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Alright, I've gone
over how to install the flares, so what do I really think of them? All
in all, I've been pretty happy with the flares. They're certainly not
perfect, and it's pretty clear they weren't designed by someone who
owns and wheels an XJ, but I think they're a good "first try".
Now Bushwacker needs to go back to the drawing board and make some improvements,
namely getting rid of that inner lip and improving the overall fit of
the flares.
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The first real "problem"
I had during the install was that the flares were designed to wrap around
the bottom of the rocker panel like the OEM flares... this presents
a problem if you have any kind of rocker guard (which most XJ's that
get wheeled have). So before I could really even test fit the flares,
I had to trim off the bottoms to fit around my rocker guards. The problem
would be even worse if you had the double-tube style rocker gaurds that
wrap up to the bottom of the doors. Now granted, it would be unrealistic
to expect every aftermarket manufacturer to try and make their equipment
compatible with every other aftermarket accessory, but to me this was
a major oversight. Bushwacker's trying to market these for offroad XJ's,
yet they're not compatible with one of the most common pieces of offroad
equipment without modification.
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As I mentioned at
the start of this article, I was pretty disappointed with the wrap-around
inner lip on these flares. True, it does give them a cleaner, more integrated
look, but it does eat some clearance over what's available because the
tires can't tuck "inside" the flares like you could with TJ
flares or the cut-out XJ flares from Rusty's OffRoad. In fact, I actually
lost clearance up front after installing the flares compared to what
I had with my prior trimming and no flares.
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I've heard some
people have complained about the bolts ripping through the pockets in
the flares after hitting the flares against a rock or tree, but I've
rubbed my rear flares against some trees on tight trails as well as
some dirt walls in deep washouts, and all I've done is scuff up the
plastic. I could see where the pockets might could rip through if you
caught the flare on something, but I think you'd be more likely to rip
a bolt through the fender before that happened. The plastic itself is
extremely tough, you might rip the flare off the body, but the flare
itself isn't going to break or crack.
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