Those with at least moderate experience in off roading how many times have you said to yourself, "Whew, I'm glad I had that bumper hoop!"

I'm starting my shopping for a front plate bumper and I much much prefer the no hoop appearance. I think it's a cleaner and less cluttered appearance. I'm more than willing to sacrifice a certain measure of protection ditching the hoops. I'd really only consider getting them if the people that have put them to use have had more than one or two occurrences of them actually being useful.

Would I be giving up significant practical use by foregoing the hoops altogether?

The optimal number is actually proven to be 2 hoops...

Kidding aside, you won't see much added protection offroading other than by tree branches maybe. The only other use is body damage or radiator protection driving down the road from deer.

zero hoops, zero needed hoops

1 and 1. Strictly for aesthetic purposes thus far. Haven't encountered an actual legitimate need/use for it so far, other than having a place to rest my elbow when I'm standing around in front of the truck..

If you have a winch, you'll use it 99% of the time you need to recover from the front. The other 1%, you'll manage to figure something out.


edit: I'm dumb. I thought this was about recovery points.

Zero times.

The only hoop I've ever had was for protecting my winch. See attached image. Mine was the XJ.

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If you wheel tight forested trails the light protection hoops can come in handy, the rocks are often wet and muddy and you slide off. I've smashed my front corner light 3 times on the 1st gen. Not yet on the 4th gen though.

That's true. In Colorado, I've more often found my rear sliding into rocks so I made my custom rear bumper with hoops for the rear/side lights, which you can see in this picture.

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Once or twice I was angled a bit funky and nicked a tree, would have cracked a headlamp were it not for the hoop.

hoops are great to deflect deer., sometimes help with errant branches.
Most often, I use mine to sit on when under the hood

I have one and only because I bought it used. They don't have much benefit at all and I've never had any headlight damage even on narrow Colorado trails with branches smacking everything. I know some people think of them as a spot to hook a strap but that's always a bad idea.

ive learned the hard way that i need pushbars on the side to protect the quarter panels/windows. have yet to break anything on the front.

Elan, I'm in the same boat. Thinking I'm not going to put myself in enough situations to justify needing the extra armor. And I prefer the lower profile look if I can get away with the loss of some protection.

Downsides I see to no hoops:
1. possibility of missing out on protection from deer. Just had my headlight/fender/bumper mashed by a South Dakota deer at 70mph. But I've got insurance to fix stuff in those rare cases.
2. loss of protection from branches, etc. I'm thinking about making some kind of removable mount that I could install for forest trekking that will allow for mounting a cable riser to the roof rack - then remove it when I'm done.
Something that mimics the function of this one for Jeeps
Except I'll want it to extend forward and out a bit to cover the corner of my 4Runners exposed headlights on the corners.

Luke at 4x4 Labs is building me a 4th gen front bumper - he's working on adapting his excellent 5th gen design to the 4th gen (already sold the first few, I think). He's making provision for center hoop, I think, but I'm leaning toward going sans hoops for reasons mentioned.

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Maybe a little off topic but I am new here and cannot post new threads yet. Somewhat related. Did the 2003 Limited ever come with a factory hoop type bumper? Mine came with one that looks like a factory option but I have never seen anothe truck with that style. It is pretty wide, goes from just inside the highbeam lenses. It is plastis and mounts right to the bumper inside the fogg lights. Painte silver just like the rack. Just asking since someone hit mine and was wondering if it would be a hard thing to find. I would post a pic but I am not sure how to do that yet. If this is an inappropriate hijack I am sorry. But any help would be appreciated. Love the truck and want to keep it looking nice!