Just wanted to give my impressions.
If not familiar, these were fairly recently introduced by Rough Country and despite the 5.5" description, are actually about identical in width to the 4.5" flares that came on Sahara and Rubicon models, which are no longer produced and are expensive and hard to find used.
First the good... They're solid, I feel confident they'll stand up to some abuse, and the texture is open enough that it's more like MCE than factory and maybe won't hold dirt as bad. From a distance they could be mistaken for a factory part.
Now the bad...probably to save money on tooling, it seems they're maybe formed at a high temperature from a flat sheet. I say this because 1. the locator "pins" in the front flares that engage the large holes in the fender are not there, and 2. the sharp edge where the factory flare meets the fender or the tub is instead rolled over, which exposes some area that was previously hidden, and the shape seems slightly different on the rears. This is fine if you've just repainted your rig but if you've got old factory paint it's likely your factory flares have worn or chipped the paint underneath them, and the RC flares will reveal this:
It looks fine at any distance you'd see in a photo or passing on the street but within 5 feet it's pretty obvious, which is really disappointing since I was hoping these would be a good alternative to finding some used factory Rubicon or Sahara flares. Instead I'm gonna end up having to do paint work to get them looking like something I consider acceptable. I know... It's a jeep... But I don't like to spend $200 and come out with more visible paint flaws than I started with that to anyone actually looking over it amounts to a flashing neon sign that says "these are inexpensive aftermarket fender flares!!!" . I don't hate it enough to redo all that work and go back, but I'm displeased enough that my search for rubi flares will continue and I'm $200 poorer without crossing a mod off my to do list.
Lastly, and this isn't a gripe so much as just an install tip- all the holes in the rear are the same size, which means two of them are too small for the integral clips in the fender liner to pop through. The first one I chopped out with a box knife after install which wasn't fun but the second one I just hogged out with a 1/2" drill bit.
If not familiar, these were fairly recently introduced by Rough Country and despite the 5.5" description, are actually about identical in width to the 4.5" flares that came on Sahara and Rubicon models, which are no longer produced and are expensive and hard to find used.
First the good... They're solid, I feel confident they'll stand up to some abuse, and the texture is open enough that it's more like MCE than factory and maybe won't hold dirt as bad. From a distance they could be mistaken for a factory part.
Now the bad...probably to save money on tooling, it seems they're maybe formed at a high temperature from a flat sheet. I say this because 1. the locator "pins" in the front flares that engage the large holes in the fender are not there, and 2. the sharp edge where the factory flare meets the fender or the tub is instead rolled over, which exposes some area that was previously hidden, and the shape seems slightly different on the rears. This is fine if you've just repainted your rig but if you've got old factory paint it's likely your factory flares have worn or chipped the paint underneath them, and the RC flares will reveal this:
It looks fine at any distance you'd see in a photo or passing on the street but within 5 feet it's pretty obvious, which is really disappointing since I was hoping these would be a good alternative to finding some used factory Rubicon or Sahara flares. Instead I'm gonna end up having to do paint work to get them looking like something I consider acceptable. I know... It's a jeep... But I don't like to spend $200 and come out with more visible paint flaws than I started with that to anyone actually looking over it amounts to a flashing neon sign that says "these are inexpensive aftermarket fender flares!!!" . I don't hate it enough to redo all that work and go back, but I'm displeased enough that my search for rubi flares will continue and I'm $200 poorer without crossing a mod off my to do list.
Lastly, and this isn't a gripe so much as just an install tip- all the holes in the rear are the same size, which means two of them are too small for the integral clips in the fender liner to pop through. The first one I chopped out with a box knife after install which wasn't fun but the second one I just hogged out with a 1/2" drill bit.
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