WK2 Bullbar - When ARB?
 

WK2 owners, post here if you're waiting on the ARB bullbar or if you couldn't wait any longer and took up the ECB option.

I really want the ARB one, but can only give them til Dec 2012, after which I'll have to reconsider the ECB one.
Main reason is I want the winch option.

Too long to wait
Pity but I will not wait hat long

That sucks. Although I am in no great rush, I still prefer ARB over ECB so I guess I'll just have to wait.

Thnx for the post and update timbotrog. I guess that seals to deal - no ARB bar for me. I'll have to go back and revisit the ECB unit.

Is anyone aware of any other aftermarket supplier that may have a WK2 bullbar available sooner?

I too would prefer to get an ARB bar over the ECB. Although that said, hats off to ECB for having something on the market. I a happy to wait a little longer...

Scarps, from what the guys said at ARB, they are the ones that do all the development work, then the others copy theirs. Maybe not the external dimensions, but the mounting systems etc are often a direct copy.

The chap that does their design work for all models of Jeep actually likes them very much. He's often seen out and about in their red JK Unlimited.

They other thing they said was there wasn't much of a demand for one, hence the reason for it not being a priority job. People ned to contact them directly and enquire. From whatI have experienced from some of their stores, if it ain't Japanese they ain't interested.

Hi guys, it's great to see that you're interested in ARB protection equipment for your WK2 Grand Cherokees. It's certainly a product line that we're committed to developing and acknowledge that there are many people who require protection equipment for off road and remote area travel in these vehicles.

Unfortunately, with the release of so many new and facelift vehicles recently, coupled with an unprecedented demand for our products in the last 6 months, some development projects have, regrettably, been delayed. With many of the recent releases being either updates to existing vehicles or the expansion of existing product ranges, development for these projects has taken priority of late.

To give you some background, our design engineering department has over 30 full time engineers working to develop a range of ARB products for new and updated vehicles. The engineering and development work required to develop, test, refine and re-test any single product before it's made available to our customers is substantial, particularly with modern vehicle impact systems, stability control (ESC) and CAN bus electrical systems.

We're aware that the current delays are very frustrating for our customers and are subsequently investing millions of dollars in new machinery and facilities in order to increase our development and manufacturing capabilities and reduce future delays.

As soon as we have some concrete development information, I'll be happy to make it available here on the forum. In the mean time, we apologise for the delay in releasing our range of WK2 Grand Cherokee accessories and ask that you remain patient in the knowledge that we're working as hard as we can to bring these products to market.

Cheers, Sam.

Thanks Sam for taking the time to post and update. Not sure if the info provided helps or hinders in our quest to fit up our new WK2 Jeeps with aftermarket accessories. In effect, what I'm beginning to realise is that if you purchase a Jeep, then ARB's not for you. Look elsewhere.

Business must be good for ARB that we don't matter in the urgency stakes. Is one of the 30 design tech's at least dedicated to the WK2?

By the end of Sept, I'll have spent just over $5k on accessories for mine and despite 6 visits to ARB outlets since last November, not one of those dollars has gone your way despite my best attempts to do so.

While I also accept there is a supply v demand rationalisation, if the ARB Marketing and Management departments understood the demographic of the WK2 Grand Cherokee (predominantly 35 to 70 yo cashed up males) the decision to at least provide a bullbar would have received more urgent attention and more than reap a financial return to the ARB shareholder/owners.

Today I'm taking up options as independant manufacturers go to market. i.e. ECB & LRA, and the longer you leave it to realise you may have made an error in deciding to delay, the longer it will be for these customers and their decendants to come back to ARB when next we upgrade.

If not already done, someone in ARB needs to look at how many WK2's have been sold and who has them. The bullbar particularly needed urgently for not only offroad work but for the huge caravan touring market in Australia. Assume someone in ARB has heard of the term Baby Boomers and mid aged executives and the financial market power they can spend in.

Please don't take this as a negative, just a good customer trying to give you feedback and $$$$'s business.

Scott

Hi Sam, thanks for signing up and providing the advice. Always good to get it from the horses mouth.

I look forward to ARB commenting on new products and developments for Jeeps here in the future.

