Reviews for Bestop Sunrider for Hardtop for 07-18 Jeep Wrangler JK
I was super excited about this sunrider for a hardtop, but was quickly let down. Being a Wrangler owner for more than 15 years with 2 different jeeps I knew I loved the benefits of a soft top. My wrangler now has a hardtop and after 2 years of driving with it I loved how quiet it is. This was best of both worlds until I realized it's so much louder than a traditional soft top especially at higher speeds . Putting it on was easy enough, lining up some of the screws was frustrating but totally do-able, easy to flip open and easy to close. Instructions enclosed were very clear followed step by step. Needless to say after a month and a half of driving with it I took it off and put the hard T top back on. I think if it clipped above the driver and passenger doors it wouldn't be so loud.
Love the concept. Love the ease of use (easy open/close) much easier than removing and reinstalling the Freedom Panels. As expected road noise is noticeably louder with the Sunrider. Had this on from spring till last weekend.
Hate the fact I often have a wet interior because the Sunrider LEAKS!! I have been driving down the highway and all of a sudden I have what amounts to someone standing over me dumping a bottle of water on my left shoulder. I am constantly (at least once a week) having my husband tightening the mushroom screws and the star shaped hand screws that come with the Sunrider. The first time this happened I had over a gallon of water in the driver's side floorboard, admittedly we did have a very heavy rain. I have removed them for the winter, simply because I don't want water freezing and expanding to possibly ruin parts. When I re-install in the spring I will be using teflon tape and/or loctite on the screws, fingers crossed this solves the problem.
I did contact Quadratec about this and they said they had never heard of this problem and would be contacting Bestop. I was never contacted with possible solutions.
Top came with faulty parts, quadretec is addressing, haven’t had rain yet to test for leaks
I waited a while before writing a review. I bought one of these when they were fairly new after purchasing my 2017 JKU. Let me preface this by saying that once it is on, it is great. The problem, at least for me, is getting it on without a great deal of frustration and profanity. I just installed it for the 2nd time today, after removing it for the winter last December.
The main issue for me is that the threaded rods on the knobs are about 1/8" too short. They are long enough to work but just barely. I was so disappointed after the first time that I installed the top that I wrote to Bestop directly to advise them of this. The first installation took me, by myself, about 3 hours. Today's installation with a helper still took me 2 hours, half of that spent trying to get the driver's side rear knob to thread into the embedded nut in the door rail. I was about 10 min away from going to Home Depot to get my own threaded rod or bolt and skip the supplied one. But I finally got that one to go in.
The instructions say to push the rail from the bottom upwards while you thread the knob into the nut...easier said than done. This time around I used 2 wood clamps to help me, and as I said it still took me an hour to get the thing to line up.
If I had it to do over again, I would not purchase this top. To me it is not worth the hassle and frustration. I see so many reviews saying how easy it is to install, and I am amazed. Perhaps Bestop modified their hardware or design, but I never heard back from them after my feedback.
We installed this on a 2016 Back Country Edition Jeep Wrangler Unlimited JK. It is a high quality BestTop kit. It includes everything you need for installation except a screw driver and a Torx bit. I highly recommend that you check the back seal several times while doing the install to ensure that you do not pinch or fold the seal.. once you get this thing mounted you will not want to do it again. The install took a lot longer than expected due to getting the bolts through the sun rider parts and the roll bar fabric. The bolts are quite short and difficult to align. We had to pull and stretch the parts to align them and I do not think that one person could have completed the installation. Once installed the top seems to work quite well. it is not as noisy as we expected. it is more noisy than the freedom top but less noisy that full soft top. it opens and closes easily with one person. if the installation components were slightly improved this would get 5 stars.
Looks great but the quick screws for the rear are not long enough if you leave the padding on your bar. You will need and 8MM X 100mm threaded bolt and nuts X2. Once we went to the hardware store and bought them, remaining assembly was better but some bolts dont exactly line up with the threaded bolts. 4 stars on product but 2 stars on ease of assembly.
This deserves a 5 but it gets a 3. I put in on my 2010 JKU Sport. I LOVE it, best mod I did to the Jeep. So why a 3? Because the hardware stinks. The bolts are too short, they strip too easy and the threaded cups "welded" into the plastic will break free and spin. Absolutely TERRIBLE quality hardware. The first year I had a lot of squeaks, the second year, none...so that may be my installation trying to bee too gentle the first year after parts stripped. The plastic knobs on the long threaded rods bends in your hand and I feel like every part I work with is going to strip. I ended up getting longer bolts at HD and replacing the provided hardware because there was barely enough length to get any purchase trying to clamp the side brackets to the roll bar. IMHO Bestop should've done SO MUCH better on the hardware.
Purchased this 3 months ago. The concept of this is perfect. Love the ease of use. My Jeep is garaged most of the time, however when outside during rainstorms, it leaks like a sieve- especially the passenger side. I know this is mentioned in the Jeep forums and besttop was addressing it... in the meantime with these recent rainstorms, I literally have an aquarium in my passenger footbed.
typical best top product fits well but it is not sewn perfectly around edges and the driver side whines and flaps when driving with it closed and has done so since day one and you can not use it if you have any sort of a cargo or roof rack it will not open I wish they made one that went up a few inches and slid back instead of the opening up and dragging the wind big time
One of the bolts was difficult to screw in because the tapped holes where not done correctly.