Whats the deal with off road LED light bars?

[vmax]

When I bought my first LED lights for my then F150, I went to 4 Wheel Parts and paid about $200
They were Rigid brand and they are still good lights. I now have them mounted on my Polaris Ranger

Now, I have a new Chevy with a Frontier Extreme front replacement bumper and want a 20 inch LED light bar.
I went to 4 Wheel Parts yesterday looking for a bracket and a light bar. I bought a bracket but dayum, their light bars are still $300 to $700
I know lots of people are buying the LED bars from Amazon for well under $100 and they are getting great reviews.

I know Rigid and others make good products, but they are probably imported also.

I'm going with one on Amazon with 700 great reviews for under $50, it it turns out to be a piece of junk, shame on me

 

[texasnurse]

I still go with kc daylighters


Sent with my IPhone with electronics and fuzzy logic...

 

[Davetex]

I bought this one on Amazon for about 15-20 bucks. Works great, really lights up the road early in the morning riding through hog ally.

 

[Shady]

I have one of the ebay 20" double row led bars on the front of my land cruiser for a year and 1/2 still works perfect the black color may be slightly faded but does not look bad. I think it was in the 30-50 buck range. For the cost I will toss it when it gets bad and replace and still be way ahead of the guys branding the same china lights and selling them for 10X as much

 

[vmax]

I have one of the ebay 20" double row led bars on the front of my land cruiser for a year and 1/2 still works perfect the black color may be slightly faded but does not look bad. I think it was in the 30-50 buck range. For the cost I will toss it when it gets bad and replace and still be way ahead of the guys branding the same china lights and selling them for 10X as much

Thats how I see it. These imported light bars have been out for a few years now and nobody really has anything bad to say about them
Unless I am unaware ot it, most or all of these, no matter what brand name, are imported anyway

 

[PhulesAu]

Rigid brand is sooper top of the line and priced accordingly. Go with highest rated ebayers, and you'll be good.

 

[Renegade]

Rigid, VisionX, Baja Designs are top brands, you get what you pay for.

KC, Explorer, Oracle and some newcomers are also very good with a little less sticker shock.

 

[Renegade]

Unless I am unaware ot it, most or all of these, no matter what brand name, are imported anyway

Rigid, KC, Oracle, ProComp, TruckLite are made in USA.

VisionX is Asia.

CREE LEDs are USA made.


There are always exceptions, but I own all of these and checked.

 

[vmax]

so can you have CREE LEDs in an imported light?
I see them listed as CREE but some of those are imported

 

[BigBoss0311]

I know you don't have a 4runner, but there is abunch of info in here you might find interesting, including reviews of lightbars.

http://www.toyota-4runner.org/5th-g...o-you-can-behind-grill-light-bar-install.html

 

[Shotgun Jeremy]

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I bought this one on Amazon for about 15-20 bucks. Works great, really lights up the road early in the morning riding through hog ally.

Our grounds supervisor for the college I work at bought a bunch of these for his fleet of zero turn mowers so they can mow early morning. Those things take a LOT of vibration, and I haven't had a single electrical issue with them yet - going on about 6 months now. I've had two of them take hits that bent the mounting bracket that was made for them (it was made out of a speed limit sign, so no biggie), and one recently tore up the hinges for it's arms. I'm thinking about buying something similar for the house.

 

[F350-6]

I bought several of the little chinese knock offs about 5 years ago. Didn't see how Rigid could be that much better. I've got them mounted on a tractor, UTV, and put two on my last truck and put a couple hundred thousand miles on them. All still function like the day I bought them.

Had a gift card so on the new truck I got the same size (little square ones) from Rigid. Rigid actually puts out more light than my others in terms of distance. The others will light up the world for about 15' - 25' or so and then it falls off rapidly. The Rigid seems to carry better.

 

[Shotgun Jeremy]

That's good to know. Sounds like the difference between a Nebo Protec and a Surefire.

 

[TheDan]

so can you have CREE LEDs in an imported light?

Of course... Components like that are a commodity and sold everywhere. You find good quality parts from USA, Taiwan, Germany, etc. in Chinesium crap, but none of that matters if the untrained 8yo soldering it all together is on his 11th double shift in a row.