the van right behind the driver's seat. Over $10K in damage. While I don't know how much damage would have occurred if he had struck the bumper or near it, as I don't know his speed at the time, any impact at mid-height of the tailgate is going to be expensive and dangerous.
So why is it worth spending a lot of money to ruin the performance of a well-engineered vehicle?