For the record my hands up for a winch bar also.

cheers

Steve

Scott,
I own a late model WH and have also been frustrated by the apparent lack of support and accessories for my model coming out of ARB.
I am still trying to figure out is Sam's reply to your post was a genuine answer or a fob-off !!!
I am looking elsewhere for aftermarket bits for my WH and I would suggest that you do the same. Sadly, I think your observation is correct and you'll have a long wait if you hang around waiting for ARB to build accessories for vehicles other than the so-called popular ones from manufacturer's like Nissan & Toyota. By the way this is not in any way a bash session against these brands just frustration at the lack of support that ARB are sending the way of the Jeep community.....

My thought's only, take them for what they are.......

Thnx Chris, appreciate your feedback and thoughts. You're right though, I'll only have the cash in the bank for so long before some lucky 4WD retailer manages to swap their product with my cash.

BTW, I've seen lots of Prado's, Pajero's, Rangers etc on the road without 4WD aftermarket products attached, so not sure how and why we become excluded.

Scott,
Have you had a chat with Stuart Murchison (CRDSTU here on the forum) He is doing some fantastic gear for all the Jeep models and especially the Grand Chrerokee's. I know he will have a few projects on the boil for your WK model. Well worth keeping in touch with him, you can look him up through his web site "www.murchisonproducts.com.au".

Thnx Chris, I have been watching his site, but will emsil Him today to see where He's at. I know He was doing a lift kit that's on my future list with a decent set of tyres.

I think you'll find Sams response is very genuine in the fact ARB will get around to it one day. What I can read into the format of his reply is that no reference in any way to a timeline basically means no time in the short to medium term. Simply I don't believe they see it as a big enough market at this time.

Has anyone put the hard word on TJM they do make some nice winch bars.

Thnx Fester, on one of our forums, someone did post that they had a reply from TJM to say 'no, not going to produce one'.

At least there is a definitive answer from TJM.

I can understand ARB's take on the Aus market.... It's not that big.

However, you reckon the American market is big for ARB. And the Jeep is the taxi of the US...

Surely there is a business case for the volumes being produced there?

ARB do export to the USA
So why have not done this as a priority just does not make sense

This is exactly what my earlier post was about. It would seem to me to be fairly obvious that the Jeep marque is not being supported by ARB .......

I started a thread on JeepGarage trying to get our US counterparts to contact ARB and support us regarding this subject. Unfortunately there hasn't been a good response.

http://www.jeepgarage.org/showthread.php?t=44724

I know that when I used to travel to the US, bullbars didn't seem as common as they are over here. Might just have been a west coast thing.

I've raised the topic on the Caravanersforum also. Some interest, but suspect everyone there's just on one big holiday........cruisin'

I saw an article today on ARB products for the new FJ Cruiser. Wonder how many FJ's have been sold in Oz that will need the aftermarket accessories compared to the WK2? Hope they've recouped the R&D costs on that little venture.

They are simply "Toyotaphiles"!

i spend all day, every day, on the road around Brisbane. I rarely see those ugly Toyotas, but see JGC regularly..

Maybe Jeep are meant to give one free to ARB as part of new product marketing costs and just haven't realised that's how it works.

Hey guys,

I agree I see so many of these GC around its' not funny, and rarley a FJ ugly mobile. Strange how ARB works

I'm currently doing an ADR compliant bar for the JK wrangler and KK cherokee,

I'd be happy to do one for the WK2 next. I'd need someones car to measure up in melb though.

here is CAD models of my JK and KK ones
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ouringbar1.jpg
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...nalconcept.jpg

They look awesome Dave! Nice one....

WJ/WG Grand bar next maybe? ;)

I'm 50k's north of Melbourne and happy to help out with mine.

give me a month or so, I have a few projects i'm finishing off

No problem. I'm about a month or two away from deciding on the ECB bar so will touch base before I do.

ARB = MIA for J E E P.

ARB has been missing out on jeep stuff when they didnt come out with a rear tyre carrier on the JK bar........ (until now)....... massive sales would have been lost in those first couple of years with punters going to the other brands.....

it seems that even though ARB caters mainly for the yank market (its cheaper to buy a locker from quadratech and have it shipped here then it is to buy from arb), they decided to forget about one of americas most modifies 4wd.

personally, if i had a GC, i would chose to support those who support us, the yankee daves of this world.....

if ARB has forgotten about us, then why are they in the forefronts of our minds?

yes they make some awesome gear, but the jeeps have been forgotten for to long.....

but mr arb, if you are willing to throw a 55l fridge my way, i will happily take my comments down :P

Sam,

How about passing on the contenets of this thread to the heads of ARB to actually show them that a large section of the Jeep community are not happy with their lack of support for particular popular models. I thinks it's quite obvious that people aren't happy with their lack of action and the percieved lack of support. How about removing the blinkers and ear plugs ARB.......

