American Expedition Vehicles (AEV) just released a much anticipated suspension system for the popular Jeep Wrangler JK.

We've been expecting this for some time now, but even if we make with the assumption, as many will, that this new kit works half as well as any of AEV's other products, we're still going to remain skeptical, at least for now. Not because it lacks quality, but because of where it all started. The inspiration for this new kit came from the former suspension company, Nth Degree. For those of you who don't know about Nth's stuff, trust us it works awesome! AEV purchased all of Nth Degree's inventory prior to their going out of business last year. In doing so they may have adopted Nth's suspension strategy, which included a smorgasbord of mounting hardware and small bolt on pieces, more so than any other kit on the market. The former Nth Degree plan was to make the kits completely bolt-on. This led to a lot of frustration amongst shade tree mechanics who like to do it themselves in their own driveways. Bags and bags of bolts and nuts left some consumers wondering "Is all this stuff really necessary?"

Despite excellent build quality and unparalleled handling characteristics, Nth Degree's kits developed a reputation for excessively difficult installations. It wasn't uncommon for a kit to take 3-4 days to install on a TJ. This caused a lot of shops to look elsewhere for product because it simply wasn't easy to sell someone a kit that costs more to install than the actual purchase price. We feel that this contributed significantly to Nth Degree's eventual fall out. We in the media received word about Nth Degree's closure out of the blue late last year. We were shocked and flabbergasted to see them go under.

So here's the question of the day: Has AEV engineered this new offering to make things simpler for the do-it-yourselfer and shops, or is the packaging going to included 45 bolt packs and a 25-page instruction pamphlet?

We for one, cannot wait to find out, because if AEV did indeed fix the problems Nth created before their demise, we think AEV may have a corner of the market that nobody will ever get close to touching.

Industry insiders not related to AEV or Nth Degree have told us that this particular kit allows the Jeep JK to handle a slalom course better than a stock JK, and remember this kit is designed around 37-inch rubber.

We look forward to the next step, evaluation and testing.

To learn more about this exciting new kit, click here.