F150 Bumpers

Finding the Right F150 Bumper

There's more than a few bumper options out there for the F150s, and narrowing down to the one that looks perfect on your truck can be a pain. The first thing you need to do is figure out what you're doing with your truck and whether you want to put a premium on utility or approach angle and what kind of look you want for your truck.

Boxed vs. Tubular Steel Bumpers
It's an age-old debate, and it'll continue on for the next millennia. Which is better, boxed steel utility bumpers or tubular Baja-style bumpers? The answer is neither. Neither type of bumper is inherently better than the other, but they are each designed for slightly different purposes and one may be better than the other depending on what you're doing with your truck.

Tubular Baja-Style Bumpers are probably some of the most popular bumpers for the F150s, and they're a sure-fire way to get your truck a mean desert-runner look. Made out of a tubular steel frame with bolted-down These bumpers usually feature a front skid plate to help protect your truck's oil pan and most help to improve approach angle, which is not great with the factory bumper and splash shield. Most tubular bumpers come loaded down with off-road light mounts so that your F150 gets immense forward-facing lighting power. Tubular bumpers do have a few downsides, the biggest one is winch capability. Due to the angles of their skid plates, many tubular Baja bumpers can't mount a winch at all, and even the ones that can have fairly limited amounts of room behind them, which limits your choices and can result in frame horn trimming. While some tubular bumpers keep your F150's factory hooks, many delete them and don't come with clevis mounts as a replacement. If you prize trail-riding ability and approach angles over raw utility, then a tubular baja-style bumper is likely your best choice.

Boxed Steel Bumpers are big, bad, and built for outright utility. Made from thick steel panels that are usually internally gusseted, these bumpers are tough enough for basically any job. Boxed steel bumpers are perfect for doing work at the job site and off-road. These bumpers often feature winch mounts that can handle large winches and many come with additional clevis mounts for any of your other pulling needs. While boxed steel bumpers can offer a slight improvement in approach angle, it's not going to be anywhere near as dramatic as tubular bumpers. Most boxed steel bumpers also include some sort of off-road light mount, but many tubular bumpers provide more real estate for off-road lighting, and a boxed steel bumper that can fit a massive LED light bar is fairly rare. Still, if you're a lot more concerned about doing work or pulling your buddies out of trouble (since your truck will never, ever get stuck) than high-speed desert or trail running, then a boxed steel bumper may be you're willing ticket.

To winch, or not to winch
Getting a bumper with a winch is all well and good, but there are a few things to keep in mind before going a route with a winch. First, you'll be pretty limited on winch options with some bumpers. Pretty much every bumper manufacturer does their winch mounts in a different way, and even bumpers from the same manufacturer can have different clearances for winches. Second, EcoBoost F150s are going to have to take care when it comes to winches. Due to the position of the winch plate in most aftermarket bumpers, adding a winch can interfere with the stock intercooler position and/or airflow. If you have an EcoBoost truck and you're looking to add a winch, take a look at Full-Race's high-mount intercoolers. 3). Winches and winch mounts can interfere with other modifications. Winch mounts and winches take up a lot a real-estate in the front end, and any modification you're looking to add that may have parts and components in the same area will have some trouble. We found out the hard way on our 2015 Desert Runner Project Truck when we tried to install a Whipple heat exchanger with our ADD winch bumper.