Bongoray
Member
Hello everyone, here's my honest review and experience with Artec and their Nighthawk front bumper and skid plate:
Admittedly I'm a little upset and disappointed. Neither the bumper, nor the sway bar guard came with installation instructions or torque values for the bolts. I was able to remove my stock bumper on my brand new 2018 JLUR in about 20 minutes. I spent the next 4.5 hours trying to get this bumper to bolt on.
I had to drill larger clearance holes and grind my brand new frame with a dremel tool to get the bumper mounting bolts to sort of line up with their mounting holes in the bumper. After struggling to get all the bolts in I slightly cross threaded the last bolt after multiple attempts and just decided to leave it off until I can run a finishing tap through it to fix the threads. I probably took this bumper on and off 7 or 8 times to try to make adjustments to get it to fit. The next fun part was realizing that the bumper does in fact accept the stock LED fog lights, which is great, but it does not accept the stock fog light mounting hardware. That's ok though, I'll check the hardware bag... nope not included. More on the fog lights later...I finally was able to get the bumper on (minus one mounting bolt) and it was time to mount the winch. The winch install surprisingly went well. However I wish Artec would chase & deburr their through holes. Of course the last bolt I was threading in wouldn't go through the hole due to a burr. An easy fix, but not what I wanted to run into as I'm trying to finish the install. One last fun surprise was the driver side D-ring mount hole was drilled too small and I had to use a dead blow hammer to pound the bolt through. Normally I wouldn't do that but I was so frustrated with the install I just wanted it done. It stripped off the paint on the D ring bolt and I'm sure the brand new paint on the inside of the hole. Which will probably rust in our Buffalo, NY winters. Speaking of paint, it cost me $300 to get this bumper painted. The surface finish of the bumper had my painter doing extra prep work to make it look good. The welds and construction of the bumper are really well done. It is perhaps overkill and it weighs a ton for a shorty bumper (roughly 80 pounds). But I can live with that. I would've been much happier if it fit right the first time. Artec, please pay more attention to your mounting hole tolerances, chase & deburr your holes. Also, it couldn't hurt to chamfer the sharp edges of the bumper too. My hands would thank you.
So I had to mount the fog lights at a later time since it took so long to mount the bumper. The mounting holes for the stock LED fog lights lined up perfectly, but like I said before you can't use the stock mounting screws. Installing the fog lights after the bumper is installed is a pain in the ass. There's not a lot of room to work with tools, but it is possible. What's not possible, since the mounting holes aren't threaded is to get a nut on the outside of the LED because once the light is installed there's no room to access the nut from the front of the bumper. I was able to buy some stainless steel screws and put them in from the front of the bumper and could just get a thin screw driver in from the front, but only for the top two bolts, the bottom two bolts are not accessible by any means. There also is no means of adjusting the fog lights either. Artec also needs to redesign the bumper to move the location of the fog lights so you can easily reuse the factory wiring harness. The driver's side is no problem because the wires are super long. I actually had to tie them back. The passenger side is a different story. There's no easy way to get the connect to the LED. I was able to stretch it and make it work, but there's no stress relief on the wires. I'll probably have to lengthen it at some point.
I also purchased the sway bar guard. It appears to be well built, but again it didn't come with instructions. It does come with a small additional bracket that I can't figure out for the life of me where it goes. Again, some instructions would help. I haven't tried to mount it yet. I'll add a review once I do. I'm expecting more problems, but hoping for the best.
I will also mention that I have not been able to get any customer service. Artec does not answer their phones, nor do they return voicemails or respond to emails or the online review portions on their website. I tried installing this bumper on 5/3/18. I've left two voicemails, one review (this one) and an email that have all gone unanswered. I'm disappointed in such an expensive bumper. More so in the lack of customer support.
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