Mission Accomplished: 2015 Warrior Jeep JKU with 4.5″ BDS Suspension

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I’m writing this as a long-term review of the 4.5" short arm, BDS suspension as installed on my 2015 JKU, also known as The Warrior Jeep. The Jeep was a showroom new 2015 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Hard Rock Edition.

The BDS 4.5 Inch Short Arm suspension was installed March 3rd, 2016, and since that time I have put over 40k off road miles on it. Everything from hard core rock crawling in Moab, Utah to high-speed desert running in Johnson Valley California, and everything in between. My "shake down" for this suspension was the Transamerica Trail whereby I ran East Coast to West Coast almost entirely off road over the course of 26 days. The BDS suspension has taken me up the Pan American Highway, countless Jeep Jamboree events, and the Rubicon Trail without missing a beat.

Now that the Jeep has hit the 60k miles mark on the odometer (yes, only 20k miles was done on the streets its generally trailered to and from events) I figured it was time to chime in and let the world know my unsolicited, uncompensated, unbiased, unfiltered thoughts on the BDS suspension system and what its condition is today.

The suspension has truly been beat on, and its just starting to show some wear. Just for perspective I am on my 9th set of shocks. The coils are sagging about a half inch, the poly bushings that BDS provided are starting to show some wear. I have inspected every weld, every part, bracket, and bolt of the suspension and aside from some bangs, scuffs, and scrapes, its just as solid as it was when installed. Every time I had an issue with something, I always inspected the suspension first, I began to realize that the BDS suspension was never a problem, it was always some extraneous widget that was broken or damaged. I cannot find words to express just how incredibly tough and reliable the BDS suspension has been.

What would I do different? Nothing. Period.

David Phillips

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