Real Wheels Tail Light Guards (mini-rant)

[uphill]

I ordered the stainless steel tail light guards from Real Wheels. They arrived promptly.

I tried to put them on while following the instructions.

I called their 800 number when I found that the instructions were inadequate.

I spoke with their person who had an installation expert call me.

I made a Home Depot run to buy the tools needed (a deep socket 10mm) but needed to buy a set of small deep sockets ($26.00). I might have gotten them cheaper if I shopped around but I had the whole back of the FJ apart.

Essentially you have to remove the interior plastic quarter panels including the rear door sill, the cargo tie-down points in the floor, the cargo tie-down points on the bulkheads on either side -- to get to the "third bolt" (instruction 2C) or you can't get the deep socket onto it to loosen it.

They advertise it to be a 30 minute job. If you have the tools, it's more like two hours of screwing around. Now that I have done it you can PM me if you have any questions and I can give you a blow-by-blow, but it's not a simple install.

Real Wheels: Include a 10" deep socket with the kit and tell the people doing the installation what they REALLY need to do to put these tail light guards in. The instructions you have are INADEQUATE and step 2C doesn't work if you do it the way it's laid out in your literature.

I am not flaming you REAL WHEELS-- and I think that the tail light guards are important because the FJ lights are built out away from the body. I like the workmanship and all. Your people were NICE to me on the phone. But putting them on was a pain in the REAR.

[NJ Georgee]

Good post,I would have never known that these are so much work to install.
I was trying to find out if you can add these over the chrome putco accents,
To which no one has answered me.

[effjae]

NJ Georgee previously said:

Good post,I would have never known that these are so much work to install.
I was trying to find out if you can add these over the chrome putco accents,
To which no one has answered me.

No one has answered you because no one can believe you would actually buy those fugly chrome putco things...blech

[NJ Georgee]

I cat beLeave you think there fugly? You will really hate my Fj when its done then.I just bought every peice of chrome they sell...lol
Including The liberacy hood deck with the fridge handles.Only im going to make my handles funkshun.By filling them then taping them out so They will be screwed to the hood.I dont kno why they didnt do this since they sell a kit to make the hood open from the outher end.
My FJ is Black and 99.7% of the time it will be in the city.If I were off roading alot I wouldt have bothered.Even my roof lights will be used to see mcdonalds menue at night better...ol