2025 Jeep Gladiator JD Power Win! Wrangler 4xe Milestone and Top Off-Road Gear Tips
Buckle up for another high-octane episode of the Jeep Talk Show! 💥 Join hosts Greg and Tony as they dive into the latest Jeep news, including the **Jeep Gladiator’s JD Power 2025 Initial Quality Study win** for mid-size pickups! 🏆 Is the Gladiator a true Jeep? We debate its reliability, sales, and the new **Dark Sky Edition**. Plus, we celebrate the **Jeep Wrangler 4xe’s 250,000-unit production milestone**! 🚗⚡️ 🔧 **Trail Prep 101**: Learn essential recovery gear tips, the difference between tow points vs. recovery points, and why you should NEVER skimp on trail prep. From winches to skid plates, we’ve got you covered! 🛠️ 🔥 **Fun Jeep Facts**: Ever heard of the Jeep-in-a-crate myth? We separate fact from fiction! 🕵️♂️ Plus, we answer viewer questions (send yours to jeeptalkshow.com/contact) and discuss recalls affecting Grand Cherokees and Dodge Durangos. 💬 **Join the Jeep Family**: – Drop a **5-star rating** and review on your favorite podcast platform! – Follow us on social media and join our newsletter for exclusive Jeep updates. – Connect with us on Discord to plan your next adventure, like the upcoming **Rubicon trip**! 🏞️ 🔔 **Subscribe** for more Jeep talk, trail tips, and off-road adventures! Got a question or idea? Hit us up at jeeptalkshow.com/contact. Keep it Jeep, and we’ll see you on the trail! 🌄 #JeepTalkShow #JeepGladiator #JDPower #Wrangler4xe #OffRoadTips #JeepLife Rev up your engines, Jeep lovers— the Jeep Talk Show is here to take you on a wild ride! For 15 years, we’ve been the ultimate pit stop for Jeep enthusiasts, delivering off-road thrills, insider tips, and a whole lotta Jeep passion. With a powerhouse crew of hosts and team members, we’re dropping five action-packed episodes every week to fuel your Jeep obsession! Buckle up for our fan-favorite Chic Chat, a women-centric, women hosted episode that’s all about empowering female Jeepers. It’s the perfect space for women to dive into the world of Jeeps and off-roading, hosted by fearless ladies who live for the trail. But that’s just the start—we’ve got over 1,200 episodes waiting to rev up your day, whether you’re tearing down the highway, mowing the lawn, or pumping iron at the gym. Watch us on video or listen audio-only—your call, your adventure! Join the Jeep Talk Show family and become part of the ultimate Jeep community! Jump into our Discord chat at jeeptalkshow.com/discord, support us on Patreon for ad-free episodes at www.patreon.com/jeeptalkshow, or catch our live Round Table every Tuesday at 7:30 PM CT via Zoom (https://jeeptalkshow.com/roundtable, password: jeep). Stay in the loop with our newsletter at https://jeeptalkshow.com/newsletter and follow the action on Instagram @jeeptalkshow (instagram.com/jeeptalkshow). Head to https://jeeptalkshow.com to explore our world of Jeep madness, subscribe, and let us make your day a little more rugged and a lot more fun. Ready to roll with us? Let’s hit the trails together!#JeepTalkShow #JeepLife #OffRoad
audio is time for another Jeep talk show, a flagship episode.
(Explosion)
into a show before I realized we weren’t recording.(…) And then I just have to have this long pause and go guys. And it’s usually when I’ve had two or three people on his host song, you know, guys, I’m sorry. Uh, I wasn’t recording. And then, you know, you get all the hateful stares and what’s going on. And I’ll say, yeah, good practice though.
