Skid Plates and Rock Rails

[Muddygriff]

Don’t you have to do some drilling for the Victory skids? I thought I read that in their description of the product.

 

[Markarian421]

Is it possible that we’re over thinking the fact that the factory plates attach to the radiator bracket? These aren’t cosmetic parts and certainly Toyota engineers have at least considered that. If some of the contributors here are going to take their new 60k vehicle and do some rock bashing, I get it but for the majority of even the weekend overlanding crowd, I gotta think factory skids are good and if they aren’t, you likely have bigger problems.

There have been a few cases, including one during an early review, showing that if you accidentally hit something there you’re likely to damage the radiator. That cross member doesn’t appear to be very strong, the mistake seems to be that Toyota decided to connect a protective shield to a vital component — if your skid plate takes a big hit now you’ve got to worry about radiator damage. For most of us it probably won’t happen, but decoupling the two is a lot better.

 

[uraniumrich]

yikes just saw that... do you know of any skid plates that mount to the recovery points and have recessed bolts?
I still haven't found a skid plate I want

Slee Offroad is coming out with a skid plate soon. I just installed the Slee Rock Sliders which were very well made. I have the OEM skid plate, so I probably won't get the Slee skids.

 

[Markarian421]

Slee Offroad is coming out with a skid plate soon. I just installed the Slee Rock Sliders which were very well made. I have the OEM skid plate, so I probably won't get the Slee skids.

They look nice but they also mount to the radiator crossmember -- "Factory mounting points for easy installation." I've also got the factory plates and will stick with them unless I see something substantially better.