Vanguard Off-Road® - Raven Black Truck Bed Bar

Went in easy. Excellent look for my 2019 RAM

The packaging was excellent. It took me longer to unwrap than install. My only complaint is the absolutely horrendous, non-existent instructions. Other than trial and error assembly, it looks great and it seems pretty solid. Overall, I'm very happy with it. It's also nice that they provide extra inserts, bolts and washers.

For starters, the bed bar looks amazing once installed. It gives the truck a unique look and certainly makes it stand out. However, upon close inspection, you’ll begin to notice the flaws and will likely look elsewhere for something that’s of better quality. My item was shipped via UPS and the box looked rough, but was sealed with tape and traditional freight staples. Upon inspection, I observed numerous scrapes, scratches, and damage to the various parts including a dent to the basket. I believe these flaws were there prior to the item being shipped because they were only observed after removing the bubble wrap for each of the parts. Initially I was unable to locate the parts list that was lodged inside one of the tubes and requested a PDF directly from Vanguard but never got a response. I contacted CARiD and got them to get me a PDF version but the one sent did not match my bed bar. The original one sent with my items did appeared to be the same but parts listed on that sheet did not match the actual hardware (screws, nuts) provided. Some of the nuts/bolts were missing so I went to the hardware store to get the missing pieces. I did have parts left over and was unable to match them to the parts list provided and pdf version. Some of the tubing has rubber plugs that are missing in certain spots as well. Repackaging everything was not an option for me. The time and effort needed to repackage everything and the time wasted (took two days off from work to install myself) was enough for me to bite the bullet and keep it. I reached out to CARiD and managed to get a partial refund since you can’t return once installed. I’d like to add that some of scratches were down to bare metal and that metal began to rust just a week after installing (probably not stainless steel). I plan on stripping the paint off of the basket and repaint with bed liner. Lastly, the bed bar does have some good weight and stiffened the truck a bit. Not sure how much it weighs but you can definitely notice it.