The Bestop Element Half Door Honest Review
So I'm writing this review today due to my recent experience with the Bestop half doors. I ran them for about a month and got a pretty good feel for them. I've decided to write a review about them because there aren't many when talking about the doors with the Enclosure panels. A couple of disclosures here. 1. This is not a review of the Element Tube doors, this is a review of the doors with the Enclosure panels. I will refer to them as the Bestop Element Half Doors. If I say the Tube doors, I'm referring to the Tube doors used as the frames for the half doors. 2. I am in no way affiliated with Bestop in any way. I'm just trying to give an honest review. I use a lot of Bestop products, and really like the company and their customer service. So here we go. Anyone that owns these doors, don't get offended by my review. This was my experience with them.
The Bestop Element Half doors are an interesting thing. They are a set of "true" half doors for under $1k. A little over $875 to be specific. Are they all they cracked up to be? Short answer no. Let me tell you why.
1. Design/what you get
So for $875(give or take) you get a set of tube doors and steel Enclosure panels. They have to be purchased separately. The Tube doors come in pretty great packaging. They are lightweight and solidly built. They come with limiting straps, mirror brackets, and door latches. They do lock(yay) and you can purchase soft uppers for them. They are cut to the factory Half Door frame so they fit the Jeep well. I was very impressed with the Tube doors. The Enclosure panels are a 1/8 steel plate that's pretty heavy duty and solid. The problem is not the material, but the powdercoat that Bestop puts on them before they send them which I'll go more into detail later. The packaging for them is poor, they are shipped plastic wrapped together but without any other protection. The first set I received was destroyed with scratches, dents, and dings all over them. Bestop stood behind there product and replaced them, but it was frustrating that weren't packaged better. They are also shipped with extra hardware and weatherstripping. The construction and cuts of the steel doors is fine, and they are solid. The huge, and I mean HUGE flaw in their construction is the powdercoat that Bestop puts on them. There is no durability what so ever. You can take your fingernail and really just scratch it. After just handling and installing, the doors were pretty roughly scratched up. I think a better option would be to ship them raw, because there isn't any way you'd want to run them with all the scratches and powdercoat chipping off, at least in my opinion.
Install : Throw the install instructions out the window. They do nothing at all to help you install the Enclosure panels to the door. To do this, you have to install them using the latch, and a bolt hole plate. There are no holes in either the tube doors or the Enclosure panels for the latches. This make for a very difficult, time consuming, and frustrating install. Trying to line both panels together while passing bolts through and tightening them was rough. If you tighten the bolts just a little to much, either the latches will bend, or you'll see dimples in the Enclosure panels. To add gas to this fire, the latch moving around on the powdercoat while installing and adjusting scratches it up really nice. And even with masking tape and my extreme OCD, this was unavoidable. This was such a problem, I ended up getting another set of enclosures just because I knew one trip down the trail would destroy them. My issue with this is not the tough install, but it's the fact that Bestop markets them as being the most "versatile" Door available being that you can switch back and forth from the Tube door and the half door. Wrong. After finishing the install the first time, I swore I'd never take them off again. The doors also latch with the front mirror brackets, but you'll need to purchase a set of shorter bolts because if you use your factory ones, they will be too long causing your mirror not to be seated correctly. That results in more lovely scratches and a rattly mirror. Some shorter bolts fixed that up but it was something I had to go out and buy on my own.
So now, after the install is done and your looking at your Jeep thinking wow, I finally have half doors. The worst part is mostly over and now you can enjoy the fruits of your oddly difficult install and 2 gallons of sweat you just lost. BUT WAIT! You must adjust your door striker first otherwise the door won't shut. I realize that this is a pretty normal thing with half doors or any new doors, but rather annoying when you swap back and forth a lot.
So how do they run everyday?
Looks wise, they look great. From the outside, they look like an off brand Rugged Ridge Half Door. From the inside, not so much. I finally understand why people pay more to have door interiors. These doors just felt weird without them. They were hot, uncomfortable to touch in the hand, and just had an odd look from the inside. It felt very "unfinished". The doors do cut a lot of the wind from when running doorless and help keep a little heat in. The doors rattle. And they rattle a lot. A rattlesnake at a sold out Ed Sheeran concert rattles less than these doors do. A little electrical tape on the door strikers will keep it at bay but as soon as you get off the street on to the trail it comes right back. I realize that we Drive Jeeps and some rattles just happen. But these make the doors feel incredibly cheap and poorly built. The doors are surprisingly weatherproof. I took a drive through an area after a rainstorm and they kept almost all of the water out being thrown from my tires. I had mine powdercoated Metallic Silver, which did help the awful Bestop powdercoat, but wasn't enough to just make me want to keep them when push came to shove and it was time to move some extra Jeep parts.
VERDICT -
The Bestop Element Half Doors are great for someone who wants the "look" of Half Doors without the actual enjoyment of running half doors. The numerous issues and poor quality just outweight the fun and novelty of running half doors. They look great, but their functionality just killed it for me. They rattle, their two piece construction makes them feel cheap, and overall I just wasn't ever pleased with them. Running them and the Rancho Tube doors back to back, the choice was clear that the quality of the Rancho doors was just much higher. I kicked myself many times for making the swap to something of obvious lower quality.
Can I recommend them to someone? After my experience, a definite No. There are much better options out there. After you spend the money for these, your almost in to a set of EVO half doors, savvy half doors, or JCR Half Doors. IN MY OPINION, I did not feel that much of a difference when running these doors vs running no doors. I found myself often just taking them off and running doorless so that I did not have to deal with the shortcomings of the doors. When it came down to it, and I had to get rid of some extra Jeep parts for some quick cash, these doors weren't hard to part with. I guess Half Doors just aren't for me! Moving forward, I'll just run either full doors or no doors. There are a lot of other things on my build list that need to be higher above doors.
I hope this helps. Please, do not mistake my opinion for a vent session. I am a huge fan of Bestop and their company. This is an honest review to people that need to know.
Thanks [emoji1303]
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