I can’t believe LR short sidedness when it comes to sidestep installation. It took me 3 hrs to install them on the truck since the side panels, and front and rear fender pieces had to be removed just to cut a piece of plastic to provide access to frame nutserts needed for installation.you will end up breaking 100% of clips while removing plastic pieces. The mind boggling part is that the area of the side panel that needs to be trimmed is already marked on the inside surface of the side panels. All LR had to do was to make these cutouts accessible from outside and the job would be reduced to 30 min as it would have taken on any wrangler

https://youtu.be/QcUW22bmUoE

 

Totally with you. I saw the instructions and didn’t want to do it myself due to the fear of scratching side panels. So gave it to a mechanic and it took 5 hours for him. He put a newbie mechanic and hence 5 hours. Glad he didn’t charge me for an expert per/hour charge

 

Couldn’t agree more. I’ve installed side steps on five of our Wranglers and none took more than a half hour. It took three hours on the Defender. It seems like an easy design change to make the Defender’s easier.

 

not to boast, but it is possible to do without actually removing those trim pieces... I installed mine without having to pull out a single clip. There was a lot of swearing and frustration however. If I was to do it again I probably would just pull everything and replace the clips.

 

I thought about locating the nutserts and cutting the plastic from the bottom side but since the kit came with the plastic clips I figured I’d follow the instructions. LR should have studied wrangler and bronco and learn from the modular design.