I ordered this brush guard online from
ebay. Its made by Hunter and it cost $239 shipped to my door. According to their ad in the auction this unit comes with a lifetime warranty, however the paperwork that came with the unit says 5 years. Other brands were going for $350-$600+! To me this is the best bang for the buck brush guard out there.
I got the black powercoated version as the theme for this truck will be black on blue as I didn't want any chrome bling bling. Not to put chrome or polished stainless steel down, as I like that look as well, its just for this particular truck I wanted it a bit toned down.
I got it less than a week after I won the auction on
ebay via Buy it Now.
Fit and finish was what I expected for something that is that cheap. The welds on the brackets could have been better, but the pipes seem welded fairly well as far as I could tell after the powder coating.
It was fairly simple and straight forward to install. The included instructions were pretty lacking but you can pretty much figure it out on your own.
There were a few changes that I made which were contrary to what the instructions show. The lower brackets were bolted to the inside of the main brush guard as opposed to the outside like shown in the instructions. From the side, it looked much more clean. The 2 long upper bracket pieces were flipped over and moved to opposite sides in order to line up the mounting holes on the main brush guard.
You lose the use of both tow loops and the tow loop with this install, although I did "use" them as they now serve as spacers for the lower brackets. The tow hook had to be flipped facing rearward to clear the horizontal bracing on the lower bracket.
At a later point, I'm going to flip the tow loops over and will cut out a small part of both sides of the skid plate so that I at least have something to hook into if I needed a pull from the front.
During assembly, everything was bolted together loosely so that I would be able to square everything up after its all put together.
The middle cross member on the main guard assembly is pre-drilled with 1/2" holes to accomodate auxiliary driving or fog lights. I'm going to try and drill 2 more holes and squeeze 4 lights in there at a later point if they all fit. Probably some Hella Black Magic's paired up with some fog lamps.
On the first drive with them on, I noticed that there is some lateral movement when I hit the bigger bumps. I don't know if this is common with all brush guards or with some. I think the upper brackets either need to be reinforced or replaced all together with stronger pieces.
At this point and time I give this product 4 out of 5 stars. If not for the 3 issues I had. Weak upper brackets, inadequate install instructions, and the loss of your tow hooks (not stated on website or
ebay auction ad), I would have given it 5 stars.
However, we'll see how it holds up to the test of time.
The pics of the install are in my gallery.
