LED Lightbar! I had the same concerns after being in the middle of nowhere VA in the dark. Pick your price point and go for it. I went Rough Country as I couldn't stomach the price of Rigid. I'm happy.

 

I am over 25K sometimes. I need a diet.

 

I like the look of those LED lights, but have never tried using them. Back in the day.....late 70's, early '80's....when I was doing a lot of night driving across eastern MT, WY, and the western Dakotas, I had a pair of 7" aircraft landing lights on the front of my rig, and now seem to find anything else lacking!
But then, I dont do much night driving any more, and it seems like when I do, there is too much traffic to warrant installing an expensive lighting system, because one would get very little actual use out of them.

 

I like that light bar, its really simple. I would like the option of Amber lights for contrast on those dark snowy nights and the option of turning some of the LEDs off when not needed. I think I remember seeing something like that on Amazon.

 

It looked and sounded so good. Me, not family, wife family in Europe only, so just the two of us. Gave wife free hand on the motorcoach to get what she wanted. I said gimme 500+ hp diesel and a rear tag axle, you do the rest.

I ordered a custom built garage or a 28 ft box trailer to haul my Jeep, tools and stuff for my dream of off roading across the US. Thinking that would be fun and had been off roading since the 60's. Thinking it would more fun to not drive 1200++ mi, spank trails and rocks for a week then drive home after staying in a motel. Now I could bring wife and our dogs.

45' motorcoach lives and STAYS on IMPROVED roads, better if its Interstate. So now all I accomplished is get closer to the trails and yes instead of days of travel it was only hours each day.

Take away: The dream did not ever really materialize, plus driving 45'+28' made me about 76' on road travel length which is Interstate length. Even '45 is 2 lane at the worst.

The the mental: What this old cowboy, who grew up on a ranch, raised horses and had spent most of his life outdoors as much as possible thought life was going to be like inside a '45 foot box, even with 3 slides. Hell, I was used to RARELY taking a pizz inside my own home, spend my time on a John Deere and a big chainsaw in my hand. Shooting gun at my targets on my property...got no idea what the hell got into my head.

So glad I was able to leave that mistake behind...don't get me wrong, now have a truck camper that slides into the bed of my F 350 and wife and 5 dogs lived in it happily for 3 mo when we were having some work down on the ranch house. Last year we traveled about 3 mo's worth of time in our camper and loved every min. But I got my John Deere and chainsaw to come home to...

 

Thanks for the insight. I do understand. Have fun.........

 

The upper bar is a Ridgid combo drive. The outside led's cover the full width treeline to treeline so deer or moose don't sneak up on you, the mid section is like an aircraft spotlight, it's aimed right down the centre of the road, amazing distance. Clear nights it's over a mile. The lower light is similar idea but a fog/Amber setup, not for distance just width and covering the road without focusing too high into the fog. Was up in the mountains this week, insane fog, you could literally see the fog icing up and growing on the truck, the light bar was awesome. Best fog range I've ever had.

Truck did awesome these 5 days, total of 1,400 miles. Love this truck.

 

Hoseclamp... the front of your truck looks like the galley of a Naval submarine with all that tubing and stainless flashing everywhere.


What do you suppose it would cost your insurance company to replace just the first twelve inches of your truck?

 

LOL!!!! Not sure on cost, but it would be far less to replace the front end equipment and cosmetics than intercoolers and exchangers behind the grille with no protection if I hit a moose. Few years back one employee hit a moose, 35mph, new '12 f150 Eco boost. Was almost a write off from the EB component replacement. All of my trucks have some form of grille protection now

 

To add, not just for cost, for safety also. A hit 60 miles in the bush can disable a truck, -40f would make that scary. We have systems in place to keep reaction time quick, but you never know. Added protection still may have damage, but you'll still get home.

 

A long time ago I added up my out of pocket replacement costs for the first 12 inches of my truck, and came up with around $5,000.00. This would be over and above what the insurance book would otherwise determine as the replacement cost for the first foot of the truck as equipped by the factory. And this is with a stock bumper, and no fancy grille guard or fancy LED light bars like you have, which weren't even invented 15 years ago. So I can't imagine what your first foot of replacement costs would be.

What racked up the costs of my first foot was the Warn 15K winch, the HSLA steel hidden mount cradle, the 2.5" rectangular tubed front receiver hitch, the laser cut 1/2" side plates that mount that receiver hitch, the Banks Technicooler intercooler, the new updated factory radiator with the OTW cooler inside (my OEM cooler didn't have this), the new larger OTA transmission cooler, the twin electric supplemental fans and aluminum shroud close coupled to the OTA cooler, the Warn light bar (with no lights attached), the updated OEM headlights and marker/signal lights, all the scoops and ducting added to direct air to the power steering and OTA cooler that would otherwise be blocked by Ford's older front dam design (prior to 2002)... it just all added up to a ridiculous amount of money, with no readily discernible difference to the front at all. It looks stock, but yet it would cost me sooo much more to be made whole again in the event of a collision.

I've often thought about requesting a rider on the policy for just the first twelve inches of the truck. Heaven help me if I ever hit a deer, let alone a moose like you have running around up north.

 

That's some serious hidden upgrades! My bull bar, lights, reinforced frame mounts, maybe $4,000 total. No question if I hit something there will be less damage to the factory components than without, not sure how much, but I'm less likely needing help getting home.

 

Hoseclamp, I have one question. When I used to run up north.... Montana, Dakotas, Saskachewan, etc. I would many times run into freezing fog and my old school aircraft landing lights would stay hot enough to defrost themselves. How do the LED's do in this situation? Seeing that you are from Beautiful BC, I figure you might have some experience!

 

So far no issue with them freezing up when I'm using them. When driving down Sunday the frost was growing everywhere and made some scary noises on the three antennas I have, they would build up and start whistling like a unit bearing was going on one side and I had rocks stuck between the caliper and rotor on the other side, then the ice would break off and all was quiet for 3 minutes. Repeat. They did get covered in a layer of ice and road cheese on the way home last night, pulled into a Tim bottoms for my 6th 20oz dark roast lol, but was still daylight so I wasn't using them.

 

You should have a rider for it. Many times, you won't get paid for it otherwise.