Smittybilt XRC Rear Swing Arm – Textured Black (87-06 YJ/TJ/LJ) - SB76654

This tire carrier is heavy duty made of thick gauge steel. Assembly was easy and instructions were straightforward. The handle mechanism is well built and one of the best that I’ve seen on the market. It is nice to take 75lb wheel off my tailgate eliminating the risk of damage. There is absolutely no movement or rattling once secured. I am 100% satisfied with this tire carrier and would highly recommend the XRC bumper as well, this combination will not disappoint. Don’t buy look alike’s or copy cats, the build quality and gauge of steel is inferior.

First off it is a great product. Cleans up the rear end of your Jeep and allows for great looks! I have a 33" tire held on it right now and it fits perfect with room to spare. I haven't tried it yet, but I am skeptical if I will be able to take my hard top off with the tire carrier on. It looks like it is in the way of the hard top to slide off. However, I haven't tried to detach my top yet so don't get your hopes down if you have a hard top.

Not all hardware was included or was right peices. The nuts on the backing plate for the latch bracket were welded on backwards from the picture. Not all bolts were included to reinstall the 3rd brake light. While driving, there is no noise or rattling from the tire carrier. Latch cam is lined up and fits secure

The finished product is good, but save trouble and buy from a shop. Smittybilt clearly has jig problems, and I had to modify the swing arm post to make this work. I would expect a shop to replace bad parts, but I didn't want to deal with a large item return to Amazon.

After purchasing the XRC rear bumper for my 2005 Jeep Rubicon, I found that the spare was sitting too low on the factory carrier and was rubbing on the new bumper. I knew it would only be a matter of time before the finish would be damaged, so I ordered the Smittybilt carrier. This carrier is very heavy duty and has some really high-end features at any price. The Amazon price for this item is a bargain, especially with the free shipping. It was a bit involved to install (more than I expected), but easily manageable with basic tools. There are a couple of issues that prospective buyers should be aware of when deciding to buy this carrier. The factory third brake light can be installed on this carrier, but will require cutting of the part and will sit way too high if you are mounting a normal sized (31-32 inch) spare tire. It might be okay with a large (35-37 inch) tire. I decided to forego the third brake light on my installation, but now I need to find a rubber grommet/plug to properly close the hole in the tailgate where the factory wire harness came through. It would be nice if Smittybilt could provide one in the kit.

This thing is heavy, but can be easily installed by one person. Can be done in an hour. The 3rd brake light that is the tricky part

This thing is heavy duty. It's heavy! The installation was a miserable experience as it comes with a multitude of bolts, nuts, washers in a huge bag. I spent about 20 min separating all of the different sizes and trying to organize to make installation easier, but the instructions being so poorly written made that task almost futile. Pictures don't show a clear step by step process of installing it and how they show bolt sizes in two lines makes reading it even more difficult. The clearly need to hire someone versed in writing installation guides. I was able to get the assembly done, however like other users, my latch did not hit the bracket correctly. I see they say mounting the tire drops it down and it did on mine, but barely enough to fit. And on the back of the bracket where you turn the handle to lock it down, there's not enough slope on the lock to allow the lever to spin up the ramped section. Instead it catches on it. I had to have my wife push on the spare to allow me to get it latched. My plan is to grind the corner down to allow it to better engage. But then you have to find a way to coat it to prevent rust. So it's just a really poor design. I gave it 3 stars because it is a well built piece of equipment, however, the installation and use after the install almost make it not worth the effort. Seriously could have been a much better experience if they had just separated and marked the bolts into sections and then wrote instruction for each section. And included pics other than one giant exploded view. For the price, I guess I feel like it was a pretty good deal. Just wish i hadn't had to have spent so much time on the install for something that could have been much simpler.

This is a durable, easy-to-install add-on to the XRC bumper on my TJ. Fits the 33" spare wheel/tire just fine with room to grow. Only downside I can see is the hardware needs to be better labelled for the instructions. Otherwise, nice kit.

Works perfect. No instructions, but was very straight forward so not necessarily needed. Very sturdy and nice to have the weight off the rear door

Very well built the finish is fantastic great product.

For people who are purchasing the bumper and tire carrier together I have a couple of tips that will save you some time and frustration. Tip #1 Install the tire carrier bolt and jam but into the bumper before installing the bumper. Also I had to run a tap into the welded nut on the bumper do to some powder coating/ weld spatter. Tip #2 Install the L nut plate with a couple of bolts just finger tight to hold in place, can be a pain in the but after the bumper is installed. Tip #3 (just for the bumper it’s self) if you have the TJ (not the LJ) like I do, the 2” receiver hitch square tubing was a bit long (towards the fuel tank) this mean I needed to trim about 1/2-3/8 of an inch off the skid plate bracket in between the mounting bolts for the fuel tank. As I had to lower the tank to install the 4 bolts you have to drill holes for. Once the bumper once installed I was not able to lift the fuel tank back in place without trimming that little bit off to clear the square tubing. Now for the review of the carrier, the only reason it doesn’t get a 5 start review is because of the 3rd brake light. Having to hack apart the factory one to just jam on top of 2 bolt heads used to mount a small L bracket on the carrier is just cheap and really unsightly (when spare tire is removed, as none of that is seen from behind with spare tire installed) honestly I would have been happy to pay 50-100 bucks more for them to have included a steal frame that used the factory lights lens and bulb or even as an add on option. Also I had to drill a couple of holes in the carrier itself to run wiring for the 3rd brake light.