| Price | $182 |
| Rating | 5 |
| Pros | Great coverage for wider tires
Nice look |
| Cons | Provided hardware not fully usable for mounting (washers too small)
Installation time consuming and troublesome if your old stock threaded screw holes are spinning and need to be removed. |
| Recommended | yes |
Comments: Having extra wide 12.8" tires, the sides of my LJ were never clean with stock flares. After upgrading to the Rugged Ridge 7" flare kit, the coverage is perfect, my LJ looks very nice and finally my doors aren't covered by mud and spray after every ride. I would recommend these to anyone else running wider than stock tires.
There is nothing complex about the installation, take off your old flares and install the new ones. But in execution, there were 3 complications I ran into.
1) There are 2 types of screws holding the fenders. Wooden screws which screw into free floating plastic tabs on the inside, and metal screws which screw into threaded inserts in your body. On my 10 year old LJ, most of my threaded inserts would rotate freely, which made taking off the old fenders insanely difficult. In the end I ended up pulling them all off my body (minor damage but it's hidden behind the flares) since I would have tons of trouble using them to mount the new flares. These inserts were punched into the body, so when they were new I'm sure they were tight.
As a result, I had to improvise. I opted to buy the mounting hardware kit from Rugged Ridge so I'd have all new screws, washers, etc. I have no idea how the metal inserts that come with the kit are supposed to be used. They are not the type you would punch into your body, and if they were they are too small for the existing punch holes. I ended up reversing the metal inserts, putting some fender washers on both sides and using a small wrench to hold the inserts almost like washers to attach the fenders. This leads me to #2
2) The washers that come with the hardware kit are useless. They are the tiniest possible regular washers, and when you attach the fenders using them they fall right through the mounting holes in the fenders. I needed to go out and buy new, fender washers which have the same size hole in them, but are 4 times bigger so they hold the flares perfectly without biting into them or falling through them.
3) The side blinkers mounted into the flares do not reach on the new 7" flares. The wires to the blinkers are connected to the frame with a push-in plug, and pulling out this plug gave me just enough length to reach the mounting holes for the blinkers. It's possible someone else might be a cm too short even taking out these plugs, and would need to cut and rewire their blinker wires with extensions.
