Sorry, this is kind of long winded....
Alright so finally a month and a half after I reported my tail gate bar as taking on water, dieing, and what not...i finally got my replacement bar this week. I had completely forgot that Recon warranties these for a year so when they responded a week later, all I had to provide them with was my order number and a picture of the bar showing what lights were out. I've already deleted the e-mails so I can't remember the time frame exactly but within a week after I sent the picture, they filed my warranty claim and gave me a fedex tracking number and said my replacement should be out in the mail by the end of the week.
That was somewhere between march 19th and 25th I want to say. And of course the end of the week had gone by and I figured being a warranty claim they'd take some time shipping it and gave them an extra week. I think I actually gave them two because I kept on forgetting to send them an e-mail asking what the status of my bar was. So sometime around the beginning of April I remembered to send them an e-mail asking what's up with my bar and to my surprise, a few hours later I had my answer. The reason why it was taking so long for them to ship my bar out was because between the time I received my first one and file my warranty claim, Recon had made an upgrade to their tailgate bars and they were on back order for a few weeks.
So it finally came in this week almost 2 months after the initial e-mail to them and then the fun began.
So the first difference I noticed between the 2nd and 3rd gen light was that it looks like they might have filled the bar with something to help prevent water intrusion. Can't really say and I didn't think of feeling for a weight difference when I had them both on the table. Another difference is all the LEDs are different, might even be a little brighter than the old one. The new bar is also about a 1/4 of an inch longer then the old and of course, neither end is actually sealed so that was the first thing I did before I started swapping them out.
The last two differences which proved to be the fun and a royal pain in my ass was first off, they spread the mounts out further apart to increase stability across the whole bar which is nice and they are using a much stronger double sided tape to hold it on.
At first I didn't realize the mounts were different, didn't notice until I had taken them off the new one, and removed the old bar from it's mounts. so once I noticed I had to take my tailgate off, as that's the only way to be able to remove them really, I proceeded to do so for the first time. Wish I had known it's as heavy as it is, that was a chore removing it and putting it back on. I ended messing up on of the corners of the tailgate unfortunately, not to bad but I will want to get that fixed sometime soon.
As far as installing the new one, it went on exactly the same as the old one but that tape made it a lot more difficult seeing as how the second it touched a surface with just a feathers amount of weight, it stuck. The tape on the old one was a little less sticky and allowed for easy repositioning so you got it right where you want it. I wish I had a buddy out there with me to help line it up just right because the second that tape touched a spot, you had to pull on that sucker to get it off to make an adjustment.
So new bar is on, I'm thoroughly happy with it, might be a touch higher then where I wanted it but oh well, it's still visible and doing it's job.
Now here's a few pictures of a section of the lights to show the difference between the 2nd and 3rd gen bars.
Old one on top and new one on bottom
Old one bottom and new one top
A topside view with new on top and old on bottom. As you can see, in the old style you can actually see the LED bulbs for the I believe red lights and it's an empty tube which allows water to flow around freely. The new one you can't see anything...
