Rugged Ridge | Winch Mounting Plate, Stamped Bumper, Steel | 11543.15 | Fits 2013-2018 Jeep Wrangler JK

Easy to mount, good add-on for hard rock or recon bumper

The media could not be loaded.  We purchased the Rugged Ridge winch plate specifically to have nice tidy uncomplicated winch install into a 10th Anniversary Steel Bumper. We were surprised at the fitment issues, but in the end we were generally pleased with the result. The plate takes some modification to fit the large winch we installed. Read on for our results: -- THICK STEEL: We measured the steel at 0.25" thick. The chinese winch plates that came with the bumper only measures 0.188". -- NICE FINISH: The kit came painted with a nice thick coat of black paint. -- STURDY MOUNT: The mounting on the rear, side and front through the fair-lead creates a very sturdy box. -- GOOD INSTRUCTIONS: The install instructions were good however did not address the modifications needed for the large winch I installed or an issue with the vacuum pump. I mention these changes in the following. -- GOOD CLEARANCE FOR SWAY BAR. The Rugged Ridge plate has sufficient clearance without modification. I mention this because the chinese winch plate that was provided with the bumper does not provide clearance for the Rubicon sway bar actuator. See attached pictures. I have since the install, taken the Jeep on rough roads required lots of movement from the released sway bar and had no interference issues. -- VACUUM PUMP BRACKET MUST BE CUT OUT: Required and described in the instructions is the removal of the OEM welded in vacuum bracket in order to fit the thick winch plate. This is easily done with an angle grinder and a cutting disk. Before cutting, the pump must be removed and is easily done with 2 screws and removing the vacuum hose and electrical connection. -- NEW VACUUM PUMP MOUNTING: The Rugged Ridge plate design provide a now location for the vacuum pump under the plate and the existing hose and cable reach without modification. However, as installed per the instructions, the pump will vibrate and rattle against the plate which is something the designers overlooked. See attached video and pictures. -- MOD TO PREVENT PUMP RATTLE: I added RTV between the pump and the plate to prevent the metal on metal rattle. This is an easy mod. -- BUTTRESSES MUST BE CUT OUT FOR LARGE WINCH. The plate apparently was not designed for large winches or the 12,000 lb model I used. In order to have the winch sit flat on the plate and slide forward to allow clearance in the rear (at the radiator cover), I had to cut out the 2 buttresses uses to reinforce the front of the plate. I again used the angle grinder with a cutting disk. See the attached pictures. While this compromised the strength of the plate, I'm hoping the 1/4" metal along with the sturdy box mount configuration will be sufficient to hold without bending or warping with a good pull on the winch. After removing the buttress, the winch fit very nicely on the plate, flat and forward. -- WINCH PLATE MOUNT HOLES WONT ALIGN: For my winch, the provided mounting holes would not allow the winch to slide forward as far as it needed to. I drilled 4 additional mounting holes to align with the winch mount patter and the winch fit well after that. See the attached pictures. -- FLAG ON FLAG BOLT IS TOO SHORT: The flag bolts provided in the kit to locate the nut within the hollow of the frame and bolt the plate too were a little too short to hold with fingers alone but a pair of vice grips made it much easier to locate the bolt. -- GOOD END RESULT: I was pleased with the end result and the winch fit nicely providing a sleek integrated winch install into the 10th Anniversary steel bumper. See the attached picture for the end result.CONCLUSION: Many Jeep modification require some flexibility to cut and grind to make fit and the Rugged Ridge winch plate was not exception. But the modification were easily done and the end result came out well. The compromise to the structural integrity of the plate wont be understood until I give the winch a good pull and Ill update this review then.

Fit just fine on 2015 rubicon with hard rock bumper

Shipping was fast and the product fits perfectly

Let me first start by saying the is a very strong winch plate and the paint finish was very good.Problems: There were not any instructions in the box. I then got the instructions online but they were not correct for my model. All of my issues were with the vacuum pump. Everything else worked out just fine. There is not enough space to use the rubber isolation spacers. You must remove these in order for the pump to fit. When you remove the spacers and try to fit the pump in between the ears a ridge on the pump will not let it sit flat. You will need to grind about 1/16" off of the inside of the mounting plant (picture one). IF YOU DO NOT DO THIS YOU WILL BREAK YOUR PUMP. After that you will need to make some washers to fit on the back of the pump because the washers they give you are to small for the hole in the pump after removing the spacers. I cut up some fender washers. All this would not be a big deal if they just told you in the instructions and included some washers. You have to cut the mounting bracket off the frame anyway so its not big deal... but they make you waste hours figuring all this out for yourself. But the worst thing was the customer service from rugged ridge. I wanted to speak to them before I gave a review. I hate to give a bad review... I tried the link on Amazon to contact manufacturer and it does not work. Then I went to their website and tried to make a support ticket. It would not sent me an email to confirm my address. Just kept telling me I need to confirm my email address. So then I called. the first person was very rude to me. I asked for a supervisor and got put on hold for a long time. So I hung up and called back. I got another person that seemed to care and understand what the issue was. He setup a support ticket and sent an email. I replied with the pictures but they never got it because of an issue with their system. I call back and had to forward pics to them. I had to call back (no one called me) and they said they do not see any issues. They said they put these on every day and do not have any issues. They then said they never checked on a 2017 JKU. All they need to do is add to the instructions and add some washers to keep others from wasting so much time and they just don't care! I tried to help and not just complain. I spent hours trying to communicate with them....UPDATE: The bolts also have all started rusting within 2 weeks after installation. Changed my review from 2 to 1 star.

It was a lot more work than I expected, but it does fit well, and looks good. Plan on spending about 4 hours doing the installation, and that includes the installation of the winch too. The bumper bolts close to the winch are really hard to reach once the winch is installed, but if you install the winch last, then getting to the winch bolts on the bottom of the mounting plate looks like accessing those would be difficult. Would be nice if it came with instructions though. It's a complex assembly and should have something in the way of instructions. I had to find something on-line.

The product itself fits well and does it's job well, but the paint (forget powder-coating) was very poorly done. It arrived chipped off in a few places. After looking closely at it, I decided it would be best to just re paint the entire thing...which I did. You shouldn't have to do this, but better now than later after it's been rusting prematurely, which it most certainly would have done. I would recommend another brand.

Returned