Let me start by saying that I am new to the Jeep community. I got my first jeep about a year ago (2012 JK 4door Oscar Mike) and am finally geting around to doing some stuff to it. I have 33" terra grapplers on finally and need to lift it. I want to do a shock and coil replacement lift of 2.5". I was thinking about either BDS or Zone. I heard they are the same company but want to get some opinions about what the best bet would be.

 

Welcome then, i have had my 2012 jku since last feb. I looked at BDS cause its good bang for the buck and easy install. What i did not like was the fact that if you break something from BDS they require you send the part in before they send a replacement part out. so depending on the mail time, your rig could be down for weeks. I have a 3.5 AEV and i can say AEV is excellent all around. customer service next to none. rides like a caddy and never had an issue. and if you do call them and they will help you out and are always friendly. Also when you call with a technical question they put you on the phone with an engineer not a rep which is sweet. I always lean people towards AEV and they make a 2.5 lift that clears 35' if you ever want to do it but other good companies are Teraflex, Rock Krawler, Rubicon Express, old man emu. ECT.

 

Welcome Hoosier.

You're gonna get inundated with opinions about what is best. Let me say lift the suspension as little as possible to clear what tire you are currently or in thee immediate future and make it YOUR build. Any ???, you can PM any time.
GodSpeed

 

It is more expensive but well worth it.
JK DualSport XT Suspension 2.5" - Suspension - Shop By Category

 

I just put the AEV 2.5" kit on my 2012 JKU today. Brown Santa showed up at 11am and I was out for a test drive before 6pm. I added Synergy front lower arms and a Fox 2.0 steering stabilizer as well. It handles great and I couldn't be happier with an off the shelf bolt on kit.

 

Damn! for that type of price you could have gotten a full 3.5 from AEV!! sounds like a sweeet setup though

 

How about some pics ?

 

When you mentioned BDS I assumed you were talking about their 3" kit. I had it installed on my sahara with 33's. it gave me a ton of flex, worked well offroad/ onroad and aligned perfectly out of the box without having to buy any extras. I would say go for it, I was more than impressed!

 

X3 for the AEV lift. I had a couple chics riding in my jeep the other night and one made a comment about how it didnt feel like a jeep. Its was like an "ah ha" moment. The lift is so nice on road even with my 34's you would think your driving an expensive luxury car.

 

I didn't want that extra 1" of lift or their drop brackets. Ill post some pics when I take some.