The Bilstein 5100 and OME 883/891 combination worked fine when my commute was ten minutes across town. But now that I'm spending nearly an hour each way on Texas highways, the shortcomings became impossible to ignore. Every expansion joint, every crosswind, every passing semi reminded me that these springs were designed for a truck carrying far more weight than mine ever would.

I couldn't take it anymore.

Enter the Dobinsons IMS Lift Kit with C59-134 front springs and C59-131 rear springs.

Why Dobinsons? Well, it wasn't just the kangaroo stickers.

This time I wasn't making assumptions. I spent weeks reading forum posts, digging through Reddit threads, comparing spring rates, and even consulting our AI overlords. Every path eventually led me to the same conclusion: for my budget, driving style, and actual vehicle weight, the Dobinsons 2–2.5" IMS kit made the most sense. Ordering a second lift kit hurt. There's no way around that. Nobody likes buying the same thing twice because they got it wrong the first time.

Right out of the box, the differences were obvious. The shocks are substantially larger than the Bilsteins. The bushings are beefier. Everything feels more substantial and purpose-built. Whether that translates into ride quality remained to be seen, but first impressions were good.

The front install went smoothly. Having done this once already, removing the Bilstein and OME setup was straightforward. While everything was apart, I took the opportunity to clean years of accumulated grime from areas that are normally impossible to reach. I've been using a new degreaser on another project and it absolutely destroys dirt and grease, so naturally I put it to work here as well.

With everything cleaned up, I spent some time inspecting components. The Tundra brake pads still have plenty of life left, although it was disappointing to see the caliper paint beginning to peel. Add another item to the list.

Installing the new front suspension was mostly uneventful. The lower shock mount fought me a little, but a bottle jack and a long Allen wrench convinced everything to line up. Once the front was assembled, I cleaned the backs of the wheels before reinstalling them, set the truck on the ground, bounced the suspension a few times, and torqued everything to spec.

Then came the rear.

I remembered the rear suspension being annoying the first time around, and surely I'd learned from my mistakes and bought the proper tools by now.

Nope.

I still don't own a metric deep socket set. The upper shock mounts remain one of my least favorite jobs on this truck. The process was the same as the front—remove parts, clean, inspect, install—but the tight working space, incorrect tools, and inevitable hand cramps made it considerably less enjoyable. While I was back there, I managed to grease one of the harder-to-reach fittings on the rear control arms and spent some time cleaning up the fuel filler neck, which looked far worse than the rest of the truck for some reason. Eventually everything was installed, cleaned, torqued, and ready for the moment of truth.

The test drive.

This is always the part that worries me most. There's nothing worse than spending an entire day working on something only to climb behind the wheel and realize it feels exactly the same. That wasn't the case here. The very first bump told me everything I needed to know. I finally hit the jackpot.

The truck immediately felt smoother, more controlled, and less nervous. The harshness I'd been fighting for years was gone. There was still a vibration through the steering wheel, but that's almost certainly my worn-out tires, which are already next on the replacement list.

More importantly, all the issues I'd spent years chasing suddenly made sense. The problem was never the control arms. It wasn't the steering rack. It wasn't the driveshaft. It wasn't the alignment.

The problem was that I chose springs designed for a truck I never actually built.

Sometimes you live and learn.

In this case, I spent and learned.