Thread: Bulbar ARB or Opposite Lock

ARB have fitting instructions on their website for their bar. All I can say is I was more than happy to hand over the $250 to have it fitted. They needed the car for a full day to fit the bar..and another half to fit the snorkel.

While it does not seem hard, the disco has a heap of stuff behind that fron plastic bumber.

As far as bars are concerned, the ARB unit has been known to cause issues if you need to remove your headlight. I am not sure if yuo have same issue on the other bars.

There's plenty of threads on this forum on this subject. In summary I believe both products are very good. I had the ARB installed recently at the Brighton franchise. They did a very neat job.
Some things to note about the ARB winch bar. If you don't get a winch installed there is a fairly large square gap that could potentially allow a stick to poke through and stab the radiator. The OL bar I believe comes with a blanking plate. I made up my own blanking plate for the ARB.

The ARB bar is I think a little closer to the bonnet. This means there's no room for the welded antenna mounting brackets. The OL bar comes with these brackets and I assume therefore has more clearance between the bar and the bonnet. For the ARB bar you can either mount the antenna on the mounting holes down on the wings of the bar just in front of the indicators, or you can get an antenna mounting bracket that sits directly in the top of the steel tubing, and allows clearance for the bonnet. This is what I did, I think this is better because it gives the antenna more height.

While the ARB bar is missing both the blanking plate and the antenna mounts, I really like it. It looks great and is well finished.

The ARB bar comes with skirts that join to the normal sump guard. I suspect that your after market sump guard will not be able to stay on once the bar is fitted. They won't be compatible.

There's not much in it really, just personal choice, I have the Opposite Lock bar, I think it is finished off better, they have trim around fog/daytime lights and the indicater housing is much neater than the ARB bar, not just a hole with a light in it, antenna mounts are further towards the side of the bar almost out of eyesight and are slotted for easy on off, the gap between the bar and front of the vehicle allows access to remove the lights enough to make changing globes easier.

Baz.

There are some minor pluses and minuses for each I think in the end it comes down to personal taste. I like the look of the ARB bar better but I know others disagree.

The only thing i didn't like about the ARB bar was the aerial mounting holes are too low and there are no tabs on the top bar. Fixed that with a $30 clamp on one which is neat enough and works fine.

I don't have front sensors but I believe that makes a difference as to which bar you need to choose if you do.

I recently got to compare side by side:

1. OL had a better finish around the fog light.
2. OL had the rubber piece under the lights which looked much cleaner.
3. OL aerial locations much better and had 3.
4. ARB does come back 4cm more towards the wheel hence why some have said that it will cause rubbing on large tyres like my touring set....only an issue if big is more lol.

I chose OL bar due to tyre size only, and on this recent comparison it did surprise me with the overall arb finish.

Brett....

You said you have an HSE? Do you have front parking sensors? I have heard, and read here, that there are potential problems with the ARB bar (and some outlets will refuse to fit the bar if you have sensors) but I have not seen the same regarding the OL bar. Based on this I was leaning more towards the OL bar myself, but others here might be able to advise if the ARB issue has been sorted, is still current, or is rubbish.

There have discussions and in the end I went for the OL bar.

Choice was actually easy, I have a D4 MY12 HSE and because it has front cameras and distance sensors the ARB advice was that they wouldn't have a bar of it. OL bar fitted well and has done the job in protecting my car more than once. And all the gizmos work perfectly.

After much deliberation I decided on the OL bar fits really nicely plenty of room for aerials.

A few differences I did find between the bars was the reuse of the original fog lights in the ARB bar. I feel the OL lock Finnish around lights looks better.
The arb bar is painted while the OL is powder coated not sure if this makes any real difference

OL has led indicators which required an extra relay to work