You thinking about buying Fabtech, Dont go off road then haha

Hello everyone, So to start i broke the fabtech lift on my 05 tacoma. If you are thinking about buying Fabtech DB lift dont do too much 4 wheeling. I was four wheelin at Frank Grains in a river bed, when all of a sudden i heard a huge crunch when i put her in 4 low... Turns out my rear mount for my front differential on my fabtech lift kit cross member snapped off. I did not land on anything, just simply from the torque of the yota 4 low, it snapped and my front drive line jammed into my bell housing and bottom of my motor and grinded away. Well after getting out and putting it back into 2wd, the diff sat there loose and i made it home to my welder.
I have purchased Fabtech on my old tacoma, but my newer trucks first owner purchased this one before i bought it. So i called fabtech and they said that because i did not purchase this kit myself that they would not back their sh*t up. He said that it was a defect that has happened many times to their customers, and now the new kits are gusseted so that this problem does not exist anymore. I am very frustrated with the response i got from fabtech when i told them their sh*t broke because of a problem in their design that they even admitted to me. So to sum it all up I WILL NEVER BUY A FABTECH PRODUCT EVER AGAIN! Now i realize that these DB lift kits are not for crazy off road adventures and they are just a mall crawler lift kit, but i guess i just figured it would last untill i can afford to go with a quality suspension kit like All Pro Off Road LT kit, or camburg, or TC ,ect... but no it failed and so did the company in my mind. Im going to fix the problem myself and make it much stronger and then as soon as i can get this crap off my truck. If any of you are thinking about buying a DB lift kit like Fabtech you better not want to go off road very much, and listen to all these guys on this TacomaWorld website because they have experience and know what they are talking about... specially the solid axel and LT guys, who i have talked to in many forums, they are great and have been through it! Just thought i would share my experience have a good one guys!

 

I should show my cousin this. He's trying to convince me to get fabtech to go off roading with him.

 

Dont know why, but Hawaii people LOVE fabtech...
I'm going with a fox mid travel lift. BTW, I grew up in kula
I miss maui....

 

I must be a minority. I'd rather look for other lift options if I ever want to go hardcore off roading.

 

Yikes...

 

I have a Pro Comp DB kit and my truck off roads fine. I've beaten on it before and haven't had any issues. Obviously I can't comment on the FabTech design but my DB kit has been fine. Just sayin'...

 

How old is the kit? Cleaned up pics of where it broke? Stuff isn't indestructible... Haven't seen any others with broken stuff yet, plenty of folks who beat their drop bracket kits.

 

Somewhat in defense of Fabtech, and any other manufacturer in a scenario like this, their response in normal. Most anything you buy is warranted to the original owner, or vehicle if it was swapped to another. How do they know that the original owner installed it correctly and did not abuse the truck? You're entitled to be mad, and probably nothing any one says will change your mind.

I have sold the Fabtech line for the past 12 years. They are a top notch company to deal with. I have handled a few issues before similar to this that they have fixed with little hassle. I would suggest trying to call back for Armen in tech to see what he says.

 

Ya i will definantly give him a call, and this thread i made was mainly to share my experience... up untill now i have only heard great things about the company and products and i have only had fabtech on my tacomas and they have been awesome. I understand that stuff breaks off road, which is the reason i have a garage full of tools and a welder and bender and such, but this was more just to let people know what they might run into with customer service in dealing with this lift kit. Im just extremely dissapointed in the attitude and outcome of my phone call. Especially because he admitted that this was a problem with their older lift kits, but my problem with the whole situation is that the company left me too kick rocks. Just saying that if the customer service i got was this lame i thought i would share the experience with everyone because if it happened to me im sure it can happen again to someone else. Thank you for all the responses i appreciate the imput.

 

Speaking for 1st Gen Tacomas... Fabtech is a good company, that is not a question in my mind, but perfomance-for-the-money-wise their lifts tend to do better on mall cruisers than those that 4-wheel regularly.

 

This is why I install my own lifts on my trucks so I know eactly what has been done.

 

Fabtech is garbage, mine (ford) gave me enough problems that I took it all off and went with rough country which worked great for the price, fabtech looked great and worked well on the street but something broke almost every time off road, over priced and under built mall crawler/show n shine trash, I would never buy again

 

I agree with you jay, that's why I'm running SAW coilovers on my taco, I learned the expensive way about DB lifts although ignorantly Alberta pounds his truck pretty hard and I believe he has a DB lift

 

Armen is awesome. Before i bought my Fabtech kit he told me there was a long wait because they are redesigning the kit for this exact reason that the OP posted. I havent had any problems ever since I put it on in 2007. I've beat the shit out of it on occasion too.

 

Why am I not surprised

 

I was pretty rough on mine. Looks like he had the old non-gusseted version. It was fixed shortly after they released it because of that exact problem.