Reviews for Quadratec QRC Front Winch Ready Bumper for 18-24 Jeep Wrangler JL & Gladiator JT

Recently got this bumper delivered and installed. I don't have a garage so I had to have a local Jeep shop take care of the install of this and a Smittybilt X2O 10k winch.
Everything bolted right up well except for the fog lights. Everyone here says they were a pain to install and the shop told me the same thing. However once that was done everything came together really well and I love it. Check the pics for a few shots of my blue 2-door JLR with this bumper installed.

Awesome bumper! It took me about and hour and a half to remove my old bumper and put this one on. Directions were super easy to follow and I couldn't be happier with the end result!

Great bumper. Easy install although i did have to widen the frame mounting holes on
the left side of the jeep to get one bolt started. Other than that everything fit perfect
and looks great.

Fit and finish are excellent in my opinion. It looks awesome on my 2018 JLU Sport and the factory halogen fog lights are fully supported. Used the fog light wiring harness as well with no issues. Getting the old bumper off (and heading to the junk yard) was no problem.

A few install tips: There are 3 holes for mounting the fog lights. On the side that uses two screws, the supplied screws went right in no problem. Trying to put the screw in the single hole side wasn't going to happen in this universe just because of where it is located. Not enough room to work with. After beating my brains out for an hour I finally settled on a heavy zip tie. The light is nice and secure.

Where there were eight bolts attached to my OEM bumper; on this new bumper there are 4 bolts attached to the bumper on the inside of where the frame rails are. On the outside there are 4 separate bolts you will install on the outside of the frame rails.
Where others have mentioned difficulty lining up the bolts to place the bumper on; another tip here. There is a side mounting place on each side where the bolts go into the holes. So four all together. Loosen those up and they will easily slide back and off. Easy to see how to reinstall. You only have to loosen the bolts enough for them to slide back. Anyways, take those off and the bumper should easily slide on. I'm almost 63 and disabled and I was able to do this by myself. I could not get everything lined up before noticing and removing the side brackets. Before installing the four bolts into the outer sides of frame rails and into the bumper, put the side brackets back on and tighten. You can use your finger in one hole to ensure they are lined up. They will slide right over the bumper bolts on the inside frame rails. Easy day, no drilling required.

Lastly, at the end of the install manual it says to install your winch. I bought a Smittybilt XRC winch (the one on sale). There was absolutely no way this winch was going to be properly installed with the bumper already on the Jeep. The winch installation manual is a joke but that's another review. I had to take the bumper off. Ten minutes after removing the bumper, the winch was properly secured. One 185 pound deadlift later the whole works was back on my Jeep. So those items were major points of frustration so if you're reading this you most likely won't suffer the same frustrations and will have a simple install. This is my first Jeep and mine is the 2018 Wrangler JL Unlmited Sport. So while I may be a rookie here, at the end of the day, I'm a little wiser and hopefully I can help someone else out. I absolutely LOVE the look of this bumper and it is totally solid!

I like it! The steel is thick and sturdy. I was able to install it by myself. The toughest part was picking it up and sliding it onto the jeep by myself. at first I thought it wouldn't go on or a bolt hole would need to be widened but I got it to go on with some wiggling. I got the full width one because I like the extra safety and because after you watch the overlap crash test on youtube you might not want a stubby bumper even if they look cooler. I got this bumper in 12 hours from clicking purchase with free shipping! so cool.

This is our 1st wrangler. We wanted to start with easy addon's. Chose this bumper with a Smittybilt X20 comp 10k. Also added the flood light bar and 2 3 in. Cube spot lights. It was almost problem free, expect trying to line up bolts on bumper. The jeep bumper holes were not perfectly round and needed to be redrilled. Installation took about 5 hours for everything. Well worth it. Great looking seat up at a great price.

First I have to say I am extremely happy with this bumper. Good quality, welds are well done, very nice look.
However, things that made it difficult: the pre-drilled holes were not plugged during powder coat painting so it was difficult to place many of the screws.
Jeep factory did not fully drill one hole on the bumper attachment plates so we had to drill out one.
The headlight mounts fit my JL fog lights well, but the screws on the exterior side were almost impossible to place because of the angle and inside edge of the bumper.
Lastly, I purchased the Warn Zeon 10-S winch to go with, however it does not fit. Only the Warn Platinum Zeon winch was listed as not compatible. We did make it fit but we had to do major cuts to the bumper and to my jeep front bumper attachment plates.
Entire job took at least 8 hours removing factory bumper and fog lights, placing QRC bumper, drilling, burring, cutting, filing, painting, and attaching winch.

bumper arrived quickly and was packaged very well. no damage in shipping. the installation instructions were really very good with clear photos of the process. as others have noted the foglight installation was the hardest part of the process due to very small hardware that is really difficult to reach in and around to hold the nuts. material from the powder coat process had clogged up the threads for some of the foglight mounts. of course I didn't have a 4MM tap and it was a Sunday afternoon so I couldn't get the install completed as planned. Quadratec did give me an adjustment for the troubles. Overall a nice looking bumper that I am please with. I haven't installed a winch at this point.

I bought this bumper and the HF Apex 12k winch for my wife for Christmas, and we installed them this weekend. It is a high quality piece of steel for sure. I have no fear of damaging it under any normal use. But here are some hints on installation.

1) The fog lamp hardware included is just silly. We used the included hardware for the outboard mounts, and self driller/tappers for the others. The tiny included fasteners were too big for the holes in the bumper.
2) The rubber hose with a slit is a good protection for the fog lamp harness, but doesn't cover the outboard sides or the back of the lamps where they will be exposed to spray and debris. I need to double back after a trip to the parts store for some loom and some sort of shielding on the back side.
3) Loosen ALL the car side brackets before you attempt to install it.
4) CAREFULLY start all four through bolts into the bumper before you tighten anything. It would be very easy to cross thread these.
5) Then just tighten it up.

Now here is the interesting part. The winch is VERY HARD to install into this bumper once it's on the car. There are two reasons.

A) It's a close fit. If the bumper was 1/2" longer, it would be a lot easier.
B) Access to the winch mounting hardware is horrible. There is plenty of steel here, adding some access holes for a socket is in order. The rear holes cannot be accessed via socket, and can barely be accessed by fingers. It takes both hands and tenacity to get them started, and a 5/8" wrench to tighten them. If there is anything that is just wrong about this bumper, it is access to the rear winch bolts. Yes, it would be hard to steal. For sure, it is hard to install. Everything is blind and you can barely reach them through the tiny access cut-outs.

Overall it looks great, and I dread ever taking it off. It might be easier to install the winch to the bumper before installing to the car, but if you do this you would need a bottom side solution to the inboard bumper mounting bolts. Think about that before you decide. Plus the assembly is heavier yet at that point.

WOULD I BUY IT AGAIN?

I have a 2023 JL that will get something like this also. I like the finished product on the 2021 we just did. I'm still thinking about whether it will be the same bumper or not for the 2023.

The style