Jeep Renegade Trailhawk Daystar 1.5" Lift & 225/75R16 Cooper Discoverer STT Pros PICS

Even though we bought Renny, our 2015 Jeep Renegade Trailhawk back in February, we hadn't been able to do to much to it if only because there just hasn't been much of anything available for it. That is of course, not up until now anyway. Fortunately for us, Daystar has embraced the Renegade as a real Jeep just like we have and they've started to develop some well needed products for it including a great 1.5" spacer lift. With this lift, you can effectively run a tire that is about 2" taller than what comes from the factory on a Sport, Latitude or Limited and about a 1" taller or so on a factory Trailhawk. For our purposes, we were able to go from a 215/65R17 Goodyear Wrangler SR-A to a 225/75R16 Cooper Discoverer STT Pro mud terrain tire (with the help of new 16" Chevy HHR Wheels and 1.25" wheel spacers) with just a touch of rubbing of the fender liner at a 3/4 turn of the steering wheel. Anyway, here are some first pics of what our Jeep Renegade Trailhawk now looks like, I hope you enjoy

First off, this is a shot of what our Renegade looked like right after we brought it home.


And, this is what it looks like now.


Here are more pics to get you a better idea of just how much nicer a Jeep Renegade can look with just a little bit of help.






















Here are a few shots that will help you to see just how much nicer a Jeep Renegade can look with an aggressive set of tires and a wider stance (thanks to the help of 1.25" wheel spacers). First, here's a before shot.


And now, here's what our Renegade looks like now.




A couple of shots from the back. First, what it used to look like.


What it looks like now.




Here's a shot that will help to show just how much more ground clearance an additional 2" of lift (1.5" lift + 0.5" of extra tire lift) will give you.


A few more low shots so that you can get a better look at the stance and our new Cooper Discoverer STT Pro tires mounted on 16" Chevy HHR steel wheels.










Close up shot of the 16" Chevy HHR Wheel with a 1.25" wheel spacer to help clear the brake caliper and give a nice stance.


Here's a before shot of what the factory wheels looked like under the front fender of the Renegade Trailhawk.


And here's what it looks like now.


Again, this is what the rear looked like from the factory.


And this is what our Renegade Trailhawk looks like now.


And finally, here are some snow play shots that we took out on our maiden voyage with the new lift and tires installed.

 

Renny looks so awesome now!

 

Our Renegade drives great and handles just like it did before the lift and tires. The tires themselves are significantly louder than the street tires we used to have but then, that's nothing new to us. There is a slight decrease in acceleration but that's to be expected with a set of bigger tires and regardless of how much our fuel economy has been hurt, it'll still be leaps and bounds better than what our Wranglers get.

As far as the installation goes, it'll be easier on a Sport, Latitude or Limited. The Trailhawk has skids and other features that will make it a bit tougher. Overall, this is not something I would recommend a novice do themselves. You really do have to have some experience working on Jeeps to install this kit at home.

 

Thanks! We're really happy with how things came out.

 

It's always tough for me to say just how long an install like this will take being that I was photographing it and taking notes the whole way through so that I can do a write-up for it. Thanks to the holidays, I was only able to work on it a few hours at a time. Being that you're comfortable working on vehicles, I'd say you could do the whole install in about 6-8 hours. You will need to have a complete set of E-sockets to do this job. E-18 and E-20 won't come in a standard kit and they can cost about $14 a piece. You'll just need a complete metric set of sockets and wrenches for everything else.

 

It's hard to say for sure as the space between the tire and strut is really close right from the factory. I suppose you don't go any taller, you might be able to go a bit wider.

 

The factory tires work well enough and pretty good in the snow. They're far from being a mud tire so they don't do real well there and the sidewalls are very thin so they aren't the best on the rocks.

 

Sorry, I don't have a link. I found them on eBay and yes, they are hub centric.

 

Unfortunately, I just installed everything and haven't had a chance to do any long term testing. The tires are a LOT louder than stock but then, the stock tires were made for the street and these are MT's. Driving around town in the snow and on really icy roads, I have found them to have the most bite of any mud terrain tire I have ever run. As far as longevity, I can't say for sure right now.

 

Just took our Renegade into our local Les Schwab to get a 4 wheel alignment done and about 40 min later, it was done. Total cost including tax was a whopping $83!


As you can see, they were able to adjust the front end well but the adjustment in rear maxed out before they could get it on perfect. Still, it's far from horrible and if anything, it'll just mean we'll want to be doing tire rotations a bit more frequently.