Review on 🏃 Westin Running Board Mounting Kit 27-1445 by Nathan Jones

Well, where do I start. This mounting kit is very solid with strong brackets, great screws and lots of hardware which makes me understand (once it arrived) why it costs so much. It takes a lot of equipment to fit in a car. The instruction manual is good. Here is the instruction manual. There are very few instructions and pictures. Actually it's even worse because it's not really that much, but luckily I went to the Honda Pilot online forums and someone provided a link to another installation guide that was shown and written with others (not necessarily BETTER ones details), but when I used both guides it at least made the task DOABLE, although it still takes time to unravel like a puzzle. As many have pointed out, the mounts do not take into account that the skid plate will prevent either mount from fitting onto the frame. I could use an angle grinder to cut either the bracket or the skid plate, but since I didn't have one, I drilled a lot of holes with a drill bit and basically broke off part of the skid plate so I could lower the bracket properly. As mentioned, the Honda Pilot has three sets of mounting bracket holes on each side of the car, which confused me at first. I later discovered that only two of these attachment points are used on each side (for the middle brackets). There are two other brackets that need to be drilled into the vehicle frame. The front mounts weren't too rigid. Just measure from the fender with an 8-1/2 or 9-1/2 inch tape measure (can't remember which). I also realized that when tightening the bolts, they shouldn't be overtightened and knocked out a new hole. Also, do not overtighten the bolts that attach to the footpegs as they are aluminum and can bend if you overtighten the wrench. On the rear L-bars. Some people don't even mount them and you probably won't really need them, but I decided to use them as the back step might need more support for some people in our family and I wanted to try and use all the brackets. This is where I had to get creative. The L-Brackets are shown installed underneath and inside the vehicle's subframe, but at an angle that cannot be adjusted with a conventional drill (the self-tapping screws that attach the L-Bracket to the subframe must be drilled). So I attached the L-brackets to the holddown bracket on each side, thinking maybe I'll just pay a mechanic who has a special tool to use Tek bolts in the subframe. I later discovered that you can buy a $20 Dewalt 90 degree drill bit that fits under and into the stretcher to drill these pups in there. So eventually I'll finish assembling the L-brackets, and until then they're still attached to both the step and hold-downs, so they're not going anywhere until then. I'm just showing you how weird this assembly kit is and that it never mentioned you would need special tools to install the L-brackets (it just shows you a little diagram of where they magically fit, oh dream!) . It was all doable and I'm very, very happy with the Westin brushed aluminum pegs, but it's come a long way!