Thanks man, appreciate it! I’m learning as I go and trying to share it with anyone interested! Thanks for commenting.

Excellent comment and I agree completely. I don’t think I was aware of this fact earlier but it’s true. It’s a trade off. There’s definitely plenty of give in the primitive plates. Have already bent up my rear diff skid plate. But I’m sure that helped absorb the impact. Thanks for your input!

Nice! Love that color with the black rims and hood stripe. Also like the autumn green metallic. Geyser blue is a super unique color so drew me to it ultimately.

I think you’re definitely right about those cheese graters 😂. That and the driver side corner at the rear is hanging down too far and could get hung up reversing. Will try and have them angle that upwards more if possible.

I see that now at 1:13 in the video as the car is being lowered off the lift. I would think you could bend that corner up a little. You might need a temporary piece of wood between the car and the plate to help you flex it up. If you have a place to store them, a pair of Rhino ramps is pretty handy for many car repairs. Be careful though, the more you start working on your car yourself the more you'll dislike letting others monkey with it. 🙂@@wildernessnorthwest9604

@@johns6816 Ain’t that the truth! Thanks for your recommendations!

From the sounds of it, getting a divorce might be safer.

That’s awesome man! You won’t be disappointed!

I know for a fact the rear diff skid plate is strong enough to use for jacking the car up according to Primitive Racing. I’m not entirely sure about front skid and how much weight it can stand up to.

I was researching this a little while back, according to Primitive the rear diff skid is good for jacking. However I've seen mixed info on the front skid. Driving Sports TV said the front skid was strong enough to jack up the car (and did it), on some forums I've seen people saying that it isn't good to use it as a jack point because of where the front screws go. I reached out to Primitive themselves and they said that it could be used as a front jacking point *as long as the jack is placed under the rear mounts* (near the OEM front jack point). Hope that helps!

@@LaloMartinez great information, thanks!!!

@@wildernessnorthwest9604 Of course, keep up the great vids!

Definitely want some rock sliders. Talking about them with primitive racing who wants to develop some for forester wilderness. They may borrow my rig to do that. As long as they don’t take too much ground clearance away I’m down!!

@@wildernessnorthwest9604 I completely agree. Just recently purchased my skids from Primitive and asked them about sliders too. Here’s hoping. Their gear is smart and very well made.

@@cheezmo2k rallitek you only lose .5 inches ground clearance. Do you know the loss on the other brands?

@@cheezmo2k yeah i actually prefer the tube style as well

I haven’t measured yet, I’m assuming I lost a quarter inch or more. I will measure when I get a chance and let you know. As far as approach angle, it’s up there almost flush so I don’t think it would be a noticeable loss.

@@wildernessnorthwest9604 thanks! Looking forward to more wilderness vids!

Ok, so I was a bit optimistic on how much ground clearance was lost. No real loss on approach angle, though I do need to measure it officially. It’s really sucked up flush to original bumper so not worried there. One of the weaknesses of the Forester is it’s approach angle. It’s way better than comparable models in segment but it’s also not exceptional by any means so that’s key to not lose there. Bottom of engine skid plate starts at about 11.5”, decreases to 10” at lowest point. CVT lowest point is 9.75”. Rear diff is about 9.6 inches. That means my biggest loss was at rear diff., losing about 1.4” as I was at 11”. I would say count on losing over an inch, but fortunately the biggest loss is a pretty small area on the diff. Really do hate going below 10” on any part of it, but that’s the nature of adding protection. Hope this helps as you decide what to do. I talked to Rallitek about adding inch spacers in addition to my Ironman lift to recover the clearance I lost but they said it would be expensive to do and you’d have to replace the rear control arms. Possible but you’d be looking at near 2k to get that inch back.

@@wildernessnorthwest9604 thank you so much for the detailed reply!!! Definitely something to think about without that additional lift

Nothing that I would have done differently. Those are definitely the three top things to do first. And definitely get recovery boards (I’d even recommend getting 4 instead of two) Just be aware that a two inch lift will give you less than two inches of ground clearance and the skids will also reduce ground clearance so just kind of manage your expectations on that. Next steps for me will be rock sliders, Warn steel winch bumper, and torq locker, which their company is about to release rear diff locker for wilderness model they told me.

No it doesn’t! Nor does it cover gas tanks. Not too concerned about this though. Gas tank skids/full protection would be nice for sure. But what I got really protects what you need on the drive line. It will help you hobble out the trail in case of other damage. My rear diff skid plate already saved me big time. Would have done serious damage without.

@@wildernessnorthwest9604 thank you so much I appreciate the help

What’s on there shouldn’t even be considered a skid plate really. It doesn’t cover the engine and if I had to guess it’s less than 1/8” aluminum. It seemed really soft and thin to me.

@@wildernessnorthwest9604 Good to know. My wilderness is coming next week and I think I may wanna get the good plates on before winter. Thank ya!

@@Scybren congratulations that’s awesome!! What color did you get?

@@wildernessnorthwest9604 Geyser blue! the green was a close second, get halo warthog vibes from it lol

@@Scybren ha! good choice. It was a toss up for me with that green color as well. Both really stand out but the blue is super unique.