LEXINGTON, S.C. — As of Friday, the "Carolina Squat" is officially illegal in South Carolina. The law bans most vehicles driven on South Carolina roads if the front fender is raised four inches or more above the height of the rear fender. Pickup trucks cannot raise their front fender six inches or higher.
The law went into effect in November of 2023 with a 180-day grace period, which is now up.
A first offense will cost $100, the second offense $200, and the third comes with a $300 fine and loss of driving privileges for one year.
Local auto shops said they've received about two calls daily for squat adjustments for the past few weeks.
"It’s a pretty simple install process to correct the squat. It is very simple. The rear axle is easily dropped and you add a lift block in between the leaf spring and the rear axle assembly, and that’s what gives it its lift," Warren Varnadore, an auto service consultant and parts advisor with Golden Motors, said.
Varnadore said that now that the law is fully in effect, they expect to get more calls, but not an overwhelming amount. These auto professionals said it costs about $700 to fix a squatted truck, including parts. According to Varnadore, the repair, installation, and alignment take about four hours.
He said that typically squatted trucks neglect to install a rear lift kit, but he hopes many still have the parts. Varnadore noted that some people make their trucks more drastically inclined by lowering the rear additionally.
"The vehicle's sitting at (an) angle," Varnadore said. "The transmission and the engine are also at that angle; trying to pump fluids to keep them lubricated to working properly, it's an impossibility. So not only is it just unsafe, it's wreaking havoc to your power train."
Varnadore said that he believes the appeal of a "Carolina Squat" is to look different, even though he shares that squatting on a truck causes underlying issues, costs money and is unsafe.
"You cannot see the road in front of you, and a vehicle stopping abruptly in front of you, you’re not going to make it," Varnadore said. "That weight distribution transfer is so far off now that the brakes are even affected for traveling distance."
Golden Motors and other auto shops around Lexington, Columbia, and other parts of the Midlands are trying their best to accommodate customers by helping to re-level squatted trucks back to their original manufactured standard.