Reviews for Rugged Ridge Spartan Front Bumper for 18-24 Jeep Wrangler JL & Gladiator JT
Bumper looks great, photos submitted. The install was so easy because I paid a professional to do it. Now I need to decide how to mount my license plate.
Great bumper and easy install (once I got the OEM one off which was tough). I think it has a nice aggressive look and allows for high clearance.
Looks awesome, lots of compliments. The instructions are bad. If you have minimal mechanic skills have a good mechanic install it or at least help you. The grill insert is awesome, again lots of compliments. BTW: very easy to install, instructions are so easy my 9 year old could read them
The look
Like the design of the bumper that is close to the original bumper meaning the high ends
In process of installing bumper now and it looks great, but beware...if you have the 2020 JL LED fog lights they won't work. You'll need to buy new fog lamps as well if you want light! Thank you to customer service for helping me pick out new lights and shipping them next-day so I can get this project done.
Good looking bumper and installation is straight forward. It's a good thing because the instructions you get are pretty much useless. Word of warning, if you own a 2020 Willy's or Rubicon the fog lights WILL NOT fit this bumper. I have a Willy's and did not know this until I already was halfway into the installation. I decided to remove the mounts for the fog lights that came with it and fabricate my own. It turned out really well and I like the bumper. A 2 to 3 hour project turned into a 5 1/2 hour project with a 40 minute phone call to Quadratec to discover the problem. However, If you are handy with a grinder and can fabricate your own brackets then you will be good.
The shipping on the bumper was as expected. The bumper was packed really well. The box was pretty banged up (as expected d/t the weight) but since it was packed well there was no damage. This is a good solid bumper that I expect to get many years of use from.
First, this bumper looks nice, the actual D-Ring mounts are nice and sturdy and so is the winch mount.
However there are many things that are not very good
The instructions do not include torque specs. There is empty space in the front of the bumper between the bumper face and the frame horns. The M12 bolts used to pull it all together will bend the bumper in at even 100 ft/lbs (which is low for bolts this size) The bumper should be fully sandwiched at this point, the gap has the potential of causing slack in that spot which could end up causing the mount to rip off. This is a very poor design that could have been easily rectified
The support brackets for the frame horns cannot be re-installed on the inside of the frame but the outsides can be reinstalled.
The fog light holes don't line up, i had to drill the driver side out to get the holes to line up. The fog light provided hardware is quite a challenge to install. Make sure you install the fog lights before you mount the bumper.
The fog lights are also not protected - they extend past the end of the bumper and would be the first thing to contact anything.
There is also no provisions for the fog light harness - you have to just wind it up and zip tie it to the light brackets. It would have been nice to just have some tabs to do this or a proper sized fog light harness option.
The winch bracket has slotted holes for the install which is nice but if you install the winch with the bumper on, it is exceedingly difficult to get the front passenger side bolt in because the fog light bracket from the bumper interferes. This should at minimum be called out in the install instructions. The way i ended up doing it was lifting the winch up an inch or so and holding it there while i started that bolt and then setting it down. Definitely a bit challenging to do on your own.
Even with the slotted holes - the winch ends up extremely close to the grill, to the point my control box would not fit on the winch with the standard brackets. they should extend this bumper out so that it fits a standard winch. Some may work fine if the power wires don't come in from the back. This location also puts the winch cable very close to the grill, make sure you run synthetic line or it will surly chew the heck out of the grill on use.
The bumper itself is very thin metal; It will most certainly bend if you plan to do any real wheeling with it.
There are no provisions to reinstall the factory skid/ protector shield for the radiator and condenser. There should be holes along the bottom for this
The paint comes off the bolts when you install them and need to be touched up post install. The power coat on the bumper itself is also a bit lack luster - it scratches easily. I marked up the top by simply setting a socket on it.
I have had many cheep chineese bumpers going back as far as my YJ and had good success with most of them. This is definitely not one of the better ones. If you wheel your jeep at all – get a better bumper
If you tighten the plate bolts too tight they bend the steel and crack the paint/coating. It’s very easy to get it to bend. Then the rust sets in in those cracks and under the coating in other places. This is year 2 with it and I’m going to have to grind and paint if I don’t replace it. This was after they replaced it twice. Probably will spend more on the next one.
This bumper was installed on a 2020 Wrangler Unlimited Sport Altitude Edition.
Even though this has a 2 star rating I do like the bumper. It looks good and is easy to install. The reason for the rating is because of a defect that Rugged Ridge knows about but don't tell the buyer. One reason I purchased this is so I could reuse my factory LED fog lights. You can't. I contacted Rugged Ridge and was told that Jeep changed the fog light design in the 2020s. So even though everywhere I looked at these, including Rugged Ridge website. They all say it will fit a 2020 when they know it is not 100% compatible.
My second problem with it is in the mounting design to attach to the frame. They added a box to the back of the bumper to extend it forward. It is hollow so when you tighten up the bolts holding the bumper on you can crush it in. They could have included spacers or a spacer plate to prevent this.