I have wanted a push bar and a light bar for the longest time. There are some on the market but they are very flimsy, shake, may interfere with airbag sensors and would cause more damage to my vehicle in the event I was in an accident or was assaulted by a deer again. When Paul introduced the light bar that mounts to the bumper support beam I was intrigued. All the reviews seemed great so I pulled the trigger. I requested the extra rugged option to have it be made out of thicker tubing and Paul promised I could stand and bounce on it - it won't budge.
About 8 weeks after placing an order I har a fedex tracking # and a very large package showed up on my front porch.
I used this video from this post to get a feel for hot to take off the bumper cover. The fasteners were a bit more of a pain in the but then I had hoped but after rewatching the video, staring at them for a bit and pocking at them with a small screwdriver they came out.
The bumper cover is off!!
!!! What the hell did I just do to my car?!?
Left bottom bumper support - notice the recovery screw-in hole.
Broken off bottom bumper cover supports.
Left top bumper support.
Right top bumper support
Right bottom bumper support
The actual bumper itself. The bottom bumper cover supports are broken off. Probably from brushing up against the curb or from road debree that bounced off my skid plates. When I removed the bottom fasteners from the bumper cover the other part of the supports (that were still attached to the bumper cover) fell out. No big deal since the push bar is helping support the bumper cover and I plan to eventually completely eliminate the bumper cover completely.
Yes I will be upgrading/replacing the horn very soon.
I should have noticed this but one of the drill point markers was bent - very bent. I noticed something was wrong when I was screwing it in but didn't investigate. As a result when I drilled the holes the bottom hole on 1 side was significantly off. I could see the support hole so I drilled a new pilor hole and took out another 1" out of my bumper cover. Once the holes in the bumper cover were perfectly over the bumper support screws I took out my woes didn't end. Due to the angle of the bumper I couldn't quite fit it into all 4 holes at the same time. I had to use my trusty dremel to remove some more material on the bottom holes. I was able to very easilly thread the screws into 3 of the holes with the extension in the toolkit but had to yank a little bit to get the 4th screw to seat.
The fit and finish isn't perfect but it does look pretty good. The light bar is solid and the only way it moves is with the rest of the car.
Future Improvements Suggestions
* QA on the tools and drill point indicators before sending them out. The bent drill point indicator for the bottom drill hole screwed me up a little.* Drill template that can be layed out on the bumper cover and drilled out without removing it. Yes it has its risks and people with body kits and and weird imperfections might be screwed but it'd be a neat option. Also when the pilot hole is drilled with the saw there is still plenty of time to adjust before committing and chomping out a 1" hole in the bumper cover.
* Install videos! The products are great but not all of us are mechanics and subaru fanatics. The product shows up well packaged, with a primitive racing sticker, rough instructions and the hardware. Some install videos on the web site would be great, the downloadable manuals in PDF format might be nice too so we could prep while the part is made and shipped.
* More options! Really wish I could have gotten legacy/outback style bumper for my impreza.
When my bumper cover is eventually destroyed I don't plan to replace it, I plan to run a tubular bumper instead. I would like slightly more protection higher up, and on the sides as well as a spot to hang my fog lights that are currently inside the plastic bumper cover.
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