I consider side steps to be most useful to prevent door dings in parking lots. But these factory side steps don't protrude past the plumb line of the door edge, and thus don't do anything to protect the vehicle.
Can you move these out? If not, does anybody make a bracket to achieve that end, or are there any aftermarket bars that would do the trick?
My rig is a 1999 SE (not a 1999.5, which seems to complicate parts questions...)
