Rough country vs Rusty's vs RE

I see that rough country has a 6.5'' lift for the xj and it only costs $999. Rusty's has one as well at 6''-6.5'' for $999. Why then, is a 5.5'' RE kit $1800?
Im sure the answer will be somewhere along the lines of... "because it's made with better materials and its stronger" Okay... but im not really planning on wheeling the piss out of my jeep. I just want 33s-35's... thats all. Show and shine if anything.
But....
I do want the ability to upgrade my lift at a later date so when I get more into wheelin I can upgrade the lift to long arms or whatever the upgrade at the time is.

So my question is... I know the rough country lift isn't the big lift of choice, I know its not the best of the best, but for a guy who is just wanting to get his jeep up in the air for as little as possible, maybe do some mild wheelin.... Is this lift okay?

I supposed if you want to run crap, you could go with the rough country...been there, done that, bought the Tshirt. I dont know anything about rusty's so I'll keep my mouth shut on that. RUBICON EXPESS. I'm never going back to anything else. You can piece that RE lift together on Ebay and other places for less than half of that $1800. Also check with dcw4d.com and see what kind of deal he can hook you up with on that RE lift.

The Rusty's one is fine. I've used a bunch of springs from him and they're my favorite by far.

I'd never run any RE stuff, but that's me.

If your not lookin for an extreme off-roading left then i would get rusty's.. Rough country rides like a turd nugget on wheels on the road and rusty's rides great street wise. I'd go rusty's, then in the future if you ever go long arm... go T&T or RE

To offer a more direct answer...the RE kit uses drop brackets for the front...this gives much better control arm angles...which equal much smoother ride....and the components are a bit better quality, especially the control arm bushings...

Im about Rustys but i have a feeling everyone might get there 2 cents in on this one!

Ive heard stuff about every lift but havent experienced. So off-topic Id like to know if rustys could handle moderate pre-running and mostly street. More so if the coils are worth it because I plan to peice together everything from dogde, RE, rustys, custom.

atxchris1234 said:

I see that rough country has a 6.5'' lift for the xj and it only costs $999. Rusty's has one as well at 6''-6.5'' for $999. Why then, is a 5.5'' RE kit $1800?
Im sure the answer will be somewhere along the lines of... "because it's made with better materials and its stronger" Okay... but im not really planning on wheeling the piss out of my jeep. I just want 33s-35's... thats all. Show and shine if anything.
But....
I do want the ability to upgrade my lift at a later date so when I get more into wheelin I can upgrade the lift to long arms or whatever the upgrade at the time is.

So my question is... I know the rough country lift isn't the big lift of choice, I know its not the best of the best, but for a guy who is just wanting to get his jeep up in the air for as little as possible, maybe do some mild wheelin.... Is this lift okay?

Click to expand...

Rough County will be absolutely fine for your "mall crawler".... It will ride like crap, wear out fast, annd may even all of some mild curb crawling...

But honestly I doubt anyone who wheels their rig on here will even put Rough Country or Rusty's in the same category (in terms of quality) as RE....

You get what you pay for.......

Why would you go to the hassle and expense of lifting a Jeep and then not wheel it?

Some people do it for looks...

Meh, I guess.


Seems like a waste of time and money.

My original lift was a Rough Country...yes it was very stiff, but i bashed the livin' crap out of it and never broke or sagged anything....I hit mud holes so hard I dented the roof with my head even...Would I want one on my freeway cruiser??? not really....But my MJ#2 is getting guess what?? a RC 4.5....cause I'm gonna bash the crap outta it too....and BTW....the finish, packaging and just about everything in the kit is far better than my original one....just my 2 cents worth...

honestly Ive seen all three kits and I dont perfer any of them over the others. RE is over priced ruff country can be lower quality than oem parts and Rusty's has its ups and downs as far as quality and customer service. Get the kit you feel will do best for you but if you wana upgrade later then you might wana consider T&T I like thier setup. I personally have pieced my lift together from all of the before mentioned brands

Oh I'll wheel it... I just don't care about having the best of everything because #1 Im on a budget and #2 I don't wheel THAT much. Now, im thinking that once I get the lift and lock the rear i'll prob start wheeling more often, so I want the ability to upgrade.. Im just wondering if (for what I want to do) its even worth the extra $800 just to get something an inch smaller. I know its superior, Thats all i've heard... but im a guy with a stock ass jeep on some walmart tires... I would think that a cheap lift (while not the best) would be a major upgrade over what I have now even if its not the best of the best.
You guys all know... you can't go to 33's without the SYE, so theres more money... and then the gears front and rear have to be done immediately (realistically) and after that come the axle's... the stuff add's up quick you know, and I want to do it all at once so it quickley hits the $3500 mark... so im looking for ways to pinch pennys and still get what I want.
Just trying to weigh my options here. If RE is the be all end all then so be it i'll wait, but if I can get the same enjoyment for less $$$ im all about it.

Thanks for posting up those options on how to get it for less... Can you buy a used lift of that size? Maybe I should look into piecing one together...

uncc civilengineer said:

But honestly I doubt anyone who wheels their rig on here will even put Rough Country or Rusty's in the same category (in terms of quality) as RE....

You get what you pay for.......

