So I recently bought the only set of Bushwacker fender flares that are made for the 2011 to 2017 wk2 Grand Cherokee. I have a 2017 Altitude edition. I have never owned any Bushwacker flares before, so I didn't know what to expect from them as far as fit and finish but there reputation was good and there were no other options available, so I dropped the $499 and hoped for the best. My first impression when I removed them from the box, was "there is no way these are going on my truck without at least getting painted". The plastic looked very cheep and was all scratched up. Not what you would expect for $500 and not something anyone would put on a $40k+ vehicle as is. So off to the body shop it was and drop another $300 on two stage, gloss black paint job. After picking up the flares from the body shop, I was pleasantly surprised at how good the flares looked now, well worth the money. At this point it was time to assemble the flares which included putting in the silver bolts and rubber trim that goes around the edge of the flares. Putting on the bolts was straight forward and easy to do, although I will be replacing all of mine with black ones just because I don't like the silver ones on my vehicle. Installing the rubber trim started out easy but as I got to the part of the flares that attach to the rear doors, that changed. Bushwacker has these little pieces epoxide onto the back side that holds some double sided tape. Unfortunately they have these pieces pushed so far up against the lip of the flare, that there is no way to attach the rubber trim. So I had to pry them off, install the rubber trim and then re-epoxy the pieces. Pretty easy to do, but come on Bushwacker!
Now on to the install. All in all it's pretty easy. But! and that's a big but, if you remove your oem fender trim the way Bushwacker tells you to in there directions it will and does break several of the mounting points on the trim piece and at this point there is no turning back because you can not put your stock trim back on now. So I started with the front fender flares and low and behold they don't fit at all. Yes I know I should have pre fit them before I painted them but you have to break your factory trim to fit the Bushwackers, so your really dammed if you do, dammed if you don't and I figured there is only one style available, so why wouldn't they fit. As you can see in the photos the flare is at least 1 1/2" short. At this point I had to make them work, so I cut the factory trim piece and trimmed the Bushwacker flare to fit around the trim. The rear flares fit as they should. All in all they look fine now but if I had to do it again, I would probably have saved the $800 and put it into something else on the truck.
Now on to the install. All in all it's pretty easy. But! and that's a big but, if you remove your oem fender trim the way Bushwacker tells you to in there directions it will and does break several of the mounting points on the trim piece and at this point there is no turning back because you can not put your stock trim back on now. So I started with the front fender flares and low and behold they don't fit at all. Yes I know I should have pre fit them before I painted them but you have to break your factory trim to fit the Bushwackers, so your really dammed if you do, dammed if you don't and I figured there is only one style available, so why wouldn't they fit. As you can see in the photos the flare is at least 1 1/2" short. At this point I had to make them work, so I cut the factory trim piece and trimmed the Bushwacker flare to fit around the trim. The rear flares fit as they should. All in all they look fine now but if I had to do it again, I would probably have saved the $800 and put it into something else on the truck.
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