stylett9
Well-Known Member
- Thread starter
- #1
Hi everyone, this will be a bit lengthy so feel free to scroll to the bottom for photos, and I'm more than happy to answer any questions. However if you want to know about my personal experience with these mounts and lights, keep reading.
A couple months ago I tried to research Rigid's cowl mount extensively with very limited opinions or reviews from actual consumers, so here's my contribution.
When deciding what kind of ditch lights to get, I was pretty conflicted between Rigid's or Baja Designs. What really sold me was the look of Rigid's incredibly over priced cowl mounts. However, I really liked how they gave you the ability to mount two lights, and also angle them 90 degrees off the side of the Jeep. For ditch lights, it seemed more unique and "cool". If anyone is contemplating the Rigid Cowl mounts, A good thing to know is you still need to buy an additional pair of stand offs because the mounts only come with 1 set. So between the mounts and the additional stand offs, You'll be in the ball park of 260 to 300 dollars just for the mounts.
I won't go into too much detail on the DSS Pros since I think there's a good amount of information already across multiple vehicle platforms. They are definitely a very good light, and the "side shooter" effect was a big plus for me. Also the light output is amazing at anywhere from 5000 to 7500 lumens depending on beam pattern, per light. I personally chose to go with 1 set of driving, and 1 set of spot. All together I'm running nearly 25,000 lumens off 4 pods. Keep in mind about 4500 of those lumens are shooting off the sides of the vehicle by design (dual side shooter).
So into the nitty gritty, The original pair of cowl mounts I ordered were faulty. The first two photos below will show how bad the fitment was, and I'll include photos of the faulty pair vs replacement pair. Prior to ordering, I had received feedback from one other forum member regarding a very "tight" fitment. They indicated they had to carefully screw each mounting point down in little increments at a time. When I initially realized my fitment was off, I tried extensively to "force" them to fit thinking I was in the same boat as the other forum member. After exhaustive attempts I finally admitted defeat and there was NO way I was going to get the mounts installed. What was incredibly frustrating about this process was I didn't test fit the cowls first. Instead, I prewired, pre mounted the lights, so I was already 4 hours into work before I even began to realize I was running into issues.
I contacted Rigid, and they acknowledged right away they had a "bad batch" go out, and as of the end of June 2020, they had only recalled "a handful" of the faulty batch. They were quick to own the problem, and while it was a serious and frustrating inconvenience, I'm always thankful when businesses are honest. Here's where it got a little interesting. They indicated they needed to process a slight redesign and have them fabricated. By this point it was early July, and they estimated July 16th. On the 16th, they pushed me back to August 20th. On August 20th, they pushed me back again to September 20th. At this point I professionally expressed my "severe disappointment" via email correspondence. Coincidently and luckily, 3 business days later I got tracking for new mounts finally.
So now the drama's over and I can get into the constructive feedback. Because these mounts only allow you to adjust lights up and down (but not side to side), I was concerned with how much "wasted" light there'd be from hitting the back of the front fenders and the side of the jeep. I believe I can comfortably say that while using a "driving beam" on the lowest mounting point, there is still an abundant amount of light that projects onto the road/dirt in front of the vehicle. One of the benefits with how these mounts allow the lights to hang off the side of the cowls, means no glare on the hood, also a big plus that I was concerned about.
In summary, it was a frustrating process, not only due to the replacement delays, but that I effectively installed these lights twice. I was feeling pretty jaded and bitter regarding the whole process. I even considered just selling everything used and taking the hit. However I decided to follow through with the install of the new brackets and in end, they are bittersweet. I'm very happy with how they turned out and can't wait to use them in the dirt.
Summarizing details:
*Install time took me 6-7 hours, but I've never been very handy. To a more competent person, you could probably install these in 2-3 hours.
*If you don't buy direct from Rigid, test mount your cowl mounts before anything else. The replacement pair went in pretty smoothly with very little fuss.
*Don't forget to buy an extra pair of stand offs if you are mounting 2 pairs of lights.
