Victory 4x4 Bumper - Final Prototype.

Thanks to you I went to go check out my pod mounting brackets. I'm not sure if it's by design but the brackets and their holes don't appear symmetrical. When standing directly in front of the pod cutouts, on the driver side, I can see the whole hole on the bracket and almost all of the mounting bracket. On the passenger side, I can only see part of the hole and part of the bracket. The holes aren't even in the middle of the pod cutouts - I'll probably run into the same issue you're seeing when I decide to get lights.

 

@will_smith any problem with ur winch cable rubbing the edges, mounting holes not align, and access holes for winch bolt not align? Still havent heard from them.

 

Sorry, no winch here but now I'm concerned if I decide to get one.

 

Good luck to u, I hope its just me who got a bad one. I wonder how many ppl who had purchased this bumper and had little to no fitment issues.

 

Sorry you're going through this. I had my share of issues with this bumper. See pg. 7 of this thread.

 

Yeah I saw ur post. Thought I take a chance... I was planning to treat the inside with rust protection upon receiving but thought ill wait because of the issues I have..

Well, I just look underneath and found this!

Bumper was installed this past weekend.

 

I see that OP @monkeyevil was in here yesterday. U have any answers to my problems?

 

I'm sorry I just saw this post and my mention in it (not getting alerts for some reason?) First off, extremely sorry for the issues, we will do our best to make you 100% happy.

Let me work through the issues.
1. Had to modify mounting holes on bumper to fit.
The factory bumper has a ton of adjustability built-in to accommodate any variation in those mounting studs or frame width. We add as much as we can in ours, but sometimes we can be on different ends of the tolerance. I hope this was the issue here and I will check with engineering and tech support here to see if this is an isolated experience. Did you end up getting it on OK with all of the mounting bolts? Or is there still issue?

2. Pod brackets are way off
This is 100% our fault obviously and it's embarrassing that it missed fabrication and inspection here. See below.

3. Access holes to install winch bolt is way off.
As above, I will have engineering check on this. This is the first I've heard of this, so I hope everyone who has installed this bumper hasn't suffered it without contacting us.

4. Synthetic rope is rubbing against edge of back plate and winch plate.
I guess it makes sense depending on your fairlead profile, drum size, and how the cable is wound on the drum that it may rub there on the LAST wrap of the drum, it would likely clear fine in your instance on the section of drum you are actually pulling on (more than a few feet of line pulled) but what I can do for anyone with that problem is provide some .188 spacers to space the winch up slightly. This should negate that problem entirely. I just looked at my Warn VR8 and the line barely rubs for the first few feet of line pulled out then clears fine. I will also talk with engineering on this and see if we can open that hole up more.

5. On top of that I just look at my online statement and I was over charge of $25.00
We will obviously fix this ASAP if there was an error on the invoice.

OK, I wanted to make sure I address the issues in this thread publicly. Privately, I need to have my GM talk with you so we can fix all of this. I know that you have been dealing with tech support here, but screen names and real names are hard to associate sometimes, so if you could private message me your name and contact info I can get a hold of you ASAP.

Same to you. I sincerely apologize for the issues with the lights and powdercoat and I will have my GM contact you to make you 100% happy if I can get your name and a phone number via PM.

 

Thank you for replying. Your GM just called me and he's going to address all the issues reported. I will report back in a few days. Much appreciated!

 

Yes, after an hour of drilling and some mods we finally managed to make it fit.

 

I was almost ready to place an order, but your experience made me pause to place an order. I will pause until victory 4x4 make sure that same kind of mistakes never happens again.

 

@monkeyevil
I left a voicemail with your GM(7/9) and sent two emails(7/15 & 7/27) to customer service regarding the pod light brackets but I haven't received a response.

I hope you or someone from your team can follow through on your promises.

edit: to try and be fair, I never PMd monkeydevil my contact information as he requested. I will do that now.

 

GM has been very cooperative with me. Great customer service! I will post full and final review once I get everything resolved.

 

He mentioned having trouble getting a hold of you last week I think? I'm sorry I am out of the office this week, but if you verify your contact info with me via PM I will make sure he gets it.

 

Not meaning to be a di*k... IMO that’s a cop out. I’m sure if you invested in the time you could figure something out. Patent it. Maybe I’m wrong. You guys are doing some very creative fabrication, I think you could collaborate with an auto engineer of sort it could be done.

 

I received the supplementary pod light brackets 1.5-2 weeks ago. The hole alignment now seems where it should be! Thank you

 

Awesome! I tow this with the taco (22ft Jayco Jayflight SLX).

I've got one of your strike front bumpers on order, looking forward to receiving and installing it!

 

Me too! When did you order? Are you planning on installing a winch right away? My order was placed on 1/4/21. I went with Aluminum so they told me it will take closer to the end of the quoted lead times.

I’m on the fence about a winch. If I could do $700+ worth of side work between now and when it arrives I would but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

-M

 

Weird, your email came in at virtually the same time their last “update” came in last night.

I went with steel, ordered ~12/20 and have no idea when it will complete. Victory rep said there are really no updates until they’re about to ship. So far just two generic emails stating they are still working on the order but that I may have received part of my order? Definitely room for improvement. A little weird to dole out $1800 upfront to a vendor who doesn’t give updates.

I’m going with the Smittybilt XRC 9500 gen 3 with synthetic line and will be installing it when the bumper goes on.

 

@jayrome Yeah I called them a few times already. I also ordered front and mid skids. My front skid showed but the box was damaged and the oil filter cover and all the hardware was gone. I called them up and they said they would ship out the missing parts right away. That was Wednesday, I hope to see it next week. While I had them on the phone I asked about mid skids and my bumper. They mentioned Mid Skids should be fabbed soon but I was still a long way out on my bumper.

I understand what you mean about putting money down, I think ATH fab does that but I also get that they(Victory) have employees, payroll tax, materials, etc to cover. It's a small business at the end of the day and I like their product. Hopefully I won't have any of the issues that were mentioned in this thread, it seems like that might have been early production problems.


I am looking hard at the XRC with synthetic line too. Maybe @monkeyevil can comment about fittament. Do you think with aluminum it will need any reinforcement? I am trying to decide if I should send it to powder coat right away or take a look at it with my fabricator uncle before. We plan on making our own sliders when we put the bumper on. Steel of course for sliders.

-M