I'm Ryan from extremeterrain.com, and in this video we're gonna talk all about rear bumpers
for your JK.
Now, there are a couple different reasons that you might want to install a rear bumper
on your JK, and there are also a couple different categories of rear bumper, so you have to
pick the right one for what you're looking to do.
You might be just looking to change up the look of your Jeep, you might be looking to
add some functionality either on-road or off-road, so, again, a couple of different categories
and a couple of different options.
What I'm gonna do today is give you my take of my favorite bumper in each one of the four
main categories.
So, as far as a tubular bumper goes, we're gonna talk about the Barricade Tubular Rear
Bumper with Wrap-Around Ends.
Rock crawler rear bumper, we're gonna talk about the RedRock 4x4 Rock Crawler Rear Bumper.
For a more off-road style bumper, we're gonna talk about the Barricade Trail Force HD Rear
Bumper, and, finally, for an off-road bumper with a tire carrier, we're gonna talk about
the Barricade Extreme HD Rear Bumper with Tire Carrier.
Now, most of those bumpers are going to install very similarly onto your Jeep.
You're gonna go ahead and unbolt that factory rear bumper.
You're gonna bolt the aftermarket one in its place.
Again, the install's gonna be pretty simple for all of these and very similar although
the one with a tire carrier, of course, is going to have a couple of additional steps.
But what we're gonna do is go through each of the rear bumpers, talk about the features
and the construction so you can decide which bumper would be best for your build.
So let's get into the options.
A tubular bumper is going to give your JK a little bit more of a classic look.
This bumper here from Barricade is their tubular bumper with wrap-around ends, and, as you
can see on the corners here, it does wrap around on the sides of the tub a good bit,
which is going to offer you that much more protection.
There are, of course, similar bumpers that just run straight across on the back.
This one wraps around.
I think it gives it more of a finished look and, like I said, a little bit more protection.
However, a bumper like this is not a hardcore off-road bumper.
This isn't going to offer the protection of a plate steel off-road-specific rear bumper.
It's gonna hold up certainly better than your classic factory bumper, but, again, not going
to be able to stand up to the bumps and bruises of banging off rocks or stumps on the trail.
As you'll notice, this is also not going to have D-ring mounts.
It doesn't have the option for a tire carrier, no reverse lights.
A lot of those other off-road features are going to be missing from this bumper.
So this is going to be for those of you that wanna give your Jeep an aftermarket look,
a little bit more of that old-school styling with a tubular rear bumper and don't have
a need or a want for those off-road features.
This bumper is also going to be less expensive than more of those off-road-specific rear
bumpers, which is going to be a nice feature as well as long as you don't want those off-road
bumper benefits.
As you can see down here in the center, this does have a nice low and wide opening, so
even if you are running a larger than factory spare tire in the factory spare tire location,
you're not gonna have any clearance between the spare and your new bumper.
Rock crawler rear bumpers are a bit of a unique category.
There are a few manufacturers that make a rock crawler style rear bumper, and a lot
of them are going to look like this one.
Now, this is still going to be made out of tubular steel, but it's not what I would consider
to be a tubular rear bumper.
As you can see, this looks drastically different from that tubular rear bumper that we just
talked about from Barricade, and this is also going to be constructed a little bit differently.
So this RedRock 4x4 Rock Crawler Rear Bumper is going to be made out of 2-inch steel tubes,
but they're gonna be 0.12-inch wall thickness.
They are going to be stronger.
This is going to offer some protection against rocks, stumps, and other off-road obstacles
that you might come in contact with.
Now, as you can tell, this is also going to be a very simple rear bumper.
It's going to come up on the ends.
It doesn't have a lot going on, especially on the outsides of the bumper.
It is going to definitely increase your departure angle when you're coming down off of a very
steep obstacle.
This is still going to be a very no-frills bumper but definitely offer a little bit more
of that off-road styling than your tubular rear bumper without offering all of the weight
or all of the functions of a truly off-road rear bumper.
Again, no lights here, no high-lift jacking points, no D-ring mounts.
Although this does have a 2-inch receiver in the center that can be used for recovery,
it's not going to have some of those other features.
And, again, what this is going to do is help to keep the weight down a little bit, help
to keep the cost down a little bit, give you an option where you can change up the look
of your Jeep, add a little bit of protection, but not go all out to an off-road bumper that's
going to be more expensive and a little bit heavier.
This is definitely gonna be a more off-road themed bumper.
This is the Barricade Trail Force HD Rear Bumper, and, as you can see, it is a more
traditional plate steel rear bumper that's going to offer a ton of protection off-road.
It's gonna offer some of that off-road styling, and it's also going to offer some additional
features that you're gonna want if you're doing some off-roading, namely, these D-ring
mounts with the D-rings included.
Those are going to be some recovery points, so if you're on the trail, you get high-centered,
stuck in mud, whatever it might be, you can have a buddy hook a winch onto this or a snatch
strap or a tow strap and get you out of trouble.