Like the way you think. I've been trying to give ARB $000's since November, so I'm not looking for a Fridge, although I am looking for a bullbar with winch capability, and I kept be told by ARB, it's on the way.
Also now that I've quoted your post, even if you take your's down, it stays embedded in mine. Sorry if I've cost you a fridge. I do have an old esky I could give you:-)

Yankee Dave will get my support and dollars and I'll then let all the forums know about His business and who knows, we might see a new 4WD Franchise in the next few years called Yankee Dave's 4WD accessories, specialising in WK Winch Bars?

I have a much better name in mind than that :)

Yankee Dave, thanks for putting your hand up so quickly. There are indeed many people that would so willingly part with their cash to armor up these very capable 4x4's. I have been trying to take matters into my own hands for some time just trying to get some brackets manufactured to bolt a nudge bar and proper recovery hooks onto. I am told the jeep dealerships have loads of nudgebars just sitting around waiting for jeep to produce the ADR approved brackets.

I have even begged ECB to sell their brackets for their bull bar separately as I am led to believe that bar originally came out to suit the 2011 model (front tow hooks) and then had to make the brackets to fit the same bar to 2012 model. Unfortunately I could only speak to a staff member there that lacked a few too many braincells, so I couldn't really get anywhere with that idea.

So it seems to me if you were to manufacture a bar for us, you might want to consider selling the brackets as a separate item as well so others could have the option of fitting the factory nudge bar.

Just driving up the Hume Highway north of Melbourne. Within an hours drive, I counted 8 x Jeep WK2's, 6 x Landcruisers (4 with bullbars), 4 x Prados (2 with bullbars), 1 x Ranger (no accessories) and 1 x FJ cruiser (no accessories).

Maybe I should sell my WK2 as they're becoming far too common.

Hi Chris, rest assured, I have definitely passed this feedback on to our national product team.

As I mentioned, we are committed to developing a bull bar for the Grand Cherokee. It is currently on our short list of projects to commence but given the complexity of modern bull bar design, particularly for all-new models which feature sophisticated electronics and safety features, the development time can vary substantially from vehicle to vehicle. It's therefore impossible to give you an accurate timeline at this stage.

Ideally, we were hoping to have had something available earlier but due to the volume of new vehicles coming onto the market recently and some unforeseen delays in other development projects, regrettably, this hasn't eventuated as quickly as we'd have liked.

We will, as we have done in the past, continue to support Jeep 4x4 vehicles with our range of products.

Cheers, Sam.

What a load of hog wash

Sam,
Thanks for the reply. I suppose I/we have to accept that management have heard our frustration expressed through this forum. It still remains to be seen as to what actions they take to make the Jeep GC a priority for the development of a bull bar.
I know with my 2009 Laredo you guys have just ignored it as a candidate for a front bar. The WK owners are starting to understand the frustration many of us who own late WH models have been putting up with over that past 3 years since you stopped producing a front bar for them -(2008 to 2010). It's now more than half way through 2012 & still no front bar for the WK and if you do produce one I'm sure it won't make it to market until 2013. That makes it 5 years, that's FIVE YEARS since you showed any support for JEEP GC owners in this area.
Sorry, doesn't wash with me. It's about time you changed your priorities in my view. But hey, what am I , just a single frustrated possible customer who is trying to find an alternative and the only ones seem to be ECB.
You mentioned in your reply the difficulties you guys have faced with the development and designing a front bar. Funny, I am sure ECB would have faced the same or similar issues you do and they have managed to produce a bar for both the WH and now the WK. Now there's a company that can see a marlet trend and has jumped on board to produce a product for one of the best selling SUV's on the market today.
Sam, actions speak louder than words and in this case in my view the silence form ARB is deafening......

Hi Sam, thnx for the reply. I hope you don't take this post personally (unless of course you're an ARB decision maker, in which case, take it very much so).
Assume ARB will have a stand at the 4WD show in Melbourne 24th to 26th August. I'll come and say Hi. Hope you have some good news by then.

there are gonna's and there are doers...... arb is a gonna, yankeedave and ECB seem to be doers..... lift your game arb or the jeep folk will do a mass exodus...... i for one will stop buying arb stuff till they cater for our GC brothers.....