Apogee Off Road 3rd Gen Tacoma Bumper Options

Wowza! That red really pops! Bumper looks fantastic Clay, thanks for the kind words!

 

Bummed I didn't see this earlier!

This looks great!

 

Update: mounted the Bilstein 6112’s with 700# springs tonight (5/4 circlip) to lift it back up a bit (1” or so with all of that weight).

Couldn’t be happier with the look and functionality.

 

Can we repost this on our social media? Truck looks absolutely badass.

 

Oh for sure! And thank you! It’s been a labor of love, to say the least.

I can get you some better pics… but this might be solid for a more “candid” image! Feel free to use it!

@clayjonespm on Instagram

 

Thank you Apogee for the killer bumper! Solid product and BSM works.

 

Looks awesome Jason! Thanks for the pic and for stopping by!

 

Hey Ethan.
How is the testing turning out for the swing outs ?

 

I’m also curious about this.

Is the bumper hitch capable of towing at the capacity of the truck?

 

Looks great

 

I've had my backup sensors unplugged for a long time does anybody have the sensor bracket that actually fit with the rear bumper.

 

I'd strongly recommend against this bumper if you actually tow anything at all ever.

1. The hitch pin hole is so far back that any long shank hitch will extend past it and into the spare tire, necessitating removal of the spare.
2. The hole isn't 5/8". Apogee says that the bumper should tow as much as the stock but the stock is a Class IV which requires a 5/8" hitch pin.
3. I could almost hammer a 5/8" through to make it fit, poorly, except that the hole isn't drilled straight: it's misaligned by a solid 5mm (how does that happen on a precision milled bumper?)

 

I had that problem too, my holes were off just a hair. I just slightly reamed the hole very little. There is a company called Bulletproof Hitches that makes a hitch that will work perfect.
You do have to modify the hitch a little bit. The part that goes into the receiver hits the spare tire so I cut about 2" off holes line up perfect. Ive towed over 5500 LBS no problem.

 

I worried about this last week when I had to rent a U-Haul trailer to move some furniture, but my bumper worked out well. I bought a $30 hitch from an auto parts chain and everything lined up. Thank goodness. The biggest issue I had was removing the license plate, but that only took a minute or two, and it’s my own fault for not getting the flip bracket because I never really intended to tow anything.

 

Funny, I noticed this when trying to install my bullet proof hitch. I just needed to move my snowmobile trailer so I wasn't too worried about the weight so I just dropped the spare and used a 1/2" hitch pin to get it back in the driveway.

But I think I'll take the same strategy and trim the bulletproof hitch and widen the hitch holes.

Annoying since this is very basic stuff. It isn't just towing: anyone who tries to use a recovery hook, a bike rack, etc will run into these honestly basic issues.

 

What hitch did you find that worked so inexpensive and didn't require cutting?

 

It’s the $30 generic hitch at O’Reilly. I don’t recall the brand. They said I could bring it back for credit if it didn’t work. I got the 2” drop to compensate for the Deaver springs and it still is pretty high up in the air.

I feel like the clerks would probably let you try the hitch in the parking lot, if you asked before buying. Maybe leave $40 on the counter as collateral.

 

Finally getting back to this after the snow has started to melt but fwiw Apogee were really good about this. They offered to pay for a replacement bumper (including labor for me to have a shop remove it and ship it to them) or to pay for a local shop to drill out the hitch pin. I was the first one to actually let them know it was an issue, I guess we had all just been silently dealing with it while they had a QA issue.

I ended up having a shop drill it out while they were doing some other work on the truck and it's like 80% better but not perfect. The issue is still that the holes aren't actually properly aligned and so even though it's now wide enough for a 5/8" pin, you really need to wiggle the hitch around to get it to line up right.

It's not perfect but it's good enough. I'm definitely not going through the effort to have the bumper pulled and reinstalled after shipping.

 

Thanks. I bought a rather expensive kit from e-trailer and the hitch worked on the stock bumper but wasn't long enough for the Apogee one because the pin holes were not quite even enough to stick the pin through. Then I tried a longer one and while the pin holes lined up for that one it was too long and have to drop the spare tire to use it, so that's why I'm looking for the perfect one. I was thinking of cutting off an inch from the long one but not sure how that would affect the strength of it and if insurance would cover a "malfunction"...thus my dilemma.

 

I love the look of the front bumper. I can't figure out where the winch mounts? I looked at the install instruction on the home site, maybe I missed something?