The moment you’ve all been waiting for is finally here… the LoD Xpedition Series Bumper Tire Carrier with Trail Rack and two Jerry Can Mounts is finally available for sale!! To see my complete installation write-up, simply click on the image to the left. If you would like to buy one for yourself, please click on the link below:
Loaded up with 2 full Jerry cans, Hi-Lift Jack and a large cooler filled up with ice, food and drinks for the whole family, I took my Jeep TJ out to the Mojave Desert over the holiday weekend to put the all new LoD Xpedition Series Bumper Tire Carrier to the test. I can tell you now that the amount of extra weight I added to the bumper was significant enough that without the assistance of my Air Lift Suspension air bags, my rear end would have been sagging big time for sure. But, in a wierd way that I wasn’t expecting, this added weight in the rear did wonders to smooth out my ride to the point where it felt like I was drivng a Caddy.
Anyway, so how did it perform right? Okay, on the trail and going over large obsticals, the rack didn’t budged at all. Even with the all the jerking around, the rack sat tightly enough that it simply was effect by it, or at least not enough to make me notice. Racing across washboarded and rutted powerline roads, I did notice the rack jiggling a bit but nothing enough to cause knocking or rattling. Where I did see noticable movement in the trail rack is when I had my Jerry cans empty and I was driving at about 70 MPH on an older stretch of a concrete L.A. freeway. I don’t know how far apart each concrete segment is from one to the next but the rythmic “thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump” seemed to get amplified in the then lighter trail rack to the point where it started to knock on my tailgate. Slow down and it would go away. Speed up and it would go away too. However, after a quick stop to make a simple adjustment to the nifty LoD Xpedition A-Frame rubber isolator, all was good again
Aside from any bias I might have towards LoD, I can honestly tell you that their new Xpedition Series Rear Bumper Tire Carrier is every bit as tough as their competion, easier to use than some and allows you to use your hard top glass unlike others. In my opinion, the absolute best part of this new bumper tire carrier is the fact that at $899, the complete set up costs about about the same price as some of their competitors bumpers do alone.
I should have a complete installation write-up of the Xpedition Series Bumper this week on 4×4xplor.com and I will be sure to let you know when they are available for sale. Please let me know if you have any questions.
After seeing so many of my Jeep buddies go through windshields like they were going out of style, I have always considered myself to be lucky that I still had my original glass as long as I did. Sure I had my share of chips and mini glass spiders here and there just like just like the next guy but none of them ever grew beyond that. I guess I always knew my luck wouldn’t hold out forever and after six years, a relatively new chip I picked up on the freeway decided it wanted to grow some legs.
So, about a week ago, I kicked down the $180 to have my windshield replaced with a brand spanking new crystal clear piece of glass. And, much to my surprise, I had no idea how beautiful and new your Jeep can look when you no longer have a fog of pits and chips misting your view. No joke, driving around with a new windshield was almost like driving without anything in front of you at all. I loved it!! Yes, I say “loved” (past tense) as only five days later, driving home at night from the desert on the 57 freeway, a motor home next to me picked up a nickel size rock and flung it right into new windshield - SMACK!! At first, I thought maybe I got lucky as I didn’t see any sign of a chip or a crack anywhere. However, once I got home and took a closer look, I noticed that the rock had hit the base of the windshield in the black acrylic stripe, just about a 1/4″ above the rubber seal. And, it had already started a crack about an inch long. By morning, the crack had extended itself about an inch more up the windshield and then made a turn towards the passenger side of my Jeep. Shit - a total loss!! Man, if the stupid rock had struck just a tiny bit lower, most likely nothing would have happened at all but as it would seem, my luck had clearly run out and fate was coming to reassert itself in spades.
Maybe it’s just Murphy’s Law that I be required to catch up to my buddies on the windshield count but does it really have to happen so close together? *SIGH* 
In an effort to satisfy the demand of Jeepers who need more out of a rear bumper tire carrier but lack the small fortune required to get one, LoD has just finished developing their all new Xpedition Series Rear Bumper Tire Carrier. Just like the Xtreme Duty version LoD currently manufactures, the new Xpedition Series will be made out of 3/16″ thick steel tube, come with 2 D-Ring mounts, a Hi-Lift Jack mount, greasable hinge, tappered ends, and an integrated hitch. However, unlike the LoD Xtreme Duty or original Heavy Duty Rear Bumper Tire Carrier, the Xpedition Series will feature a 58″ long bumper (as opposed to 54″), a huge 1-1/2″ hinge pin, 10 bolt points, an adjustable latch, adjustable tailgate isolator, frame rail tie-in brackets, 2 Jerry Can mounts and a trail rack! And, unlike some of their more expensive competitors, the LoD Xpedition Series Bumper Tire Carrier has even been designed to work with a Jeep hard top allowing the rear glass to open all the way.
