Best Jeep Tire Carriers

The stock Jeep tire carrier is a great boon to owners, providing easy access to a fifth wheel and tire in emergency situations. However, there’s only so much potential out of a stock assembly. If you try to add a heavier, beefier off-road wheel and tire, you could risk damaging your tailgate. What usually happens when you overload a tire carrier, is the interior welds break and everything sags. The worst case is more than a couple of welds fail and the entire unit falls, resulting in a bent and mangled tailgate. Odds are this will happen on a more raucous trail, jostling and bouncing the spare tire to the point of breaking the carrier.

As you’d expect, the best Jeep tire carriers are substantially stronger than the stock versions. This is usually accomplished by having stronger hinges and/or reinforced welds on the carrier portion. Of course the main reason you’re looking at tire carriers in the first place is to safely transport larger tire and wheel combos, but the cut out on the stock bumper is only suitable for certain tire sizes. This doesn’t mean you have to change out your bumper as well. Aftermarket tire carriers raise the mounting point for the tire to accommodate the cut out. There are also units available that swing out separately from the tailgate to make swapping out your spare even easier.