Defective Bestop soft top framing

[Driggs]

I had my Bestop soft top installed on my Jl Wrangler for about 5 weeks. And today when I was retracting it, the driver side metal arm in the back bent and split as you can see in the photo. Clearly a defective part as it’s the only piece that broke, you’d think the plastic parts or canvas top would rip or break first if I pulled to hard. To make things worse they charge $526 to replace that part (without repair labor cost) and of course it’s on back order with no arrival time. Waiting on a response from Bestop to hopefully make things right and stand behind their product.

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[Sgt Beavis]

Did you pull the release lever at the rear of the top? That broken bar has happened to a lot of people (including me) because the release wasn't pulled.

 

[Driggs]

Did you pull the release lever at the rear of the top? That broken bar has happened to a lot of people (including me) because the release wasn't pulled.

Yeah, I pulled the lever. Was going down fine then it broke. Passenger side no issues. Kind of ridiculous it would break that easy. Even more unfortunate how bad Bestop’s customer service has been. Zero response to my email or this forum. They only gave me a response once I publicly asked on Facebook and all they did is basically say contact Chrysler, not their problem.

 

[Sgt Beavis]

Wait a sec, isn’t this the OEM top, instead of the NX top?

I broke the same part, on the opposite side. I don’t recall the exact price, but it was a little over $100 and I installed it myself. The arm doesn’t get replaced, the entire hinge assembly does. You can read about my adventures here:
https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/forum/threads/fubared-my-soft-top-looking-for-a-part.27049/

As for customer support, did you buy the top direct from Bestop or from Mopar? Maybe I missed something there, but I don’t recall Bestop selling the full top directly to consumer. I bring it up because their customer service usually wouldn’t provide support for it. That would be Mopar’s responsibility, just as it would with any supplier built part on the Jeep.

All that said, that arm is definitely a weak link in the entire assembly. I broke mine by not pulling the release lever on the back of the top but I also didn’t really apply much pressure when pulling it down. Anyways, if you haven’t already bought the replacement part, check out my thread to get the part number (make sure you’re ordering the driver side) and order it online for less money.

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