To raise or not to raise your car

PIC: Geoffrey Kasozi, a mechanical technician, shows how cars are raised. (Credit: Juliet Kasirye)

By Ahmad Muto

We are living in an era where trends pickup really first with everyone trying to beat the pack and standout.

Car owners have a preference for pimping rides for purposes of appeal like sport rims.

With prominent port holes and unleveled murrum roads in the countryside that causes defects on cars mostly on saloon cars with low ground clearance,  many car owners have since chosen to ‘raise' their cars, in technical terms raising the ground clearance.

The ground clearance is the amount of space between the underside of the chassis and the ground," explains Richard Orono, a car mechanic with Daks Toyota car auto garage.

HOW RAISING CARS IS DONE

"There are four ways of raising cars, but most mechanics recommend changing the rim or tyres, or even both," advsies Geoffrey Kasozi, a mechanical technician.

Changing the rims and tyres

Car tire sizes vary. Saloon cars such as Premio, Ipsum, Probox, may arrive in Uganda with tires and rim sizes measuring 185/60/R13, 185 standing for the tire size and R for rim size. To change, a car owner will incur costs of purchasing four bigger rims and four car tire, 195/60/R14 and fixing it.

It is not a cheap exercise. The rims go for about sh150,000 each, adding up to sh600,000 for four tyres. Then the tires may cost sh180,000 each adding up to sh720,000. The grand total will be approximately sh1,920,000.

CHANGING THE TYRE SIZE

 Some cars do come with big rim sizes but smaller tires, meaning a driver who wishes to raise their car only needs to purchase new bigger tires that will still fit on the same rim.

"A car may come with small tires measuring 185/60/R14 with big rims that can accommodate a bigger tire measuring 195 meaning they save on buying new rims," he explains. This will certainly cost less than purchasing all four rims and tires.

Using spacers

Cars can be raised by use of spacers that are fitted between the shock absorber mountings and the vehicle body to elevate the car. However, Vitz and Ipsum are different in size and cannot be fitted with spacers of the same thickness, as the smaller car will overly lose its center of gravity.

There are two types of spacers, aluminum and rubber, both made locally and cost about the same price. The rubber is usually cut up from old tires.

The rubber spacers have an advantage over the aluminum type because the rubber ones do not easily break

Using tough shock absorbers

For cars with low duty shock absorbers, the owner can opt for heavy duty shock absorbers as they are longer and raise the car. However, one must ensure that all the front and back shock absorbers are changed at the same time to avoid tilting.

RISKS OF RAISING CARS

Unleveled tyre wear

Cars are manufactured to have tires fixed at a particular angle, yet when the procedure of raising cars is poorly done, it somewhat destabilizes the angles, causing unleveled tire wear over time.

 Furthermore, raising it causes instability at high and low speeds as well as sharp bends.  Raising cars in the long run causes damage to upper suspension as well as the bushings, ball joints and CV joints.

Safety is compromised

Raising the car is not right, for it increases the center of gravity, making it less stable on the road. Hence, compromises safety on the road

Costs

The cost of spacers isdependent on the place of purchase but for salon cars it goes for about sh10,000 each.

Raising big Vehicles

In big vehicles such as commercial vehicles for carrying heavy loads, spring leaves are placed between the pads to facilitate elevations. Some trucks can originally carry a maximum of two tones but with raising, they can carry up to eight tones.

The exceptions

Some cars, especially most Germany cars, can't be raised because their parts are custom made to stay original.

Some cars may be very sensitive and changing their ground clearance would set off the alarm, or the dash board warning light may keep on, alerting that something is not right.