ARB’s Modular Front Bumper Sets a New Standard for Ford Super Duty Protection

ARB’s Full-Size Modular Bumper For the Ford Super Duty

There’s a seemingly endless supply of “off-road” aftermarket accessories for the Ford Super Duty. But as I learned shortly after the purchase of my ‘16 F-250, a good portion of those accessories are absolute garbage for people who actually intend to use their vehicle off the road. This left me looking to ARB, my old Australian standby, as they were the only ones who I trusted to get what I needed for my American-as-apple-pie Ford truck.

Generally, I’m from the school of thought that for what we as overlanders do, you really don’t need to modify your vehicle all that much. Upgrades should be functional and not impede upon the vehicle’s durability, functionality, or reliability. I guess that’s why as I go on, I seem to have more and more ARB gear on my trucks; and it’s taken me a long time to be able to realize, and more importantly, afford it—an ARB kit is not cheap, the MSRP on the full-blown Modular Bumper is $2,600.

But even in their most basic form, full-size trucks aren’t cheap either. Diesel engines alone are roughly an $8,000 option, and we won’t get into the completely unnecessary air-conditioned seats that came equipped on my “I want to look like a wealthy rancher” edition. Being the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought, I wasn’t going to settle for second best when it came to protecting it.

ARB’s modular bumper is in an entirely different class of quality when compared to anything else I could find available for the F-250. Which is to say, it is not made in China from sub-par metals, and it is not made of welded diamond-plate and tube steel like so many of the full-size offerings out there.

The devil is in the details with ARB’s modular bumper, and to appreciate it you have to look close—very close. For example, included as standard are ARB’s very own halogen fog lights, which work with your factory wiring harness from head to toe, with the bumper even including laser-cut holes for the factory Ford fog light harness connectors—no janky zip ties here.

The auxiliary light mounts come pre-drilled with three holes to perfectly mount your ARB Intensity lights, ensuring they stay properly aimed and firmly in place once installed, a detail more seasoned overlanders will appreciate. There’s even a provision to pass through the waterproof Deutsch connector directly behind the pre-drilled holes, and another laser-cut hole to secure the light’s wiring harness. Details.

Stainless bolts are used throughout the bumper’s exterior for a high-quality look that resists corrosion or rust, and ARB’s new Integrit textured powder coat gives it a rough-and-ready look that’s less abrasive than a bed liner, allowing for a more OE appearance. It also has self-cleaning properties, as it’s blended with a synthetic wax. It definitely somehow works, as bugs seem to come off significantly easier, and dirt and mud don’t stick as easily—which is a common downfall of more aggressive textured surfaces. A small bonus.

One of the first things I noticed about this bumper was the precision and perfect appearance of the welds, accomplished with synchro pulse technology. Thanks to that, there’s no splatter beneath the powder coat. You could take off the ARB badge and slap a Ford badge on here and you’d think it came from the factory that way. I guess that experience ARB has gained doing factory bull bars for a variety of top manufacturers (including Toyota, Nissan, and more) has rubbed off.

To ensure this bumper can handle the severe loads associated with winching, they’ve conducted Finite Elemental Analysis (FEA) testing to ensure the bumper is strong where it should be, and not excessively heavy where it doesn’t need to be. My Warn ZEON 12 isn’t the biggest that the bumper can handle (it is designed for winches as large as Warn’s 16.5T), but it’s a perfect fit and sufficient for the weight of the truck—which isn’t as much as you might think. When paired with a set or two of MAXTRAX, there’s almost nothing you won’t be able to self-recover from.

Ford’s factory tow points are retained, and maintain the more-than-capable factory rating, I guess it would have been nice to see a well-designed shackle mount that could handle the loads required. But that’s not ARB’s style due to Australian Design Rules stating that an aftermarket bull bar has to follow the general profile of the vehicle, and cannot have any protrusions. You can thank overseas pedestrian safety laws for that one.

Based on their knowledge of this bumper’s strengths and weaknesses, and the knowledge that comes from ARB actually doing crash testing in Australia, they’ve labelled this bumper airbag compatible. This means it more or less maintains the same crush rate and frontal crash characteristics in a serious accident, and it won’t interfere with the triggering of your airbags.  Some think air bag compliance makes for a weaker bumper that won’t be able to take off-road abuse, but we haven’t found that to be the case.

Some also think that modular construction also sacrifices strength, I’ll tell you that I don’t believe that either. Over the summer, while driving Imogene Pass, I accidentally took a tight turn a little bit too wide while going a little bit too fast (this truck is about 83.2 feet long) and I ran into a mountain, a large mountain.

At this point I was a little bit worried, it stopped me dead in my tracks, and I was expecting significant damage. (I guess the good thing about being modular is that I could have replaced said section). Luckily, the mountain lost and I happened to break said mountain while obtaining a mere flesh wound—a small scratch in the powder coat. I still have that chunk of Imogene.

This isn’t meant to be a fluff piece for ARB—I hope it doesn’t sound as such, because as a journalist it’s my duty to be as impartial as possible. So there were a few issues, mainly to do with installation. I’ll be frank: God forbid you have to do this yourself, and god forbid you have to pay to have someone do it.

Modular construction is—in theory—great. You pay for the stuff you want, and not for the stuff you don’t need, but it took my shop almost four hours to assemble the bumper with the winch, and a few more to get it on, thanks to the seven bolts required on each side of the frame. At almost $100 an hour for quality shop time these days, I really do wish it was ready to go from the crate. I’d suspect that few buy the bumper in its most basic format anyway. To reiterate, there’s nothing wrong with the construction, assembly just takes longer than expected.

There’s only one detail that I will say was overlooked, and that’s the transmission cooler that visibly hangs down beneath the bumper. It’s protected by the factory bumper, but incredibly susceptible to damage in its factory position. I’ve been intending to get some kind of skid plate made to keep it safe. Even hitting a deer or large animal in the wrong place could render the truck useless; I wouldn’t imagine that it would fare well in a collision with a smaller vehicle either.

Even though it took a few extra hours to install, I’m still happy with my bumper and glad that I purchased it. This bumper has already proven its worth, and we’ve taken it on dozens of trips, totaling over 2,000 miles on dirt alone. I’ve been to ARB’s factory in Australia, toured their production lines, spoken with their engineers, and bashed the living hell out of their products in some of the most remote places I could think of—and they’ve never let me down.

[It’s worthy to note that a similar bumper with similar features is also available for full size RAM and Chevy models as well.]