Reviews for Rock Hard 4X4 RH5010.0 Winch Mounting Plate for 07-18 Jeep Wrangler JK with Factory Plastic Front Bumper
This definitely is a strong mounting plate, my guess is that the winch will break before anything happens to this plate, it is made from really thick steel, looks like quarter inch at least, it's solid and very heavy. There are people that complain about the loss of depth on the factory recovery points on the bumper hooks but you now have a winch, so I don't see a problem with that.
The only thing that was an issue, and a big one, for me was the fitment, in theory it should be easy, but what made it difficult was threading the bolts into the plate. I read about this issue on the reviews before I bought it and did not think much of it, but it really is an issue. I have a high torque impact wrench, and even with that getting the bolts to thread was a real pain. Because I knew about the issue before hand I pre-threaded the bolts before I fitted the plate, threading two bolts took me about 30 to 45 minutes. It seems that the threading in the plate and the thread on the bolts are not a match, and I had to use the supplied bolts to re-thread the holes in the plate. I cannot see anyone doing that with just a wrench, if was not for my high torque impact wrench, this already 2 hour install would have been much much longer.
This issue is mentioned in several other reviews here, it seems RH either does not care or does not read reviews of their products.
Because of this I will not consider purchasing any other RH products.
Instructions can be misleading, saying you don't need to remove the bumper, but you really do, on this 15 JK Rubicon. Even hanging on 1 thread the bumper could not be pulled far enough out. At that point removing was pretty easy.
Bolted in fairly easy, but had front to rear slop, so push back or bring forward. Ended up forward as the winch will eventually do that. The bolts for the fairlead were too big, so needed 10mm instead of the 12mm. The stock hooks are not usable any longer, as there is a piece on the mount that fills the gap behind the hook and leaves a very small lip, that is mostly rubber. I rested the Winch hook around the hook and it has bounced off.
The grill will not come off the bottom, so no chance of changing that without removing the mount.
All in all, a good budget item or temporary solution. The winch mounted securely. Loss of hooks, so…
Will be looking for a bumper sooner than expected.
I also wonder if RockHard is ashamed of the mount, as there are no marking stating the manufacture.
The instructions that accompanies this winch mount state "takes a few minutes to install", 4.5 hours later is not a few minutes. The part itself is robust and should be fairly easy to install, however the "horns" that are supposed to go into slots on the Jeep's frame would not align with these slots. Bending ever so slightly wasn't easy. The holes drilled and tapped in these "horns" were accompanied by two 3/4" short bolts. These bolts were not test fitted and getting them started wasn't easy. Rather than putting these bolts in a plastic bag, they should have been started in the holes and left there for shipment. Well made piece, just needed a bit of an improvement from the QC Dept.