F-150 Lightning

Make
Ford
Segment
Sports Car

We've got some bad news for those of you hoping to make a Ford F-150 Lightning your own. No, this isn't about sales stoppages because of recalls, materials shortages, or dealer markups. Instead, the bad news is that one of the most popular truck mods out there will totally ruin your Lightning.

There's some mechanical engineering involved that we'll get to in a moment but in brief, lifting your Lighting is the fastest way to make it lose range. And lots of it. A YouTube video explains.

Here's the long and short of it: By adding a 2-inch leveling kit, and some new wheels and tires, Town and Country Ford were able to shave 20% of this Lightning's 230-mile range off, in addition to adding another 80 lbs. of mass to the already hefty truck.

Let's start with the lift or leveling kit. By raising the ride height of the Lightning, it's possible to net better ground clearance for off-roading. That's why most people do it. Aside from the looks. However, doing so also undoes the careful balance Ford engineers set between ride height, aerodynamics, and, again, the looks. But the leveling kit likely isn't to blame here.

In the grand scheme of things, the lift is a marginal shift, whereas the wheels and tires are a much larger one. The video gets into it a little during the range test segment, but wheels and tires are the real culprits here.

The new metal and rubber weighed 20 lbs more than stock with a tire on it, which measures 34 inches. That big tire means the motors have to work harder to spin it, using more battery life. Then there's drag to worry about. The face of Ford's wheels look that way for a reason, and the new ones simply aren't as aerodynamically efficient.

To reiterate, the range of this Lightning dropped from 230 miles to 186 miles after the modifications. This wasn't even a full-on lift kit, and we'd expect a more dramatic loss in range from a proper lift. Frankly, depending on what you'd use your Lightning for, it may be best to leave all but the most long-legged versions stock, lest you drop to below Nissan Leaf levels of range.