Never again, ARB

I’m pretty handy. I’ve never needed to take my vehicles in to have any kind of work on with the exceptions of transmissions.

After installing the ARB on my Tacoma, all I’ve got to say is, “Never again, ARB.”

Nothing has lined up correctly. I’ve spent a solid 30 hours working on this thing and I still haven’t finished it all the way.

First off, the factory bumper template didn’t remove enough material, and I cut it perfectly where the template said to. So, after getting the bumper in place I realized I needed to remove the ARB (with winch installed) and re-cut the factory bumper for clearance.

It should be noted at this time that removing 18mm off the bottom of the grill as instructed doesn’t remove enough grill. Plan on removing 20mm.

Next issue that arose came when trying to drill the holes for the final two mounting bolts. Good luck getting a drill in there. Even with a right angle drill, I found the holes impossible to drill out, so I drilled my own and used grade 8 bolts instead.

The winch I chose was the smittybilt X2O 12k winch. The adapter plate that comes with bumper isn’t compatible with the X2O series, so I ordered the adapter plate. Damn. That plate didn’t work either. Luckily I was able to use a piece of cardboard to make my own template and drilled out holes to make the original solenoid fit.

Next up, the fairlead. New holes need to be drilled out to make the fairlead line up. No, really. ARB has in the instructions to mark out new holes and drill them out. So I did. Wildly unnecessary. After looking at the bumper I think it was just an oversight, and rather than redesign the front end they just tell you to drill new holes.

Next up is the fog lights. The directions say to retain the factory wiring loom, but damn, the new lights don’t plug in to the loom. I was able to remove the connectors that came with the ARB fog lights and solder them in to my existing loom. It works ok, but again, seems unnecessary. ARB does send a new loom and what not, but it doesn’t use the factory switch and has you run a mile of wire.

Now screwing the light in from the backside is a whole other story. It took me about 20 minutes per side to get the top screw in to clearance issues.

The final steps are to bolt up the splash plates. Easy, right? Nope. Doesn’t clear. I had to put the bottom plate in my metal break and put a little extra bend on it to get it in place.

All in all, the bumper looks good, and is strong to boot, but it also costs nearly 1600 bucks. For 1600 bucks the bumper shouldn’t need any fabrication or additional custom fitting done. After dealing with the effer, I’ll never buy another ARB product. I’d go with anything else. CBI would be my new first choice.

There were many little things here and there that frustrated me to no end. One man couldn’t install this bumper by himself, and certainly not in one night. I was lucky enough to have my dad around to help out.

Also, the instructions aren’t in color. 1600 bucks.

 

Ok

 

Holly shizzle that’s a massive bumper

 

$1600.

 

Probably the ugliest bumper available.

 

Arb makes very nice quality stuff, and their customer service is by far the best I’ve ever dealt with.

 

Definitely looks too big for a mid size truck. Looks suitable for a semi truck, or possibly a train.

 

I never drilled the final right angle bolts on my 2013 and had zero issues with the bumper moving or anything.

For the fog lamps put a male plug on the end of the ARB fog lamps and they'll plug into your truck without touching the factory wiring. I did that with mine so everything was plug and play.

It's interesting that the template was so tight on the 3G trucks. With my 2G I actually left more material than instructed without issue.

 

That would be one ugly train.

 

I help my buddy install his and it took us a long afternoon to do it. I didn’t think it was that hard.

 

I had to drill 2 new holes and install new bolts on each side...1st trip on the trail and the bumper moved from it's adjusting/leveling point if that makes sense.


My fukkingg bumper almost came off...not to happy with ARB and the way this bumper was designed.

I'll post more pics of how it looks when the sun is up.

 

Why are you referring to the bumper costing $1600??

The bumper cost $400 and $1200 to ship it to USA from down-unda. They had to use a Full 20’ container to ship it.

Get what you pay for.

 

It looks heavy as f is how it looks. I'd want to fall off, too.

 

Looks SOLID, man. Good job fitting it up.

 

All I got was no color.

 

2nd gen with an ARB here - Took us maybe an hour to install...

 

Bruh, it WAS the shipping container.