I love my Jeep for desert driving. They give all the flexibility of easy and often inexpensive upgrades and plenty of options as well. Having said that one can also drive them stock as long as they want in the desert without any upgrades, except for one.

The rear bumper: irrespective of whether it is a long wheel based JLU or short wheelbase JL your milage will vary but you will dedicate the rear bumper to the desert (Swaha!). The Long wheelbase Jeeps have slightly better milage but the short wheelbase JLs will go in just a few drives. Also, not that Jeep does not have alternatives!! Jeep has other bumpers that carry the short number plate on the left side, and they sell in the US. They would not scoop sand as much but here they bring in the only models that have long numberplate in the middle that has a protruding number plate bracket that scoops all the sand int he world and breaks in no time.

I have replaced my broken rear bumper three times. All at Al Qudra – every single time I have driven there I came back with a broken bumper, as if Al Qudra had some grudges about my rear bumper.

The first time when it happened the service center advised it will cost me around 3k with labor as apart from the plastic bumper that cost AED 900, labor is AED 1100 and other costs. When I tried to do the police complaint for Insurance – the good policeman advised me better to go to an outside garage and get it done. So ended up “fixing” which practically made it like new and cost me 450+ taxes.

2nd time I had though proper insurance = police complaint 500+insurance charges 750+taxes and I saw the job card it was around 3900.

On my third bumper, at the official service center Rubicon Metal Bumper will cost AED 3850+ taxes. I went with Zip Ties as long as I could this time and had to, and in my drive at Liwa on 2 December 2020 I replaced the zip ties 2-3 times.

Finally, I ended up going with the Rubicon metal bumper. In the process I lost the rear parking sensors which I did not anticipate from the beginning. Also, the wiring that was given back to me… I kept it for some days and thew them in the garbage, only to realize later that the new set would cost around AED 1800.

Even after the change to the metal bumper it still scoops sand. The plastic number plate bracket was connected with clips, and it easily get dislodged from the metal bumper. The light connection got severed as well and I drove for a short while without light on the number plate. The only thing I could do was to move the rear number plate to a relocation bracket till I had a lift.  I decided to get a relocation bracket (AED 487 incl. installation)

If I redo all of it with my newfound experience this is my choice of action:

  • If one is going for a lift to begin with then there is nothing that needs to be done to the rear bumper, it will most likely last.
  • Without a lift on a short wheelbase Jeep Wrangler JL, the best option would be to sell the plastic bumper and go for an aftermarket bumper that looks like the Jeep JL factory bumper & it will retain the parking sensors. Since it is slightly shorter than the MOPAR bumper, I reckon the numberplate would not fall off in the desert.
  • Once again, without a lift on a long wheelbase Jeep Wrangler JLU, I would suggest you try to drive the till it breaks before you replace it. JLUs due to their departure angle have lesser incidence scooping of sand and they last well even on the zip ties attached to them. But if aesthetics is more important then definitely go for an aftermarket bumper or a lift.