So, when can you get your hands on one of these bad boys and how much will it cost? Well, all I can say is that they should be available for sale sometime this month and that the price for everything will most likely be in the $800-$900 range. I currently have the first production model installed on my Jeep TJ and have been putting it to the test. So far, I can tell you that on pavement, the Xpedition Series bumper is as rock solid as they come and I’m very pleased with it. After showing it around, I’ve had a few of my buddies suggest frame rail tie-in brackets be added for added strength and I’m happy to report that LoD has already produced a set, shipped them out to me and I now have them installed on my Jeep as well. I was planning to load up the rack to capacity and test it out in the desert today but decided to postpone the trip a day due to all the icy rain and snow they’re expecting out there. Anyway, I’ll be sure to keep you posted on how it performs on the trail and when they become available for sale
To see more photos of the LoD Xpedition Series Bumper Tire Carrier, click on this link: LoD Xpedition Series Bumper Tire Carrier Photos
Okay, in the short time that I’ve had my new Rock Hard Ultimate Sport Cage write-up on my website, I’ve had at least a dozen people ask me how I got my 1997-02 Jeep TJ sound bar to work with the rear angle bars especially since Rock Hard clearly states that it can’t be done. And, if you are someone with the exact same question, may I encourage you to please read all the way through my write-up. As you will see on page 2, I have included a detailed write-up on how I trimmed and modified my sound bar to make it work.
Well, after six years of placing a higher priority on buying fun stuff, I finally decided it was time to be responsible and get a full cage for my Jeep TJ. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I didn’t want to get a full cage or that I couldn’t see the value in the safety one would provide to me and my family… it’s just that it was always so easy to find a good excuse to put it off. I mean, let’s be honest, for the kind of money you have to spend to get a full cage, you could easily get a new set of wheels, tires, a suspension upgrade, a winch, a bunch of skid plates, bumpers or whatever, right? Ironically, all these things just make it easier for you to do tougher trails, take more chances and put you in places or position where a full cage becomes something you wish you had. Unfortunately, wishing for something ain’t gonna do you a whole lot of good as you go rolling down a rocky dry fall.
Anyway, while looking around at different weld in cages and toying around with the idea of having a shop custom build one for me, I came across the Rock Hard 4×4 Parts Ultimate Sport Cage and decided this was the kit for me. Although the price of the Rock Hard Ultimate Sport Cage wasn’t much cheaper per se, it is a 100% bolt in kit that requires no welding, drilling or removal of any factory roll bars. Also, depending on your requirements and/or budget, you can choose to purchase just the main cage which protects the front occupants and add optional components like floor mounts, frame mounts, rear angle bars, rear bar, harness bars and even padding kits as needed. And, unlike other bolt cages out on the market today, what I really liked about the Rock Hard Ultimate Sport Cage is its extremely beefy design, its ability to allow your windshield to still be folded down and the fact they replace the wimpy factory dash bolts with larger 3/8″ button head bolts and thick mounting plates.
Now, I’m fully aware of the snobby Jeeping crowd that loves to look down on anything but a weld in cage but to the best of my knowledge, their opinion is all based on second hand knowledge found on the bulletin boards. So far as I can tell, the Rock Hard Ultimate Sport Cage is built like a tank and intended to take a real beating. But, beyond how it looks, what really convinced me this is the cage was the one for me was seeing for myself how well it worked on a Jeep that rolled with one in it.
In the end, I decided to get pretty much the whole kit-n-kaboodle. The only thing I didn’t get were harness bars (I still like the idea of reclining my seats) and the frame mounts. Not that they aren’t useful or maybe even necessary but I think I’ll have to save them for another day. At the time I got mine, Northridge4×4 had a special going on and was offering FREE SHIPPING on all Rock Hard products. If you calculate the weight of this and do the math, you will know the savings are HUGE!!
If you would like to see my complete installation write-up, please click on this link: Jeep TJ Wrangler - Rock Hard 4×4 Parts Ultimate Sport Cage
What is “Better”? How do you define what better really is and can the idea of better be objective? Let’s say a company sells a product for a lot more money than its competitors, does that make it a better product? How about if they throw in a whole bunch of features that they say you you need, does that make it better? I don’t know, maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t but I’ll tell you, when a company resorts to using deceptive tactics by going around masqurading as some kind of Joe Blo, smeering the products of their competitors and then propping up their own on the backs of them…. i really have to wonder. You would think that if whatever they were selling were in fact better , the only thing they would need to sell it is its own merits. But then, what do I know, right?
Today, I had an interesting encounter with a guy named Chris who just so happens to be the manager of Raingler Jeeperman. Although, when I first met him, I only knew him as the user name “chrispy” over on the JeepSource.org bulletin board. Over the course of the day, I’ve listened to this guy go on and on about how much better Jeeperman bumper tire carriers are and how crappy other manufacturers like Rock Hard or LoD were by comparison. However, he never once let anyone know who he really was. In fact, it was only until I started pressing him as to why he had such a hard on for Jeeperman that he finally lifted his veil and came clean. Once his cover was blown, he started to give all kinds of dumb excuses for his actions from playing stupid, pretending it was no big deal, arguing that it was all in the name of “customer research” and that we could have always dug into his user profile to find out his email address had “raingler.com” on it for everyone to see. Is this really the kind of thing a company with a so called better product needs to do in order to sell it?
It really is too bad. Up until now, I can honestly say that I’ve always liked Jeeperman products and my overall opinion of them was in fact better. And, whether they’d want to believe it or not, I have always recommended them to anyone who had expressed an interested in any of their stuff. Unfortunately, I’d have to say that any appreciation I may have once had for their stuff is significantly worse today. After all, when you can’t even be honest about who you are in order to sell your stuff, why should anyone believe you’re being honest about how much better your products really are? Whatever the case may be, I personally think the ultimate test as to how much better a product really is can only be measured by the integrity of the company that produced it… but of course, that’s just my opinion.
Eddie
For those of you who want to read the post in question that inspired me to write this blog, please click on the link below:
JeepSource.org - “Need some advice on…”