At the 2009 SEMA show I saw a new company offering a few skid plates and bumpers. Nothing-new right, after all there are dozens of such product offerings on the market. Well, what made me stop and take notice is that all of their plates were aluminum with a notable attention to detail, they looked solid and robust yet they were light enough to pick up in one hand. Their approach is focused on providing effective protection without adding too much weight, preserving suspension performance, vehicle handling and fuel economy.
On top of that they had a rack of brochures outlining their products available for specific vehicles including Land Rover, Jeep, Toyota and a few others. Not only do they make a skid plate or two for several vehicles within each brand, they cover each vehicle with protection from bumper to bumper including the bumpers, complete protection systems.
Fast forward a couple of months and ASFIR, which has been making their products in Israel for 25 years, opened an office and warehouse in the US. Great, new products for the US market, new skid plates, new bumpers – wait, not so fast. Do it right the first time or don’t do it at all! ASFIR has spent close to a year bringing in their product and test fitting them to US versions of popular 4×4 vehicles before launching it for sale to consumers.
ASFIR took the time and dedicated their attention to ensuring that each of their products will bolt directly on to the vehicles they are intended for. The issue they needed to overcome is that not every vehicle model is the same in each country. This is usually a result of DOT laws and standards or popular vehicle features from one market to the next. Differences in engines, emissions systems and even left or right hand drive can mean differences in construction and subsequently the mounting of aftermarket parts like skid plates and bumpers.
They worked with individual owners, local dealerships and local 4×4 clubs to get a US example of each vehicle they make plates and bumpers for. They fit each plate to ensure proper fit, made changes where necessary and sent any needed changes back to the production engineers. All of their parts use existing holes so that there is no drilling and many of them use brackets that absorb stress from being transferred directly to the frame during impacts.
Current offerings cover: Chevy 2500 Diesel, Ford F250, 350, 450 and 550, Jeep JK and TJ, Grand Cherokee and Commander, Land Rover Discovery I, II and III, Land Rover Defender, Toyota FJ Cruiser, Land Cruiser 100 and the Tacoma.
www.asfir4x4.com (877) 4XASFIR, (877) 492-7347
