Welcome to the place.
@PorterW1111 gave some great options for you. If I were you and not too privy to mechanics, I would get in touch with a few of the vendors on here for advice as well. Frame cutting is not the end of the world and can be put back to stock. It sounds like you don't want the lift kit anyway and didn't pay a surplus of cash extra for your purchase. Get some prices to make it right, if that's what you want and weigh your options. Keeping this Raptor for another year will put you in a place where the market will be flooded with Gen 2's as the Gen 3's will be selling and you won't get close to what you paid for yours. Don't panic either, there's worse things going on in life, you can still sip a latte in that truck while driving to the mall. And if you really start to hate it, then toss the keys to your wife and tell her you really bought it for her. Take her vehicle and trade it in on another Raptor.
would love to hear anyone elses thoughts on my proposed options for him.
you could give any one of those companies a call and tell them your story and they would be happy to help. esp if you are honest like you were here with knowing its a prob and wanting to fix it.
just if they start mentioning mid travel kits hang up lol thats a path that will lead to you marrying your truck cause your fiancé will leave you lol
CoronaRaptor: Thank you for your suggestion! I did assume that cutting the frame was pretty much game over as far as stock went. So I was pretty much writing off returning to OEM. I will have to check with some shops in the area to see what kind of trouble it would be to fix the cut areas. I do see your other point as well. Right now trucks of all types are selling high. But I can absolutely see prices dipping once the Gen 3's come out. I think that is something I will have to consider regardless of which route I decide to pursue.
PorterW1111: Thank you for all your help! I will definitely be looking into your suggestions. I think my first move should be contacting BDS, to see if they can shed light on exactly what was retained/retained but irrevocably modified/completely replaced by their kit. That should give me a good idea of what would need quoted for returning it to stock. I pretty much assumed that cutting the frame was the end of the line as far as returning it to stock. After that, I will contact the companies you mentioned and see what they suggest. I think, from what you have described, I would probably be ok with altering the rear, but keeping the lift. I do enjoy spirited offroading, but my style falls somewhere between snail pace rock crawling and full on mountain dew baja blast. (I don't want to crawl in fear of breaking, but I don't need to do full send either.) That being said, having never offroaded a Raptor, I wouldn't want to rush into a decision only to find that I desperately need to drink a redbull and see what kind of wings it gives me.
P.S. Haha, she might actually go for that. She wasn't impressed with it, until I let her drive. Now she begrudgingly thinks it is pretty cool lol!
Thanks again everyone! I have a much clearer path to correcting the issue now! I will definitely keep watching this thread to see if any more suggestions come up! But I have a goal, and my stomach isn't in the knots it was when I first found out the Lift was an issue! I really appreciate the help everyone!
