LC200 BajaRack : Long Term Review (1 Viewer)

[maujkar]

There so many manufacturers that make metal racks and coat them like ARB. I hope they have improved it for my sake.

Have a look at front runner & eziawn before you make up your mind with Baja!

 

[highrisk]

The first mod I made was a frontrunner rack. I have been very happy with it. I have hauled all manner of stuff along with walking around on it and have not had any issues.

 

[pdxlc200]

Exact same problem with my baja rack on my 200 anout 3 years ago. They lied to your face when they said they had not seen this before! Went Frontrunner and never looked back. I have a whole thread on my experience here in Ih8mud somewhete. Beware these guys.

After much pondering , I thought of sharing this with the fellow mudders.

I purchased two Bajaracks back in July-2013 (me+friend) and at that time, the Baja folks were very considerate to fabricate it with low profile legs (so we could fit it inside our garages) and added a few tabs, front , rear for our LEDs. So basically we have been using them for over 3 years now. We have the full shazaam of bajarack mounts i.e. spare wheel, hilt jacks, maxtrax, awning.

You can see few pictures at my dedicated thread : LC200 GXR Winch.

So around about somewhere mid 2015 we started to spot few rust spots and my friend went ahead and applied a rubberized coat. I didn't, I was lazy, and hence by early 2016 the rack had started to literally fall apart and leave rust stain marks on my roof. I was horrified. I took off all the mounts, LEDS and was appalled to the level of rust - see pictures below.

I contacted Bajarack, (sales & tech team) before summer this year, and asked for a viable explanation to this phenomenal rust : here is what they had to say : 29/04/2016 ,

Hi Ahmed,
The rack looks terrible, we have never seen such destruction on one of our products, can you please get a quote from a local powder coating place to see how much it would be to sand blast and re-paint the rack.

Ok so, to be honest, I was relieved that at least there is acknowledgment of the problem and some kind of monetary support from Baja folks. We exchanged numerous emails and I kept them abreast with the rack fixing process. Long story short - it cost me around $350 and the Baja folks were notified. This is what they had to say after I shared all the fixing process.. 24/05/2016

Hello Ahmed
Thank you for the feed back and we are taking your experience under review in the powder coating process, we already made several improvements working directly with the chemical treatment suppliers and we have change our powder coater....

So I sent them my account details for the 'principally agreed' cost - and haven't heard from BajaRacks ever since. sent them a reminder or two .....

Anyways - you will see the pictures BEFORE & AFTER - in the After process, I went with ;

• Full sand blasting of the rack and all the mounts, (did i tell you that the mounts were equally rusted?)
• Galvanization of the rack and all the mounts
• Red rust proofing primer as the base layer -
• checked all the joints , welds etc were intact or not..
• 2 coats of powder coat
• oven bake
• 1 coat of some shiny stuff - don't know what that was..

the rack is back on the LC200 : the good thing is that the painter accidentally painted the BajaRack logo and it looks much nicer.

Since 2013 , there is a lot more rack variety in the market for LC200. so folks choose carefully ...

 

[maujkar]

Exact same problem with my baja rack on my 200 anout 3 years ago. They lied to your face when they said they had not seen this before! Went Frontrunner and never looked back. I have a whole thread on my experience here in Ih8mud somewhete. Beware these guys.

@pdxlc200 .. yeh now I remember your thread... Did they also gave you false promises to compensate? I'm seriously thinking of replacing mine with the frontrunner , but on the other hand I just spent $$ fixing it...

 

[Markuson]

Exact same problem with my baja rack on my 200 anout 3 years ago. They lied to your face when they said they had not seen this before! Went Frontrunner and never looked back. I have a whole thread on my experience here in Ih8mud somewhete. Beware these guys.

Wow. So disappointing any time we hear of that kind of basic dishonesty. There are few things on EARTH that annoy me more than pretending you've never seen a problem before. It's just flat out lying. Not cool.

I'm hoping it was some rogue tech or something, but this is two strikes in my book...
(For non USA guys... Heehee... 3 strikes in American baseball means you are "out" and fail....done...so 2 strikes means you missed the ball twice...once more and OUT YOU GO).

 

[pdxlc200]

Yes, they gave me my money back, but did not compensate me for where the flat feet pressed flat spots into my curved roof. ARB, Rhino Rack and Front Runner all make channel mounts that run the length of the roof and distribute the weight evenly inside of the channels vs. creating 8 flat spots on the roof where the Baja feet touch. You all have been warned... these guys have known for years that they have absolutely cruddy powder coating and have been dropped by several vendors because of it.

@pdxlc200 .. yeh now I remember your thread... Did they also gave you false promises to compensate? I'm seriously thinking of replacing mine with the frontrunner , but on the other hand I just spent $$ fixing it...

 

[jblatl]

Well, I had already ordered mine before I saw this post. Installed it this morning. Looks great, only the years will tell if they did fix their powder coating. I must say though, it fits, looks, and seems very good.

 

[maujkar]

View attachment 1335595 Well, I had already ordered mine before I saw this post. Installed it this morning. Looks great, only the years will tell if they did fix their powder coating. I must say though, it fits, looks, and seems very good.

Good luck @jblatl .. let's hope it does stay good and all the best with it ! Indeed it's looking good. Ensure you set the warranty terms and conditions with Baja guys properly, as they seem to do dodge around when their product fails ... cheers

 

[maujkar]

Came across another rusting Baja. Poor fj .