Reviews for Quadratec QRC Front Winch Ready Bumper for 18-24 Jeep Wrangler JL & Gladiator JT
The bumper itself is fantastic......quality construction, looks great. Install of the bumper onto the jeep was extremely easy. If not for the poor design for mounting the fog lights, and the extremely tight access for the winch mounting bolts, this would have been 5 stars. I recommend installing your winch on the bumper prior to mounting the bumper on the jeep.
Bumper for Jeep Gladiator came in well packaged. The only small drawback but not a deal breaker was moving the original fog lights from OEM bumper to this one. The spot to add the last screw and nut is a very small tight space to put the allen wrench to tighten. The bad, mounting the SmittyBilt X2o winch was tough with the way the the bottom bumper bracket is mounted, but doable. The good, the winch won't be easy for someone to steal once mounted. Overall I would highly recommend this bumper, heavy duty and looks great, OEM fog lights fit and look perfect.
Front bumper came well packaged and without damage. The longest part of the install is taking the fog lights and harness out of the factory bumper.
The only proplem I found was the button head stews they provide are junk. I went and got 10 machine screws from the hardware store. Thry worked much better. And I would suggest zip-tying 2 of the screws for the fog lights. Getting the nut on the screws proved to be difficult. Zioeties worked just fine.
Actual install was simple, and I did not find the bumper heavy at all. Over all great product!
Bumper and winch look great on my Jeep..took 4 hours to install.
Ran into a couple issues during the process..1..found out after putting bumper on that there was no room to get winch on..had to take bumper off and pre mount winch....2..There is minimal room at rear of winch mounting bracket to get a socket wrench....needs a couple 1 1/4 access holes.....Other then that it looks great
Love the bumper and it went on very easy. Only problem is the screws to reattached the factory fog lights do not fit and I had to drill out the holes to make it fit and there was no way to hold wire harness in place. had to fab it to make it work.
This is a good looking bumper that fit pretty well. However, the top outer bolt holes on the bumper would not accept a bolt under any circumstance. The drivers side bolt stopped going in half way, and the passenger side went about halfway then wouldn't go deeper, despite spinning as if the threads were properly gripping.
Otherwise, the bumper looks great and is of good quality.
I really like this bumper - I was leaning towards a shorty but I chose this bumper for both it's features and price point. Because of the latter, my expectations where not that high.
I gave the bumper four stars mainly because of the poor packaging and because of one really terribad design flaw (see below). The Styrofoam blocks self-destructed during shipping and the bumper drove through the end of the box and the end of the bumper had minor cosmetic damage as a result.
The install was difficult and took several attempts to successfully mount the bumper - however, I think this is a Jeep issue and not an issue with the bumper although I believe that the tolerances in this bumper's mount points are incredibly fine -- you have to get things lined up perfectly and then you're going to have a struggle getting the back-side bolts in.
One pro tip -- on JLs, there's these extra braces bolted to the frame that provide extra reinforcement to the mount bracket that runs perpendicular to the frame. Mine had gotten kitty-wumpus and some light application with a sledge got them mount-holes re-aligned back to where they should be. I drilled out one hole before I realized what was going on -- once I got the frame supports (there are four) back in-alignment, mounting the bumper was easy (with two people) and getting all the bolts inserted required some finessing.
I also got to give props for the instructions - great photos, great detail. With one exception - and I have to call BS on Fig. 25 and the instructions telling you to stick the 2.5mm allen wrench behind the fog-light mount into the hex-screw... Unless you have the hands of an Oompa-Loompa, you're not sticking anything back there. I'd like to give the design engineer a couple of light taps with my trusty 2lb sledge to get them to re-think that non-solution. So, yeah, 1/3 of your fog-light mount points are hand-tightened.
I'd like to see the matching rear bumper come-out for the JL soon...and I'd also like to see them release a front skid-plate for this bumper.
I think it's a good looking bumper especially for the price! It doesn't protect the sway bar disconnect as well as I would like but the factory sheet metal cover wasn't either. Had a small ding on top of the center tube but it doesn't really bother me
It's a heavy duty bumper I love that part of it. The only complaint I have is the install. The fog lights swap was a holy hell nightmare with the supplied nuts washers and Allen wrench bolt. There was no room hardly for the back bolts on the winch plate. Other than those two complaints it's a very very sturdy bumper that's heavy. It dropped the front of my jeep an inch with my badlands winch install. I just wish they had a easier install for it.
Looks great and high quality, but disappointed. Also, the Quadratec stealth winch fits like a glove. I really like the combination of the two.
Install was simple except for transferring the fog lights. Instead of messing with nuts and bolts in tight spaces, get some self tapping screws to reinstall the fog lights in the QRC.
The big disappointment was when I discovered that we couldn’t use the factory skid plate. The description states that the QRC bumper is not compatible with the factory Rubicon steel bumper fog lights and the Warn Zeon Platinum winch, but it does not mention the factor skid plate either. I’ve looked at a few third party skid plates and they too are not compatible.
Again, the bumper is great. I love the look. I just wish they had mentioned the compatibility issue with the skid plate more clearly. If I would have known that going into the purchase, I would have gone with something else. I do like the look, so I’m keeping it and will probably just trim the factory skid plate.