Gen 4 Brush Guards, bull bars, etc?

[Schof26]

I know we've talked about this a little in the past, but have there been any new developments? Does anyone know if someone is making brush guards, etc for the Gen 4 OB?

After this:
Help! Did some damage to the OB today. Pics in post. I'd love to get some, even though I know brush guards wouldn't have prevented this incident entirely.

[subiesailor]

Originally Posted by Schof26

I know we've talked about this a little in the past, but have there been any new developments? Does anyone know if someone is making brush guards, etc for the Gen 4 OB?

After this:
Help! Did some damage to the OB today. Pics in post. I'd love to get some, even though I know brush guards wouldn't have prevented this incident entirely.

Not that I have seen. The fundamental issue and this impacts every Unibody vehicle is the lack of a solid full frame to hang these type of utility parts on. They still need to bend and crush in a manner that does not damage the crush zones on the car unless the impact is so great that obviously the crush zone is crushed also. What you don't want is a very strong bull bar being levered down or up in a minor collision and bending the unibody in a manner it was not designed to bend under more or less a minor impact.

No way around it really in your case the under body armor plates would have gone a long way to preventing any damage and those don't really change the loads placed on the crush zone and unibody. The bars that stick out are more or less levers which can lever the unibody frame causing loads it was not designed to deal with meaning a fairly light impact could lever a bull bar and bend some critical frame parts when if the same car had had the same impact without the lever ie bull bar you might have a messed up plastic bumper or slightly bent bumper Ibeam frame under it but the rest of the structure is fine and not bothered.

The real bull bars which we have on the ranch trucks are literally 1/4inch steel plate cut in a J shape with the bottom of the J welded and bolted to the full frame of the truck. They are called bull bars because we actually herd bulls with the truck some times nudging them with the bar to get them moving. Which case the heavy steel full frame of the truck will not bend before the bull bar does. Our subarus simply don't have the frame structure nor the designed loading to handle the levered loads these bull bars can have on the structure they are mounted too. The flimsy stuff you see sold on all the soccer mom SUV parts sites are designed to fail and bend when put under any type of heavy load or impact so they don't alter the safety systems and crush zone of the SUV. These type of guards are no more than very light brush guards which none of those people will ever be caught driving their $40,000+K SUV through a bunch of scrub brush or trees anyway. So these are more of a hey look at me I'm different add on items that are more or less just fancy light holders if they choose to toss some off road lights on which again can only be used off road. LOL

[jogosub]

Australian company called ECB, (just to name one) seems to have a nice bull bar for Outback, designed and manufactured specifically for the Subaru Outback. the Type 8 Bar is constructed from high tensile, structural grade alloys, making it extremely light while providing exemplary frontal protection. The Outback Type 8 Bar features full frontal coverage, providing protection for the bumper, grille, headlights and delicate mechanics. Spotlight mounting provisions are also included as standard. All ECB products are ADR compliant and air bag compatible and are covered by the ECB lifetime warranty, for total peace of mind.
I had few of the bull bars from Down Under on some of my previous vehicles... expensive to ship to the U.S. but well worth it!

[JAvendan]

yeah, subaxtreme is another aussie company...

Subaru bullbars, sump guards and accessories - SubaXtreme

joel

[bradze]

broke that plastic crap the first day i had my car. you wanna fix that stuff? i can't believe this site sometimes. you have a car that's one step above an economy car. if you really want to fix that "damage" ok, im sure it will be expensive though. but in my opinion thats not damage, thats called owning a car and going through life.


edit: went back to your original thread and saw you made a video. that made me laugh even more. however, all this can be taken back if you are only 16 years old an this is your first car.

[jogosub]

bradze....which one did you break: ECB or SubaExtreme
I had steel ones from DownUnder on 2 of my previous Suburbans on my trips to Yukon (Dawson City) and Alaska (Fairbanks and beyond) - they held fine from flying boulders and such up there...

[bradze]

no i meant the OEM plastic bullshit on the car. the plate welded to the subframe for a jack mount is totally bashed in and starting to rust. guess i should grind off that rust now that the other spot i normally used for a jack is covered up now.

[jogosub]

oohhh - you talking about cosmetics on current Outbacks... I get it now....

[paulfolio]

Originally Posted by bradze

you wanna fix that stuff? i can't believe this site sometimes.

If the OP wants to fix it, it's his prerogative. He's not spending any of YOUR money bro.

[subiesailor]

Originally Posted by paulfolio

If the OP wants to fix it, it's his prerogative. He's not spending any of YOUR money bro.

LOL no doubt generally Bradz is pretty level headed must be having a bad day.

I put a huge dent and crease in my driver side door in my prior subaru the first month I owned it. 180,000 miles later it still had that very same crease and dent in it. Funny thing is no one hardly ever noticed it. To fix it involved a new door skin and all the legit shops wanted an arm + another body part for doing the job. All the under the counter shops wanted half that price which was still more than I was willing to pay for what was probably a bunch of bondo and sanding and some kinda matched paint tossed over it. LOL So never bothered with it. Car worked fine otherwise.