Stanced Car Owners Explain Why They Stanced Theirs, Some Admit to Making a Mistake

While simply lowering a vehicle with correct shocks and springs is a reversible modification, stanced cars usually involve going further than that. As you may have noticed by now, going for the full-stanced look with static suspension will have the fenders dangerously close to the wheels and tires.

Since the latter two are moving, and the former are not, they end up touching, and the result can only be undone at the body shop with primer, paint, and hours of work.

Sadly, this is not the only outcome of stance, as side skirts get scraped, scratched, and damaged in numerous ways, and the same applies to front lips, splitters, mufflers, suspension arms, and various other components.

Those who stance their cars, as well as the people who run a lowered ride height, face cracking their oil pans on regular things on the road, including mundane things like bumps and sewer caps.

The worst part about stance, and we have entirely neglected the part that involves ruining the resale value of a vehicle, is that safety and driving performance are also affected.

While some racing cars in certain series run a low ride height, and even camber to a certain degree, those are race cars, and they only run settings that are less aggressive than stanced cars, and only when that setup is permitted by the rules and offers a performance benefit.

Instead, with stanced cars as they have come to be appreciated on the Internet, especially in social media, safety has far been tossed from the backseat straight out the window.

There are several problems at hand here, and the first is limited suspension travel, which will make the ride horrible, and even the smallest bumps hit at speed will result in a dangerous moment for the driver, while everyone else on the road will not have difficulty at keeping their vehicles driving in a straight line.

Stopping performance is also reduced, as having extreme negative camber, as seen on some of these vehicles, will limit the potential grip of a tire due to the reduction of its contact patch. Add that to the stiff suspension with minimal travel, and you have the recipe for disaster.

While we can appreciate the look of a stanced vehicle at a car show, where it sits for exhibition purposes, only, the same cannot be said for a vehicle that is scraping its chassis or even its fuel tank on the open road. The latter part is a genuine safety hazard, and the risk of a fire is dramatically increased if a vehicle's fuel tank is scraping anything.