DV8 Body Mounted Carrier

First what I like is the overall toughness and look of this carrier. The design is great for the application. Give allot of clearance or approach and departure angles for us off-road types that like to get real. Its a really sick looking setup overall.Now the bad. And I am writing this up for clarity, and not to say this is a bad product.1. The directions need to be updated as not all JLs are created equal.2. The wiring for the lights and camera is not accurate. The step about running the wires through a hole in the top of the door henge area is a no-go. Picture is not accurate to my 2019 MOAB JLU either. However, I'll give them props for at least having larger clearer and COLOR directions.3. You have to cut the painted paper seal around the henge bracket that's under the ABS panels to access the six bolts, and to run the wiring around behind the passenger side light. pretty easy after that. Not to mention, running it from the top down doesn't give you enough length to reach the new location on the carrier. I had to splice and extend the third brake light wire to reach any point on the carrier.4. The taillight on the directions is a standard (non-LED) light so this poses another issue in the directions. The LED taillights do not offer enough space to allow you to drill a hole in the bottom to route the wires. I had to loom up the wires trim out a small slot on the bottom of the light and then mount the light while holding the wires in place in the slot I trimmed out. Again not a huge issue but an optional step that should be addressed in the directions.5. If you are running a stock Jeep JL rear bumper then you have no issues with a license plate light. But I'm going to assume if you are installing this carrier you are way beyond that point in your Jeep build. So there is no special wiring for adding a license plate light (to keep you legal). I had to tap into the passenger side marker light wiring and run the additional wire up to the license plate bracket. And thats where number 4 comes into play.6. The license plate bracket they provided, unless I am missing something doesn't mount up evenly to the location on the carrier. The "V" shaped support braces on the plate are not angled up enough to allot the bracket to sit flush and be bolted in place. I ended up adding a few steel washers in the back of the tire mount assembly and bolting the license plate bracket only using the rear set of holes. Still worked but would be nice if it was flush as it was designed to be. I simply added two led license plate bolts to the top holes of the plate to add the required light. Attached those to the wire I ran into the passenger side marker light wires.7. The camera set up brackets were great, no complaints except that if you want to make it clean and run the wiring through the carrier body you'll want to keep in mind the size of the hole you will need to fit the connectors. But a little bit of paint of the bare metal and a rubber grommet that fits the hole makes it look good.8. Now the directions say when you go to mount the drivers side brackets you should have the tire on the carrier so it give the right position for closing. However, after doing so the position of the driver side bracket was very low and it made the carrier look like it was crooked and it didn't look anything like the alignment in the pictures. I simply raised it up about a inch and aside from a little bit of a lift up on the carrier it all sits nice and snug in the brackets. Not a big issue.9. Unless there is a specialized third brake light for this carrier, which I can't find on the DV8 website then you will need to get creative in order to make sure you are legal here as well. DOT in some states says the third brake light must be visible from the side as well as rear. So keep that in mind. I have a few ideas about this. I just loomed the wiring and stored it inside the frame of the carrier for now.10. Last thing. Someone mentioned in an earlier post that they couldn't open the carrier far enough to raise the hardtop rear glass window. I noticed that issue as well. The stop plate on the henge bracket seems to be rubbing on the tube welds so its keeps the carrier from opening far enough to let the glass open up when running a 12.5 in wide tire. You can get around this by lightly grinding the weld smooth or carving out a small notch in the stop plate. It won't hit anything if it opens a bit more. But that should give you enough room to get the window open easily. :)I hope this helps with anyone's questions. It is a great set up, but you need to know what you are doing to set it up right.

Where do I even start? Let's just make a list.1 - tire carrier does NOT fit a 37 x 12.5 x 20 Nitto Trail Grappler. The tire is too wide and makes contact with the body of the Jeep before it even comes close to the latch. I had to completely deflate the tire, and it's still an extremely tight fit. Luckily, I have an on-board air compressor, if I didn't, I'd be SOL.2 - The plate that attaches to the tailgate to cover the massive holes left by removing the factory tire carrier, has DV8's logo cut out of it, which is kind of cool, right? Would be, if they provided some type of backing plate to fit behind it. Instead, nothing, which means the interior of my tailgate, including but not limited to, the insulation, the wiring, and the bare unpainted metal (rust prone) is left completely exposed to the elements.3 - In order to run the wiring through the tubing of the tire carrier, the instructions specify to remove the wire grommet in the tailgate and use it to fit into the hole drilled into the carrier tubing. Instead of supplying a new grommet, they chose to give me the option of either leaving yet another hole in my tailgate, or an exposed hole (rust prone) in the carrier.4 - THE REAR WINDOW WILL NOT OPEN WITH THE TIRE INSTALLED ON THE CARRIER! Yes, you read that correctly! Once installed, the tire carrier will not open far enough to allow enough clearance to lift up the rear window! Now, I'm talking about a 37" tire. Now imagine up to a 40" tire, which this carrier is supposedly designed to hold.5 - There is absolutely no place to reposition the license plate, the license plate light, or the third brake light, without having to fabricate brackets and/or drill into the carrier.6 - Plan on an all day, possibly 2 day process for install. Now, this isn't the end of the world. Its a body mount tire carrier, I get it, but you would think for a $1,000 tire carrier, it would be a little more thought out.7 - the bolt attachment for the tire itself, is designed without enough space to seat the bolts to secure it to the carrier. The heads of the bolts come into contact with the weld beads first, compromising the bead itself, or possibly cross-threading the bolts.*I have been a big fan of DV8 products until now. I will never buy another one of their products again, and I highly discourage anyone else from making the same mistake I did with this specific product. It almost seems that this thing was designed on a computer in China, then never actually installed on a damn Jeep before sending it to market at the highest price-point out there. Shame on you DV8.

Nice carrier, built solid. Lack luster shipping with heavily damaged box, looked slightly like battle damage. Also, this unit, although it runs close to $900 bucks, does not come with a new third brake light. Even though there's a nice little opening that is suspiciously shaped like a third brake light, it doesn't. I was told by DV8 that it is suppose to be a license plate light, when I rechecked the packing list that they sent, it makes no mention of either.**update**After having a chance to begin install, found that fit and finish isn't great. Again for almost $900 I shouldn't be having to chase threads to clean out coating material, nor should I have to go online and print my own instructions that don't even make a lot of sense. What a let down.