Door edge guards are not something you typically think about when you have a off road vehicle. I always thought them as something for passenger cars. My garage has a small extended workshop area on the one side so I am able to park in the garage with the Gladiator. I end up parking as far over as I can since someone else hogs the garage with her Honda. I end up opening my door against the shelving unit and shimming sideways to get out of the Jeep. The door edge gets pressed against the metal and wood of the shelving unit. Eventually the door edge gets chipped and starts to rust. On the other side of the Jeep my passenger doors get opened up into the Honda, no matter how far over I parked someone always needed to cuddle up next to the Jeep with their car. This typically ends up with paint transfer from the Jeep to the Honda. Don't know why I didn't get white paint on the Yellow Jeep, but the yellow showed up on the white. I always ended up having to claybar and polish the side of the Honda. I decided to pick up some door edge guard for the Gladiator to protect the edge and save me some work polishing the Honda.
Tools
Needed:
Tape measure (Cloth type)
Scissors, Snips or a Razor blade.
Parts:
I looked around and a bunch of door edge protectors. Most of them came in some type of peel and stick configuration. I had some left over edging from a project that I worked on where I needed to protect the sharp edge of some metal, but this was two thin to go over the edge of the Gladiator doors and as I found with the metal it tends to pull off if snagged on anything. I found this on Amazon and it had some really good reviews as the quality and fit. The edge guard comes in 5 and 10 meter lengths. The price wasn't that difference between the two, but 5 meters is enough to do all 4 doors so I opted to pick up the 5 meter length. This gives me some extra if I damage a pieces. As you can see by the packaging they really need to work on their conversions 10 meter's is definetly not 32.8 inches (should be feet). The packaging says it comes in Red, White, Black, and Gray. The red is fairly close to the Jeep firecracker red. There are no instructions inside the box, the only instructions are on the box how to cut the door edge guard.
The edge protector is a rubber coated metal U channel with some grip edges on the inside of the U. The edge protector is fairly flexible and will handle about a 2 to 3 inch bend,
As you can see the red is fairly close to the Jeep Firecracker Red. I think it has a little more orange in it than the Jeep color.
Installation:
The doors on the Gladiator and Wrangler are not uniform all the way around. They do have a thicker lip on the bottom of the door. This is where a lot of edge guards do not have enough space to push up and over to provide a good grip on the door.
Measure out the length that you need for each door and cut the edge guard with a knife or sharp scissors. You will need to get in between the metal accordian inside the rubber coating. I used 25 inches for the front doors and 27 inches for the rear doors. I started at the bevel on the top of the door and worked my way around to the bottom.
