EAG Steel Rear Bumper with Tire Carrier Fit for 1984-2001 Cherokee XJ

Initially I'm rather impressed with this tire carrier bumper. It is priced well for what you get. It appears well made and stout enough for general purpose off roading and daily driving. I had been looking and comparing several of these bumpers for a while now so I could get my spare tire out of my cargo area and my fuel can off my roof rack and mount my Hi-lift to a rear carrier.I decided to roll the dice on this EAG Steel Bumper with Tire Carrier because so far the reviews are good and I like the design. I didn't want to spend the money on a JCR or custom bumper and the EAG design was the best simple tire carrier design and also didn't block my tail lights (one design flaw with the JCR tire carrier). Too many people had complaints about the Smittybilt system and I could see potential design flaws in that one myself.This EAG bumper is super simple; both in design and how it installs. It uses uses the original rear bumper mounting bracket location to mount their brackets with their included metric bolts. These bolts are metric 10.9 rated so equivalent to SAE grade 8 bolts so they should be plenty strong enough. One annoyance is that the heads of these bolts are 16mm instead of the 15mm that Jeep uses on the original bumper bracket bolts and most of the M10 bolts on the Jeep. Now I have to make sure I carry a 16mm wrench in my trail tool bag just in case. The bumper brackets have nicely slotted bolt holes so it's easy to get bumper lined up properly and centered before you tighten everything down.The tire carrier swing is stupid simple. Just grease up the pintle shaft and slide the carrier over it. It's super tight so may require and bit of wiggling to get it on or back off as you lay it all out. Then just pop on the cap and screw on the grease fitting and the installation is complete. Wait until you have your spare tire mounted before you try to adjust the latch pin as, like mine, it probably won't line up correctly without the weight of the tire making the gate line up properly.Once it's all mounted it looks good and everything seems to work properly. The rear lower lip of the bumper does extend down a bit more than I would have liked and does affect departure angle a bit. It's not too bad but something to be aware of. If it becomes an issue I may trim that bottom lip a bit in the future.There is also not a lot of surface area on the flat face of the rear bumper itself. I had also bought some flush mount LED lights that I intended to install in this bumper but the flat surface of this bumper is too small for standard 3 inch by 3 inch flush mount lights so I'm going to have to figure out another option.One concern of this bumper is whether the mounting system will be strong enough to use this bumper as a recovery point. There is great debate on the internet and throughout the Jeeping communities as to whether or not the eight bolt holes for bumper mount on the rear of the XJ are strong enough for recovery without some kind of frame tie in brackets. Many people say no while other claim they have used bumpers like this for towing and recovery for years without any additional frame tie ins and had no problems at all. I decided to err on the side of caution and buy frame tie in brackets for Circle S Industries LLC out of Martinsville, Indiana (they have an ebay store).The frame ties ins from Circle S are super beefy but will add a heck of a lot of extra work and hassle to your bumper install. Looking back it, I probably would have been better served to fabricate my own frame tie in by cutting down my old receiver hitch and converting it into some kind of reinforced tie in bracket. The Circle S brackets require you to cut access holes into the rear of your uni-frame rails and require A LOT of cutting and grinding to make them fit and all the holes to line up. Once I finally got the Circle S brackets and the rear panel cut and ground to fit and tied into the bumper I'm sure this will be plenty strong to use as a recovery and tow point but the Circle S system was a heck of a lot of extra work and a general pain in the rear to get to fit and line up.For now the bumper is new and untested but so far I like it. I'll follow up down the road with an update to let everyone know how it is holding up and what my thoughts are on it once I've had time to use it for a while.

Overall this an excellent deal for the price. The carrier works great and it’s easy to install, if not crazy heavy. Definitely need help putting it on. The reason for not giving that fifth star is that the bumper doesn’t bolt into any other part of the frame except the factory bracket holes. Which is fine until you try and tow something. Luckily I don’t tow that often. But I’ll still reinforce it somehow before I try.

Love my new bumper! I have a 1994 Jeep Cherokee xj and it was so easy to install only took me about a hour! Very nice and sturdy. No dents nothing and very well packaged. UPDATE!! I had the bumper a year and ended up ripping off tire rack. Very nice bumper and rack but my tire weighed so much that the bumper would rock back and forth which created a annoying noise when any little bump was hit. Went off roading and it came unlocked and swung open so hard my bumper got yanked out a bit. Very nice but not made for big tires

Purchased this bumper because I didn’t want to spend $800 and up for one. Worst mistake I’ve ever made. Welds are not sturdy and look terrible. There’s dents on it that occurred before paint. Paint job is terrible. Brackets are bent. This is the biggest piece of junk I’ve ever purchased. Those are not the only problems. The company itself is absolutely terrible. Terrible customer service among other things. I contacted them after the bumper was installed because it’s my daily driver. Anyone who has an older Jeep knows the old bumper is in no shape to reinstall since it was most likely cut off cause of rust. I spoke to the “manager” named AJ and at first it sounded like they wanted to help. I was wrong. He said I could send it back for a full refund or they would give a partial refund to keep it and repair it. Sounds good right? Wrong. They offered me $70. There’s no way that even covers half of the repairs. I originally thought $300 was a reasonable refund amount but was willing to accept $150 just to be done with it. They wouldn’t budge and became very arrogant and rude. AJ informed me that all bumpers are robotically welded and that every bumper he looks at would look the same so it would be pointless to swap it out. Not to mention the cost to install it, take it back off, and reinstall a new one. I could go on and on. Just save yourself the hassle and spend the extra money on something better. I will be.

Love this bumper! Great price! Well built! Only issue is that the end cap was damaged in the shipping. Also the rubber slide has three screws and the all are cross threaded i think it will need cut off and re drilled then taped with a larger tap???I’m not sure how to get this to the correct person/persons that can help make it whole please call me 574-276-2311

This is about the least expensive bumper/tire gate carrier you are going to find for an xj. I was surprised on the quality of the materials though. The bumper must weigh a 100 pounds and the tire gate closes well.I have a 2001 Cherokee XJ and I ran into trouble with the brackets that are bolted to the body that this bumper rests on. The first time i got it on, The bumper was about 1-2" too close to the body which caused the gate not to close because it would hit my trunk. After calling the seller and asking why I was experiencing this (i'm guessing it's a quality control issue) they fumbled around and said they were going to send me instructions on how to space the bumper further away from the body to make it work. After calling 4 times, they never sent the instructions.I ended up using 6 washers between the supplied brackets and the body of my XJ to artificially create the 1-2" i needed to make it work. All summed up it took me a few days and was a royal pain in my A** to get this bumper on and off a few times before I made it work. Though the instillation process was a bit frustrating, I am happy with the purchase considering it was a fraction of the price of some of the other options out there for tire carriers.