I agree. The coating sucks. Put a few coats of duplicolor bed liner on and save the rest for touch ups - about 9 bucks a can as I recall (one can should be plenty).

The holes are hard to reach. I made the access holes bigger. You dont need to, but if you are handy with any cutting tool (cut off wheel/sawzall type thing), it will make installing the winch easier.

 

the holes are hard to reach? are you talking about the holes on the skid plate?
thanks for the advice

 

I have the xrc front and I love it and if I scratch it I just touch it up and looks great.

 

So these are going on a stock Jeep?

I personally like the second one better. However, IMO, both might look a little bit off on a stock Jeep. Especially, the first one.

 

If you look at the picture of the first link, there are five holes on the bottom portion of the bumper. Two of these holes provide access to the winch bolts. It is difficult to reach the back bolts through these holes. So I made those two holes a bit longer (sort of a triangle shaped bottom) to make it easier to access the rear winch bolts. You certainly do not need to do this. But it makes installing the winch bolts easier.

 

I was looking into the xrc myself aswell. I would get the bumper from 4wp though 'cause they own smittybilt. Just call them and ask them to beat the price. Also, I spoke with the president of smitty two weeks ago and the bumpers are not in stock yet. He said that they are at the ports waiting to be unloaded. They switched companies who made the bumpers for them. It seems that there was an issue with the old bumpers (or the one available now). I would wait for the 2nd generation to hit the market.

 

Anyone got one of the rear tire carriers? I've been priced out of everything pretty much except for the Smittybilt SRC and XRC and the Rancho.....the only ones left under $1K.

 

I have the SRC. I used to like it. Now that the coating is peeling off after only a few months I'm less happy. This summer I'm going to sand blast it and have it powder coated. Personally I'd save the money and buy a better product.

Chris.

 

I think I will go with the second generation XRC anyones paint peeling on that one also I could always go bigger tires with the shorter bumper. Does anyone know when the new batch is going to be shipped out?