We received the front and rear trail doors for our Jeep JK from ExtremeTerrain.com to perform an honest review and that is exactly what we will do here.
The doors we received can be purchased individually for a 2 door JK (just the front) or a JKU or 4 door JK (front and rear). They are compatible with any Jeep Wrangler JK models from 2007 to 2018.
Here are the links to the front and the back units we tested. The doors came very well packaged with instructions and all the extra parts inside individual plastic wrapping. The instructions included were very detailed and easy to follow.
The front doors won’t include the mirrors shown on the pictures, you need to either use your current mirrors or get some aftermarket ones. If you have a Jeep with any electronic on the mirror, like tilting, anti fogging, etc, we suggest you get some cheap aftermarket ones instead of trying to disassemble your mirrors to install in these trail doors. We found some replacement units on Amazon, but you can also find some with a bit better quality on Extreme Terrain‘s website for the driver and passenger side.
Installation
The installation is pretty straight forward, but first you need to remove the current doors. We suggest you get somebody with you when removing the current doors from your jeep, sometimes it can get stuck once you finally get them to move up from the hinge, they can get up and out abruptly and can be hard to control.
Once you finished removing the doors the installation of the new Adventure Doors turned out to be pretty easy. We simply inserted the doors on the hinges and connected the straps for the desirable aperture angle we wanted. Then we installed the lock mechanism and aligned it so it properly locks. Lastly, we installed the mirrors support and installed the new mirrors to the support.
Quality
The finishing of the doors is very good, the quality of the paint seems very sturdy. With a textured black powder coat finish. The construction is made our of 1.25″ Diameter Outer Tubing, 1/8″ Steel Reinforcement Plates and 3/16″ Latch Mounting Tab.
Once you properly adjust the position of the lock mechanism, the door closes and opens in a very solid manner.
On the trail the design provided very good visibility. The doors didn’t rub with the frame of the Jeep at all (One of my concerns). We noticed a bit of noise on the trail, but that is because I need to adjust two of the locks a bit better. Two of the doors close smoothly, but the other two need to be adjusted. I believe the rattling noise will go away once I get this corrected. The height of the door is perfect, and the lower position of the mirrors works very well, especially on the trail. Finally, the look of the jeep is awesome with these doors and we enjoyed the trail a lot more, while feeling like there was nothing in between us and the terrain.
Comparison against cheap trail doors
We got the opportunity to chat with a friend who bought some cheap trail doors on Ebay. He shared with us a few details he noticed that made a pretty big difference compared to the Adventure doors. First off, the cheap Ebay door’s construction is much lighter and made of a weaker metal. The lock mechanism is not adjustable so our friend needs to move the factory lock from his current door in order to align the door. Which is a pain, once he wants to go back to using his regular doors. He also mentioned the hinges didn’t include bolts to keep the doors in position.