Why no love for Smittybilt?

Iv learned that simply listening to those with all the experience with aftermarket parts, is a lot cheaper than finding out yourself with your own wallet. Just a thought.
 
Smittybilt is cheap junk. Maybe good if you don't care and if your on a tight budget. Poor quality. I wonder if they even have quality control at the manufacturing facility? My guess is they don't. I have purchased a few Smittybilt items over the last few years and ended up throwing it way. Not even worth giving it away to someone just garbage. I wouldn't recommend Smittybilt to anyone.
 
Run a smitty winch, had a bad solenoid new out of the box,they replaced it no issues. Only had to use the winch a handful of times, and has gotten me out every time
 
My awesome shittybilt trunk vault will come off of the rails. They can't even make a file cabinet correct.
 
They're like the harbor freight of the jeep world. Mostly terrible quality but every once in a long while something that will actually work ok slips through.
 
The used TJ I purchased 2 weeks ago came with Smittybuilt fender flares. The back right one broke off and I lost it on the highway due to heavy wind (going across a bridge). I'm replacing them with bushwhacker fender flares now.
 
I have their grab handles and a tow strap. They have worked great so far. I will not buy bumpers or other metal constructed mods.
 
aldaman said:
....To add to that, the fitment is not all that great either. It's a hit or miss. Some of the parts line up while most do not. That's the last thing on my mind after spending money on a product to only find out it's not a perfect bolt on and you have to modify it to fit/work...:thinking:
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I'm with aldaman i have both smittybilt front and rear bumpers and they both had Fitting issues. Not a bad product for your DD they have held up for me but I will be replacing them in the future. I couldn't pass up the deal when I got them front and rear for the price of one. But wasn't my first pick.
 
Clifford33 said:
I'm with aldaman i have both smittybilt front and rear bumpers and they both had Fitting issues. Not a bad product for your DD they have held up for me but I will be replacing them in the future. I couldn't pass up the deal when I got them front and rear for the price of one. But wasn't my first pick.
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IMO, it's not much of a deal if you're spending money to replace them. More like a waste of money :thinking:
 
I have Smittybilt grab handles (actually the first mod I did on my Jeep four years ago), brass rings are pulling out of them and I hardly use them.
 
I used shittybilt stuff on the first Jeep I built. I bought front/rear bumpers, sliders, winch all at once due to a recommendation from a rep at Arrowspeed in KCMO. Wasn't impressed with the quality at all. I had to machine on every part to get it to fit right. The coatings were also shit. I ended up selling it shortly after it was done, just wasn't happy with the end result. So Shittybilt gets a big middle finger from me.

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I have the short xrc fenders on my 2dr, I think they look pretty slick but pretty much are as good as not running a fender at all. The finish has started to wear off after a year. So in my limited experience I think it's average stuff, little pricey for average. I would have bought more of their products if they weren't always back ordered 6 months.
 
Anyone have experience with the Smitty Built spare tire carrier? The $200 or so one, that replaces the stock tire carrier for larger tires?
 
Smittybilt stuff is crap! Their products are just for looks and not strength or durability. I had their Sliders while my jeep was still stock and they didn't even survive one trip to hidden falls. I bent them up so badly we basically had to cut them off.

Smittybilt is only for pavement princesses! If you plan on actually wheeling your jeep don't get anything smittybilt. But if your just gonna mall crawl or be a bitch then smittybilt is the brand for you.

If you don't believe me ,come spend a day wheeling with me and I'll break all your smittybilt parts without even trying to.
 
Gradylvr said:
So is this from experience with the any of their products not holding up?
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I have plenty of personal experience with smittybilt stuff and I have never seen a company that has so many of their parts break or fail on the trails.

We get you like smittybilt cause they are cheap parts, you get what you pay for. If you can't afford better parts then Jeeping isn't the hobby you should be in.
 
Angry Aussie said:
I have plenty of personal experience with smittybilt stuff and I have never seen a company that has so many of their parts break or fail on the trails.

We get you like smittybilt cause they are cheap parts, you get what you pay for. If you can't afford better parts then Jeeping isn't the hobby you should be in.
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I guess some people might get lucky and get some stuff that works. But me personally i can't stand there shit.
 
I've installed a good share of their armor on several jeeps and been around for the ways in which they break or have fitment issues that were unsolvable... we joke around about how when you call them, there's hardly an investigation made and in most cases, they don't even want the defective/broken stuff back. It's like they themselves know just how hit-and-miss their production is that they just assume they gave you a bad egg and they're willing to shotgun out a (hopefully) better one.

Having said that: There are plenty of jeeps in the club that run smittybuilt rails and bumpers that take the knocks and hold up, and more folks than not which have the stuff installed but never really put it in any kind of situation where its structural integrity would be tested, in which cause the biggest issue is rust. For folks like that, the cost savings works out.

So personally I don't trust them on anything that requires precision or dependability - but I'm 100% satisfied with some of their other work, like on the CRES2 cargo net.
 
It's true Basil "Smitty" Smith started his company in 1956 and for us old guys they were one of the only games in town. Their products were pretty sturdy for the CJ's of the time. It's a different ballgame today. Too bad they went off shore and quality has suffered so badly. There are plenty of hardcores on this forum who do serious product testing and have found out the hard way when welds break or the metallurgy is sub par.
 
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