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I disagree.

atxchris1234 said:

Oh I'll wheel it... I just don't care about having the best of everything because #1 Im on a budget and #2 I don't wheel THAT much. Now, im thinking that once I get the lift and lock the rear i'll prob start wheeling more often, so I want the ability to upgrade.. Im just wondering if (for what I want to do) its even worth the extra $800 just to get something an inch smaller. I know its superior, Thats all i've heard... but im a guy with a stock ass jeep on some walmart tires... I would think that a cheap lift (while not the best) would be a major upgrade over what I have now even if its not the best of the best.
You guys all know... you can't go to 33's without the SYE, so theres more money... and then the gears front and rear have to be done immediately (realistically) and after that come the axle's... the stuff add's up quick you know, and I want to do it all at once so it quickley hits the $3500 mark... so im looking for ways to pinch pennys and still get what I want.
Just trying to weigh my options here. If RE is the be all end all then so be it i'll wait, but if I can get the same enjoyment for less $$$ im all about it.

Thanks for posting up those options on how to get it for less... Can you buy a used lift of that size? Maybe I should look into piecing one together...

Click to expand...

I have a rustys system on my XJ.

I have to laugh at a lot of the comments made that are just quoted crap from other people.

Currently my setup is at 7" front using 4.5s and ACOS. Rear is bastard back with blocks and shackles at 7.25.

READ THIS POST...NO SYE, NO DEATH WOBBLE, NO PROBLEMS AT ALL.

I can cruise the highway at 70mph no problem.

Rusty can't measure worth a damn. His track bar was tooooooooooooo LONG and he wouldn't replace it. So I had to get it cut down by 1.5 INCHES just to fit with 7" lift. And it was bought for the adjustability...Yeah right.

The coils...They work. Then again, he didn't touch them..he resold them from a different company.

The UCA and LCAs are adjustable. And KNOCK and CLUNK and POP and and and. The square threads are noisy as hell. Yeah they work...and give me a headache from wheeling with them.

One thing mentioned about the RE kit with the drop brackets. Having your control arms as close to stock angle as possible makes the ride a lot better. Having short arms at 6.5 or higher is rough as the arms are pointing on a 45 degree angle and beat into the frame while wheeling rather than flexing on the proper radius.

RE is expensive because someone other than a hack actually tried to design good parts.

With all that info...My rustys stuff will be OFF in about a month and a Clayton's Long Arm system installed. I have Wheeled with clayton. Talked for hours with him about the designs of the system. Ridden IN jeeps with his systems installed. First class work all the way. But so is the price. But DAMN ITS WORTH IT!!

Dude, piece it together....really. Ebay is your friend, and i'm not entirely sure why people don't use the hell out of it.

Just for the love of nature don't buy what they call a 3" Rough Country lift spring off ebay. I got about 1" over stock with them...then trashed them in favor of RE.

Edit* To put this in perspective, by using a conjunction of dcw4d.com and EBay I have about $960 in ALL brand new RE shocks, RE 4.5" leafs, RE 5.5" Coils, RK long arms, RK track bar and bracket, RE 22" SS lines F & R. The only thing I didnt touch on there was my RE discos, which were brand new but I picked those up from a buddy for $30. Anyway, that's an awesome price...That did take me a little time though, like a few months.

How about we all get together and build a complete 6-8" Long arm and 3-4 link rear? Then we could brag that are hack job is better than the other guys!

Thats my 10 cents :wierd:

atxchris1234 said:

Oh I'll wheel it... I just don't care about having the best of everything because #1 Im on a budget and #2 I don't wheel THAT much. Now, im thinking that once I get the lift and lock the rear i'll prob start wheeling more often, so I want the ability to upgrade.. Im just wondering if (for what I want to do) its even worth the extra $800 just to get something an inch smaller. I know its superior, Thats all i've heard... but im a guy with a stock ass jeep on some walmart tires... I would think that a cheap lift (while not the best) would be a major upgrade over what I have now even if its not the best of the best.
You guys all know... you can't go to 33's without the SYE, so theres more money... and then the gears front and rear have to be done immediately (realistically) and after that come the axle's... the stuff add's up quick you know, and I want to do it all at once so it quickley hits the $3500 mark... so im looking for ways to pinch pennys and still get what I want.
Just trying to weigh my options here. If RE is the be all end all then so be it i'll wait, but if I can get the same enjoyment for less $$$ im all about it.

Thanks for posting up those options on how to get it for less... Can you buy a used lift of that size? Maybe I should look into piecing one together...

Click to expand...

I think you are looking at this all wrong and would be far better off spending a month searching and reading post on here as well as other forums before spending any $$.

To start with the RE 5.5" lift is going to give a stock jeep (no front winch/bumper or rear bumper/tire carrier) over 7" of lift. You can run 33's/35's w/ an RE 3.5 or 4.5" superflex kit. You dont sound like you need long arms or even drop brackets for that matter but if ride quality is important to you maybe you should look at one of those options.

You can run 33's w/o a SYE, its just gonna take a lot of cutting. A SYE is only needed based on pinion angles and lift height.

You dont necessarily have to regear as soon as you throw on some tires...

And you especially dont want to regear stock axles and then upgrade axles soon after.. just do it all at the same time.

Also, there is NO PERFECT lift out that and the majority of the combo's (RE, Rusty's, whoever) are not going to suit all your needs. Most of the time the jeep is going to sit tail high or whatever so combining say ZJ springs w/ leafs and shackles is a better option.

There's just so much info out there, read and learn from other peoples minstakes/successes and try to get it close to right the first time around.

But again I feel you get what you pay for in terms of lift components...

True dat.

To start with the RE 5.5" lift is going to give a stock jeep (no front winch/bumper or rear bumper/tire carrier) over 7" of lift

Click to expand...

My front is about 6.5", and my rear is about 5.5"