Review on 🚙 Jeep Stock Front Bumper Winch Mounting Plate - Smittybilt 2804 Textured Black by Abhinav Drury

For context, this winch plate was fitted to a 2017 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sport with a stock bumper. Once installed, this mounting plate looks great! Installation went well, but the instructions (like most Smittybuilt instructions) leave a lot to be desired, especially the pictures. They are of very poor quality and look like they were taken on a very old black and white camera (no exaggeration). The panels themselves are very high quality and durable. I was worried about having to do something with the driver's side brake booster on the frame rail, but the bracket on that side fits it perfectly. In fact, the only complaint I had was with the mounting hardware. The screws that secure the back of the mount (single hole in front) are designed to only go through one side of the rail frame (as indicated by the length of the screw). This is a problem because the frame is tubular (at least on my 2017 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited) and you have to work really hard with some sort of custom bolt holder to get the nut that far back (about 8 inches). Frame in front (maybe a custom nut?). I ended up using the same screws that were long enough to go through both sides of the frame (thankfully there are already matching holes on either side of the frame). I mean, actually, if you're installing this yourself, you're already twisting and cutting your Jeep handy anyway, so it's really just a minor complaint. I was just glad the entire mounting plate fit as advertised when my brother (I was too cowardly to cut my own bumper - what the heck do I cut a perfectly good bumper?!) cut out the slots for the bracket! By the way, the dimensions in the instructions are all clearly indicated for cutting slots. Had to adjust/remove the bumper a few times to get the groove to the perfect size (with a grinding wheel) but we were careful and only removed what was needed (or should I say my brother was careful - I was still big chicken!). Don't worry about making it a little wider, the top of the mounting plate will hide any minor "cuts" - you'll never see that. I installed a Smittybilt 97495 XRC winch - 9500 lbs per panel - fits perfectly and was able to hide most of the electrical between the trellis and the winch because of the panel clearance. special gear I had to buy (if I could give half a star I would give it 4.5 stars). The winch plate itself gets 5 stars from me!