Thread: D3 Bull bar pricing.

Originally Posted by Melbourne Park

The review site I posted to earlier, showed a lot of people with rust complaints for ARB bars.

I just do NOT get it. Its straight forward to paint something, for goodness sakes. How can a high tech operation have any rust at all, many years later? Their Disco unit costs something like $2,700. How much do the coatings cost? I have an ARB air compressor for the tyres, I bought a roof rack system from ARB and had them install it all ... sheesh ... cars don't rust these days. Why not galvanise the steel and then paint it, and give it a long warranty?

I am tempted to buy an East Coast Alloy bar. It will get damaged if I hit a roo ... but it will offer some protection. And it won't rust. Plus, I save wear and tear, and the vehicle will handle better, and the front tyres will last longer. I wish they made a heavier - thicker - alloy unit actually, it might handle a hit better.

Just to add to my previous post,the Puma was also fitted with APT sliders a few weeks after the ARB gear.They are still fine,haven't been recoated.We actually had APT redcoat the bar and rack,an excellent job,way better than the ARB original coating.

It is the quality of the coating,one is far superior to the other.

Yes Rick,they are powder coated.

Originally Posted by trout1105

...
Galvanising would indeed protect the bars but I imagine that nobody wants a shiny silver coloured Bullbar and painting over hot dipped galv usually looks like crap.
Personally a bit of surface rust on my bullbar wouldn't bother me, It's a bullbar not a Picasso and the odd dab of paint every now and then is all that is needed to keep it fit for purpose.
If someone's bullbar or towbar got so rusted out that it was no longer usable then it is most likely a case of neglect, nothing more.
Bullbars and towbars are expensive enough without adding on the cost of the galvanising when you can get a pot of paint for $5 that will keep the rust at bay

The point being - bull bars are expensive. Why not protect them properly?

About galvanising - Porsche were the first to introduce galvanising in their body panels, and they then provided a long anti rust warranty, for cars in which the environment featured salted winter roads. Their paint finishes were superb. My Prado 90 series ( I bought it new and can't seem to let it go) has a galvanised paint layer on it - and it bleeds over a cut in the paint, so if the duco gets stone chipped, it still will not rust. Galvonising layers are not expensive.

What is needed though is decent engineering. And with bars being increasingly made in Thailand and elsewhere, IMO what has happened is the standards of manufacture have been lowered down to the lowest common denominator - Asian varieties of not only manufacturing quality, but also, the variance of supply materials which has always been an issue with Asian manufacturing. You can blame the cost accountants, who drop good engineering when they can save 10 cents over 300,000 vehicles, which saves $3 million dollars, which is a lot more than their salaries. The same thinking seems to have happened to bull bars, which are bought by people who will simply put up with poor quality. The shame of it is that these pieces of metal cost a huge amount more than their raw material cost.

Some really bad mathematics sorry. 10 cents over 300,000 is $30,000 not 3 million, but I take your point. $10 maybe.
As for manufacturing, I've seen some rubbish local product as well. It comes down to managing supply chain and quality no matter where made

Originally Posted by scarry

Just to add to my previous post,the Puma was also fitted with APT sliders a few weeks after the ARB gear.They are still fine,haven't been recoated.We actually had APT redcoat the bar and rack,an excellent job,way better than the ARB original coating.

It is the quality of the coating,one is far superior to the other.

Yes Rick,they are powder coated.

Both encouraging and discouraging - the bull bar can be properly coated, but one that costs $2,700 won't be!!!

About your sliders - for a D4, the APT ones look too narrow to stand on ... is that the case?

Powder coating and galvanising are good options But they are not a "Silver Bullet" for rust prevention.
These coatings WILL prevent most of the damage caused by corrosion But once the coating gets damaged the trouble starts.
Simple preventative maintenance like washing your bullbar and car for that matter each time you have exposed it to seawater or other corrosive environments like salt pans etc. and giving any exposed areas rust treatment and a quick touch up with paint even if you only do the paint once a year will go a long way towards keeping your bullbar in good condition.

Bullbars, roof racks and towbars are the same as any other part of your truck and a good maintenance regime is essential to keeping everything in tip top condition

I thoroughly wash all parts of the Deafener when we've been off road to beach or elsewhere to avoid the dreaded rust, but when I put a supposedly locally WA made roof basket up top, it started rusting in a couple of weeks.
I went back to the manufacturer who said "It's only a cheapie what do you expect"? Damn cheek, they never told me their 250 buck bit of wire and tube was considered a "cheapie" when I brought the thing.
In the end they agreed to fix it with hot dipped galvanising and respraying. And a rough job it was as well so I filed off all the dags of galvanising, touched them up with galv. stuff from a can and repainted it.
I bet my finish lasted longer than theirs. Another company that hasn't and won't get one cent of my money in the future.
AlanH.

The trouble with WA is than the majority of us live on the coastal strip and although the afternoon sea breeze is most welcome if you are near the coast it is also tends to speed up the rusting process.

Originally Posted by ATH

In the end they agreed to fix it with hot dipped galvanising and respraying. And a rough job it was as well so I filed off all the dags of galvanising, touched them up with galv. stuff from a can and repainted it.
I bet my finish lasted longer than theirs. Another company that hasn't and won't get one cent of my money in the future.
AlanH.

I know with caravan chassis manufacture, its difficult to stop the galvonizing process from filling up much of the inside core of the chassis rails - hence a galvo'd chassis can add over 60kg to a trailer. So the manufacturer went to various pains to provide a long life chassis that avoided the dip issues.

Incidentally a report on 4WD magazine and on the internet ( I think that is the company) gave stats for alloy v steel bars. They said the alloy was around one third less strong. But a fair bit lighter ... of course, the alloy ones don't rust. No Stainless bull bars out their I presume. Stainless is hard to bend and weld though - but the hard to bend would make a stainless bar better for a bull bar Id have thought.