Rugged Ridge Xtreme Heavy Duty Rear Bumper & Tire Carrier in Textured Black for 76-06 Jeep CJ-5, CJ-7, CJ-8 Scrambler, Wrangler YJ, TJ & Unlimited

First, the overall build quality of this is great. It is solid and it assembled easily to my 1979 CJ7. Mounted on the Jeep, the bumper and the tire carrier are super solid. The instructions are about average, not exceptional but easy enough to figure out.

Here's the big problem that I have. Once I had the bumper and the tire carrier mounted, I could easily tug on the tire carrier and have it swing out. This happens with the latch mounted and the pin inserted in the latch. Adjusted the locations of the latch and the hasp to get as much engagement between the two and you could still easily pull it out. I drilled out the mounting holes by about an 1/8" so I could get even more engagement, but that didn't solve the issue.

I called the Rugged Ridge technical support and they were less than helpful. Their solution was for me to unbolt everything and ship it back to them. I didn't have the time nor the desire to do this. I asked if I could get just the replacement latching hardware and they said that they could not send that to me. The only way to fix this was for me to ship everything back.

I have been running my Jeep without a spare tire for the past month since I installed the bumper and tire carrier because I've been waiting for a wheel to be repaired. Today was my first chance to mount the spare tire on the carrier. I didn't really give a lot of thought to the issue with the carrier so I hit the road to drive home from my shop.

Within 5 minutes of leaving my shop, the latch slipped and the tire swung out while driving. Thankfully the detent pin caught it so it didn't swing around and damage the rear quarter or hit a car in the lane next to me.

I ran to a Home Depot to purchase a janky clamp to put a band aid over this. I need to find a more robust way to fix this design flaw. I'm open to suggestions from anyone to address this.

Overall, this is not a cheap bumper and tire carrier. I'd be okay spending this money for a complete solution. I'd stay away from this until they can fix this latching issue.