Those other bumpers that we talked about before aren't going to have those.
This also has a 2-inch receiver in the center that can be used as a 3rd recovery point if
you need it to.
Now, because this is designed to be used as a recovery bumper and also designed to offer
a lot of protection to the Jeep, it's also going to attach very strongly to your Jeep.
So it's going to have traditional brackets that are going to go on the frame rails, but
it's also going to have a sandwich bracket and four bolts that go right across the rear
crossmember, giving you a ton of extra strength there.
So this is going to be all about strength, all about protection, as well as changing
up the look of your Jeep a little bit.
Of course, you can see down in the center here you have a nice deep cutout again, so
if you are running a larger than factory spare on that factory spare tire mount, you're gonna
have room for it.
On the ends, this does come in.
It comes around the edges of the tub a little bit, but it also keeps everything tucked up
nice, and neat, and tight so you're not gonna get hung up on rocks and off-road obstacles
but still have the protection against them.
I've seen these bumpers take some pretty good abuse.
They're made of 5/32 inch steel, so you can drop a Jeep off a ledge onto a rock.
You might get a little bit of a ding or a dent, but you're certainly not going to have
all the damage that you would if you tried that maneuver with a factory plastic rear
bumper.
The last bumper we're gonna talk about today is an off-road style bumper with a tire carrier,
and this is the Barricade Extreme HD Rear Bumper with Tire Carrier that has a lot of
features and a lot of style that I really, really like.
Now, what sets the Extreme HD apart from the Trail Force HD is some of the design.
Over here you have a little bit of additional styling.
The cutout in the center here is a little bit different, and the tire carrier that you
can get with this Extreme HD bumper is different from the one that you would get with the Trail
Force HD Bumper as well.
And the tire carrier has a lot of great features that I wanna talk about also.
So, first, starting with the rest of the bumper here, it's gonna be very beefy, very strong,
has the D-ring mounts, includes the D-rings, also has a 2-inch receiver, pretty much like
the Trail Force HD.
Again, the style is gonna be a little bit different here, but this is all about strength.
This is all about durability.
This is going to be a great off-road bumper for recovery and also for protection.
You then move on to the tire carrier that is packed full of features.
This thing is going to be adjustable in a couple of different ways.
So you can raise or lower where the spare tire actually mounts on the spare tire carrier,
keeping it as low as possible so you have as much visibility out the rear window, but
as high as it needs to be to have clearance here in this well of the rear bumper.
Now, not only can you adjust that tire carrier up and down, but you can also move the tire
in and out.
So depending on width of the wheel, the width of the tire, the backspacing of your wheel,
no matter what that scenario is, you can make sure that the tire is pressed nice and tight
up against this tire carrier.
That's gonna keep it from rattling and torquing around, which can fatigue the metal and eventually
cause things to break down.
So you have that adjustability as well.
Another area of adjustment and also of strength is going to be a couple of bump stops that
are mounted right here on either side of this tire carrier, and those are adjustable in
and out to ensure that they're going to firmly press on the bumpers that are on your tailgate,
ensuring that, again, you're not gonna have any rattling.
When you have this thing closed, you have everything adjusted properly, the tire is
one with the tire carrier, which is one with the tailgate, so nothing's gonna rattle, nothing's
gonna move around, nothing is going to fatigue, and this whole setup's going to last you a
very, very long time.
On top of the adjustability, and on the bump stops, and everything that you get with the
tire carrier, you're going to have a completely greaseable spindle that you can take apart
if you need to with a couple of snap rings, but this is also going to still be a clamp-style
spindle, which is something I like a lot, because if you do neglect this for a while,
you get some salt in there, it gets corroded, you can't open and close it easily.
Sometimes if that was a solid tube, you wouldn't even be able to lift the tire carrier off
of the spindle at all.
With this, at least you can loosen up those two bolts, you can get everything apart, you
can completely break it down, clean it up, put it back together, and keep it working.
So that's a feature that I really like about this carrier as well.
So this whole setup here is going to give you protection, it's gonna give you style,
it's going to give you off-road features, and, of course, get your tire off of that
factory location where it can cause a couple of different issues by being oversized or
overweight.
So this is going to be a really nice package.
It's also going to be the most expensive option that we talked about today, but I think you
would expect that.
It also has the most features.
So those are my picks for a rear bumper for your JK in each of the four main rear bumper
categories.
Of course, there are a lot of other options out there, these aren't the only bumpers,
but these are some that I think represent the category and are my personal picks.
Of course, we went through the tubular rear bumper, the Barricade Tubular Bumper with
the Wrap-Around Ends, a rock crawler rear bumper from RedRock 4x4.
We talked about the Barricade Trail Force HD Rear Bumper for a more off-road themed
rear bumper and the Barricade Extreme HD Rear Bumper with a Tire Carrier for that sort of
total package off-road bumper with tire carrier.
Make sure you comment below and let us know what you think about each of my picks and
what your favorite bumper is in each one of those main categories.
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