Alright, so I went to my local 4x4 shop and was picking the owners brains about a couple of things. He stated that putting new control arms on my JKU will affect my crumble zones and make the Jeep less safe. Is this true?

 

no. the control arms are not a crumple zone. crumple zones are built into the stock bumper / frame / body.

 

That's what I was thinking. So control arms won't affect the crumble zone in any way.

 

Maybe the guy was confused and was thinking of something else

 

Highly unlikely. in the event of a colision even if the new arms are stronger the mounting points and the bolts that secure them are not. They will sheer off the bolts or break loose the mounting points on the frame. The arms are made tough from the factory. They have to stand up to people draging them over large rocks and all kinds of other things they will see off road so building in a weak point / crunple zone would be a terrible ideal.

 

He's unnecessrily worried about liability and probably not qualified to install and set up a JK lift that adds adjustable arms. Find another shop.

 

Believe it or not the factory lower control arms do crumple. I had a front end collision with a shorty bumper on and all the force was taken on the front PS tire.
Factory control arm bent and control arm bracket on diff housing smashed, no bolts sheared or snapped, the frame side mount was untouched. A stronger control arm would have destroyed the frame side mount as well.

 

Probably just happened to be the weakest point. i still doubt that they were designed to collapse in the event of an impact.

 

This is exactly what the shop owner was explaining to me. I am not too worried about it, rather I am worried about someone, in the event of a crash, noticing different control arms. Could something come up from me having stronger control arms? I know there are many ways to get sued now, just want to double check before ordering a set of lower control arms.

 

My only concern would be ... If I had stronger control arms, and took that hit, the frame side bracket would have been destroyed, now you have frame damage and then likely the Jeep would have been written off.

Having the accident was not cool. Having Jeep written off would have been devastating ..