*Prewire first, figure out the angles of your stand offs and install, wire up the pods and carefully leave them on your hood, install mounts, mount pods to mount.
A couple months ago I tried to research Rigid's cowl mount extensively with very limited opinions or reviews from actual consumers, so here's my contribution.
When deciding what kind of ditch lights to get, I was pretty conflicted between Rigid's or Baja Designs. What really sold me was the look of Rigid's incredibly over priced cowl mounts. However, I really liked how they gave you the ability to mount two lights, and also angle them 90 degrees off the side of the Jeep. For ditch lights, it seemed more unique and "cool". If anyone is contemplating the Rigid Cowl mounts, A good thing to know is you still need to buy an additional pair of stand offs because the mounts only come with 1 set. So between the mounts and the additional stand offs, You'll be in the ball park of 260 to 300 dollars just for the mounts.
I won't go into too much detail on the DSS Pros since I think there's a good amount of information already across multiple vehicle platforms. They are definitely a very good light, and the "side shooter" effect was a big plus for me. Also the light output is amazing at anywhere from 5000 to 7500 lumens depending on beam pattern, per light. I personally chose to go with 1 set of driving, and 1 set of spot. All together I'm running nearly 25,000 lumens off 4 pods. Keep in mind about 4500 of those lumens are shooting off the sides of the vehicle by design (dual side shooter).
So into the nitty gritty, The original pair of cowl mounts I ordered were faulty. The first two photos below will show how bad the fitment was, and I'll include photos of the faulty pair vs replacement pair. Prior to ordering, I had received feedback from one other forum member regarding a very "tight" fitment. They indicated they had to carefully screw each mounting point down in little increments at a time. When I initially realized my fitment was off, I tried extensively to "force" them to fit thinking I was in the same boat as the other forum member. After exhaustive attempts I finally admitted defeat and there was NO way I was going to get the mounts installed. What was incredibly frustrating about this process was I didn't test fit the cowls first. Instead, I prewired, pre mounted the lights, so I was already 4 hours into work before I even began to realize I was running into issues.
I contacted Rigid, and they acknowledged right away they had a "bad batch" go out, and as of the end of June 2020, they had only recalled "a handful" of the faulty batch. They were quick to own the problem, and while it was a serious and frustrating inconvenience, I'm always thankful when businesses are honest. Here's where it got a little interesting. They indicated they needed to process a slight redesign and have them fabricated. By this point it was early July, and they estimated July 16th. On the 16th, they pushed me back to August 20th. On August 20th, they pushed me back again to September 20th. At this point I professionally expressed my "severe disappointment" via email correspondence. Coincidently and luckily, 3 business days later I got tracking for new mounts finally.
So now the drama's over and I can get into the constructive feedback. Because these mounts only allow you to adjust lights up and down (but not side to side), I was concerned with how much "wasted" light there'd be from hitting the back of the front fenders and the side of the jeep. I believe I can comfortably say that while using a "driving beam" on the lowest mounting point, there is still an abundant amount of light that projects onto the road/dirt in front of the vehicle. One of the benefits with how these mounts allow the lights to hang off the side of the cowls, means no glare on the hood, also a big plus that I was concerned about.
In summary, it was a frustrating process, not only due to the replacement delays, but that I effectively installed these lights twice. I was feeling pretty jaded and bitter regarding the whole process. I even considered just selling everything used and taking the hit. However I decided to follow through with the install of the new brackets and in end, they are bittersweet. I'm very happy with how they turned out and can't wait to use them in the dirt.
Summarizing details:
*Install time took me 6-7 hours, but I've never been very handy. To a more competent person, you could probably install these in 2-3 hours.
*If you don't buy direct from Rigid, test mount your cowl mounts before anything else. The replacement pair went in pretty smoothly with very little fuss.
*Don't forget to buy an extra pair of stand offs if you are mounting 2 pairs of lights.
*Prewire first, figure out the angles of your stand offs and install, wire up the pods and carefully leave them on your hood, install mounts, mount pods to mount.
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) and maybe a spot on the top.
