Garbage...

 

Here are the responses to my questions from them...

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We have carried our 42" on our tire/tailgate carrier on our shop JK for a long time, so it is beefy. The tailgate is attached to our carrier, which SUPPORTS both the tailgate as well as the tire; it completely replaces the OEM hinges and tire carrier. Because we are a fab shop, each carrier is built to your needs and the tire mount can be lengthened to fit a stock wheel's backspacing. (we do not make them all that way because with less backspacing the tire would hang out more and we do not like that.)

We have already made improvements and sold the first one last week to a 4door JK owner; the 1/2? hinge bolts are actually only visible if you stand on the side(passenger side), not from the back anymore. The carrier itself has a different profile where it meets the hinges, and it visually "covers" the view from the back of the bolt; you can only see the head of the bolt and the nut on the bottom. I will send you some updated pics.

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I will post the updated pics when he sends them to me. It certainly looks strong - just not very pretty. If they really have fixed the look of the hinge assembly then I may go for it. For half the price of the Teraflex hinge carrier, there's not much risk.

 

Sounds like you were doing it anyway.


I love when people post a question on the thread and then discount any answer that goes against their bias.

Every single person on this thread thinks its crap....lmao. Go for it bro!

 

Sounds like he just wanted someone with hands on opinions. No one here seems to have that..

 

WOW!!! Someone is pissy today. Let's discuss...

First, not "every single person on this thread thinks its crap." Most (like yourself) expressed concerns that I agreed with that needed to be addressed. I have not made up my mind yet and said "If they really have fixed the look of the hinge assembly then I may go for it." Notice the word "IF". That word is a qualifier meaning that IF they have not adequately fixed the hinge assembly then I will NOT go for it. And if they have fixed the hinge assembly then I "MAY" go for it.

Unlike you, I like to give others a chance and do not care about Brand names. I care about what works and fits my budget. Maybe it is crap. Maybe its really a solid product from a small fab shop that wants to offer their products at a reasonable price. I don't know the answers to these questions yet, but unlike you, I'm trying to find out and give them a chance. I'm still waiting for them to send me updated photos so I can make a better judgement.

To assume that the product is "crap" just from a photo is arrogant and not helpful. To say it is ugly or express issues with the hinge assembly from the photo is fair to say. Your first reply to this thread was very constructive and helpful and from your feedback I went back to them with questions to address those concerns and posted their reply above which I thought was very helpful and they seem very willing to work with their customers. Why do you feel it is necessary to pass judgement on me and accuse me of discounting other's opinions when everything I have done has been to take other's opinions and address those concerns with the manufacturer.

Why do you have to be an a$$?

 

Aesthetics aside, what concerns me about this hinge is that it seems to be made from a piece of flat stock. Which means that if you don't load it very carefully in the strong direction, it is very prone to torsional forces. And since we are talking about hanging a heavy wheel off of it far away from the strong axis of the piece, it seems like a valid concern to me. Yes, it's bolted to the tailgate, but the idea is to take the load off the gate. If the tailgate is shown to fail under the load of a tire, attaching a new weak hinge to said tailgate won't yield any better results. The TF hinge works because it's a stand alone, 3D truss. If you were to mount the hinge to the jeep without attaching the tailgate, it would still hold the tire without a problem. It's designed to resist that moment. Take a look at the Draken carrier and tell me if you think it wouldn't buckle like a wet towel under the load of a tire if it weren't bolted to the tailgate. They welded that piece of square bar in there to address the torsion but, really.. We are loading up 100+ lbs of wheel, cantilevering it out 5 or 6 inches and bouncing it around on the trails. While it might be marginally better than stock, it still relies on the tailgate for torsional strength and that's missing the point entirely in my book.

 

x2 - I think you have to try to make a website that bad. Standard web templates are 100 times better looking / nav function... That reflects bad on the bad product they're trying to sell.

 

That is a very basic looking tire carrier, almost a 'garage build' type look.
I have a Hansen carrier, fits to OEM carrier location and hinges like that one, but very clean and finished looking.
And after 30K miles and some heavy wheelin, no rattles or squeeks, very pleased!!

 

I see what you mean about it being a flat piece of steel compared to the TF which is boxed. Thanks for the good observation. That's exactly what I was looking for. Guess I'll end up going with Teraflex. It may be twice the price but it's still cheaper than any other solution. Now I just need my tailgate to hold a little while longer with the 35 on it while I save my pennies.

 

Go Teraflex!