Stock or factory installed bumpers are intended to protect your vehicle if you “bump” into something. They can sometimes absorb the impacts of a minor collision at slow speeds and help reduce the damage that occurs from such collisions. Stock bumpers are also designed to look good and to be a flowing extension of the shape and design of your car or truck.
So, why do you need a custom front bumper on your truck, Jeep, SUV, or off road vehicle if it already comes with a factory bumper? A custom front bumper is much heavier and stronger than a stock bumper so it increases the protection for passengers and the vehicle itself. Custom bumpers can also increase ground clearance and wheel clearance. Lastly, custom bumpers add style to your truck or off road vehicle that is functional.
Lets dive in further to better understand the benefits of a custom front bumper along with some of the drawbacks.
Added Protection for You & Your Vehicle
A custom front bumper is made of thick, welded steel, giving increased protection to the front end of your vehicle over a stock bumper. Because of they are made of heavy duty steel, these custom front bumpers won’t easily crumple in a collision whereas stock bumpers will because they are made of thin gauge metal, plastic, and or fiberglass.
A custom steel bumper is usually bolted directly to the frame of your vehicle. Because of this and the fact that they don’t so easily crumple on impact, custom steel bumpers transfer the energy of a collision through a greater portion of the vehicle via the frame, helping reduce the damage that could occur at the localized area of impact. This provides greater protection to the driver and passenger, not only in parking lots or out on the open road, but also when tackling an off road trail with added obstacles you may come across.
For the same reasons listed above, a custom front bumper also protects the vehicle itself in addition to the passengers. It holds up much better and limits the damage that could be sustained to parts of the front end like the bumper itself, the grill, the hood, the headlights & blinkers, and even the body or fenders. When front end damage is prevented by a custom steel bumper, it also protects more vital components of the vehicle from being damaged such as the radiator, the inter-cooler on a turbo charged engine (most diesel trucks have inter-coolers), or even some of your steering and suspension components. If one of the aforementioned items where damaged or destroyed because it was not protected by a solid bumper, it could leave you stranded on the road or trail.
A custom front bumper with a full grill kit will have metal bars or tubes that rise up from the bumper cover your grill and will even wrap around the front corners a little to protect your headlights & blinkers. This style provides the most protection but you can also get good protection for those that are just the lower portion of the bumper itself without any grill guards. Or you can get many styles that are somewhere in between just the bumper and the full grill and wrap around light protection.
Solid steel custom front bumpers provide a lot of protection no matter what environment you drive in. They are especially helpful if you drive roads where you encounter a lot of wild game, like deer, and can seriously reduce the amount of damage sustained to your vehicle if you happen to hit one of these or many other animals.
If you do a lot of off road driving, a steel custom front bumper can sustain a lot more abuse and can even hold the weight of your vehicle without crumpling if you happen to come to rest it on a rock, stump, or other object. It also provides a solid recovery point to which you can attach a tow strap to be recovered or to recover other vehicles without sustaining damage.
Increases Ground & Wheel Clearance
Off road vehicles, whether they be trucks, SUV’s, or Jeeps, are among the most popular vehicles to utilize a custom solid front bumper. There are multiple reasons for this like the safety mentioned. Some of the other reasons include that they can increase ground clearance and wheel clearance, both important factors for off road use.
These custom front bumpers increase ground clearance by eliminating the low chin spoilers found on the front of so many modern trucks and SUV’s. They also often raise the lower “chin” level of the bumper itself. This is the lowest point of any given bumper when installed on it’s associated vehicle. Raising this level up keeps the front bumper from being your limiting factor for what your truck or SUV can pass over without hitting that object, thus allowing you to pass over taller rocks or objects without hitting them.
Having the higher “chin” level from a custom bumper gives you a better approach angle. This is the steepness of a hill or object you can approach and begin to climb without your front bumper contacting that hill or object. Additionally, if your bumper does come in contact with a steep hill, rock, or other object as you begin to climb it, it won’t get ripped off like a stock bumper. Instead, it can scrape across the incline with little or no damage until your front tires begin to climb and lift the bumper from contact.
Custom front bumpers can increase wheel clearance on the front of a truck or SUV by removing much of the bumper volume located at the front portion of the wheel wells. This allows larger tires to be installed and be able to turn without rubbing the bumper, like often will happen with larger tires and a stock bumper. Being able to install larger tires also raises the vehicle and further improves ground clearance and approach angle.
Adds Style That Is Functional (Mounting Point for Other Accessories)
All of this extra protection to vehicle and passenger provided by a solid steel custom front bumper brings a lot of peace of mind, but there are additional benefits. Having a solid bumper like this also adds great style to your truck or SUV in the form of aggressive tough looks while also providing a solid surface that can serve as the mounting point for countless accessories.
You can mount everything to solid custom front bumpers from fog lights and LED light bars, to solid recovery hooks and winches. They can be designed to hide a winch within or mount it straight to the exterior surface of the bumper. Many custom front bumpers can also become a nice step for accessing under the hood of your truck or SUV.
Regarding looks of these custom bumpers, the sky is the limit and you can paint them to match the truck color or any other number of desired colors. You can also powder coat them or finish them in a tough, textured spray on bed-liner material.
There are so many companies that build custom steel front bumpers that you have a plethora of options for style, price point, and function. You will want to make sure that whatever you get is made of a thick gauge steel with good solid welds for the best protection. Some of the more respected brands are Ranch Hand & Fab Fours. There are even companies that provide pre-cut steel bumper kits for your vehicle that you weld and finish yourself that are much more affordable. One such company is MOVE DIY bumpers.
Drawbacks
A few of the drawbacks of custom front bumpers are that they can be expensive and they add quite a bit of weight to the front of your vehicle. That said, you be the judge and weigh the benefits to you against the drawbacks to you to help you decide what is best for your situation.
Related Questions
Custom Bumper Fabrication? Ultimately, you can probably design and build a custom bumper for the least possible expense entirely on your own. You will need the skills and fabrication skills to do so. A CAD program would be helpful to envision the style and functionality of the bumper on your vehicle before going to the work to fabricate it.
What is a Stinger Bumper? A stinger bumper is one that has a hoop shaped bar, usually tubular, that sticks up and out from the vehicle at an angle, looking kind of like a bee stinger, hence the name. Stinger bumpers are designed to catch and hold a vehicle to prevent it from rolling over in the event it begins to shift off balance while climbing or descending a steep incline.