Don't see why not, I have a lot of friend driving thier rigs with homemade suspension parts. How would someone know if they are homemade vs aftermarket?
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07 Powerwagon, pretty much stock besides Line X bedliner and dual exhaust. Quad cab, fully loaded (minus nav), etc
92 XJ sport, 33" boggers, 4.56 gears, rear locker, more to add
07 Arctic Cat 400 4x4, lockers front and rear, 2500lb MM winch
i guess maybe what the bigger issue may be is this. say you do have some homebrew suspension parts on your rig. something breaks and you crash and hit another vehicle, and say maybe even slightly injure the other person. then the insurance companies start checking things out, see that a part on the suspension snapped, and THEN figure out that it was a home fabricated part and NOT built to any "factory specs or ratings". how about that situation???? because yeah, like 92XJT said, who's really going to know what you have under there in MOST situations??
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SCORE!: 1996 Cherokee Sport, bone stock, excellent condition, one owner, with currently 47,000 ORIGINAL miles!!
CURRENTLY: 2001 Cherokee Limited 4-dr, 33" Uniroyal Liberator A/Ts, 6-8" well built custom lift (sorry, i haven't measured yet).
SOLD: Project Rig: 87 Cherokee Pioneer 4dr. bone stock now. coming soon: 3" budget lift, go completely doorless and chop the rear cargo area out.
i guess maybe what the bigger issue may be is this. say you do have some homebrew suspension parts on your rig. something breaks and you crash and hit another vehicle, and say maybe even slightly injure the other person. then the insurance companies start checking things out, see that a part on the suspension snapped, and THEN figure out that it was a home fabricated part and NOT built to any "factory specs or ratings". how about that situation???? because yeah, like 92XJT said, who's really going to know what you have under there in MOST situations??
I will look into this for Indiana. I don't think that there are any laws against it off of the top of my head.
But like you guys stated if something broke and caused a crash then you could run into problems. In Indiana it is against the law to operate an unsafe vehicle. IC 9-21-7-1 Read the title of that, has to be a safe working condition, so you might get a ticket or something for an unsafe vehicle AFTER a crash.
I will do some more looking and see what I can find.
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'99 XJ, 5.5" lift, 33" MT's '11 Dodge Charger
I miss the days that they made toys that could kill a kid.
The majority of major suspension builders have a good insurance policy to cover them for wrongful death suits.
Also all of them I know of are sold as "offroad use only", so if the customer chooses to run the product on the street they accept the responsibility for what "could" happen. One of thier products fails and you kill yourself or someone else all the manufacture has to say is "it was susposed to be used offroad only".
I know for instance all of our own line of suspension componets clearly state with the directions a clause to protect us; as it's required by our insurance company for them to even insure our business.
As for building your own I really don't know what to tell you. If you bought a kit you could probally get yourself out of a lawsuit by stating it was a purchased kit from someone else and with the proper proof I bet you could get away with not being responsibile. With a kit you built that would be a bit harder to do. I'm however not a lawyer or an insurance company so I'd say check with them prior.
I would have to say though, I think it would be hard to prove that if a product failed and you hit/killed someone that someone could prove it broke prior to the accident and wasn't simply damaged due to the accident.