(…)
Not so this time. So on tonight’s episode, uh, you remember JD powers, right? You remember JD powers and all their reviews and awards and well,(…) the Jeep gladiator is on their list.(…) And I think it’s a good list.(…) I don’t think JD powers does bad lists. I guess they could. Uh, and uh, you know, the same company that built 4 million Jeep XJs, that’s a Cherokee, but you can’t just say Cherokee anymore. Cause it could be the, that new piece of crap that they have. Uh, but the Jeep XJs is boasting 250,000 of these Jeeps hang in there and find out what Jeeps were talking about.
(…)
So hi guys, it’s Greg, Platinum drive train works here with Tony. Um, it seems to me like the JD power thing sticks. So I had the most from a lot of those older car commercials, the truck commercials, you know, where our trucks ranks, you know, this level, JD power for comfort and quality and style. And it’s like, I was, I think it was a pair of like old school machinist calipers, the trophy that they actually give you. Remember that had the little kind of gold or brass base and it had those golden, I think they were calipers or something, some kind of machinist, it’s a measure measuring tool or something. Yeah. And I thought,
(…)
before these commercials, when I was that age and I started paying attention to it, it’s like, I had never heard of it before. And I haven’t heard of it since. It’s like, are they like consumer reports or what? How does that work? Like, is it like getting a Michelin star for your restaurant? You have to call the JD power up and be like, Hey, come by the plant. We want to show you our new truck or our new Jeep. You know, like somebody getting paid for those reviews. I don’t know. I want to read this thing, the story we’re getting ready to talk about here in a bit. Uh, I thought to myself, you know, gladiator hasn’t been doing very well in sales.(…) And, and I find it strange that there’s a story about, uh, the gladiator and it’s won a JD powers award.
(…)
I’m not saying JD powers pays or it gets paid to play, but I’m wondering if they get paid to play.
(…)
It’s definitely a lingering question.
(…)
Now don’t get me wrong. I love my gladiator. I think it’s a wonderful vehicle, but sales aren’t doing well. And, uh, there’s a lot of pushback from people about the gladiator. I mean, some people don’t even consider it a Jeep, uh, because it’s not a Wrangler, you know? And, uh, I don’t agree with that at all. I love the gladiator. And you know, I’ve never had a traditional Wrangler Jeep. I mean, we got one, my wife has a TJ, which I personally think is better than the, uh, the JK or the JL. I mean, that’s your traditional Wrangler. Yeah. Sish. Yeah. Well, I mean, uh, I guess the CJ could be argued as a, as more traditional and even the YJ, but I think the TJ was a better vehicle than the CJ and the YJ. And then I think it’s, yeah. And I think it’s still better.
(…)
The thickness of the metal and all that stuff, uh, the JK got thin. The JL certainly is thin metal. They’re great vehicles. I just think the TJ is, is a more true Jeep Wrangler.
(…)
I would, I would agree wholeheartedly on that one. Yeah. I just, uh, that was like, they’re just nice vehicles,(…) but it has to be a standard. Don’t get all those craptastic automatics that came in those DJs. Those things were horrible. All right. So we’re going to talk about the gladiator dark sky edition. Do you remember, uh, the, uh, uh, falling skies, falling skies, uh, series? Yes. Yes. When I read this, I thought, oh, one fall, the skies, there’s aliens and the earth takeover. No, no, this, this is dark sky edition. It’s what it sounds like. It sounds like the intro to an alien movie or something. So this was introduced on May 21st, 2025, uh, this year, this model adds value and capability to the open air pickup earning high marks in the JD power 2025 us initial quality study.
(…)
So the Jeep later year earned top spots in the mid-size pickup segment, JD powers a study that we just mentioned, uh, initial quality study announced on June 26th, 2025.(…) This award measures new vehicle quality based on owner reported problems during the first 90 days. Read that again.(…) Owner reported problems during the first 90 days. You got a brand new. Not reporting it. Got a brand new Jeep. Are you, are you going to have a problem within the first 90 days? Do you think?
(…)
Oh yeah. I mean, yeah, you could, you could, I think there was a fair amount. I know the, for a fact when they first brought out the jails and the JTs they had just like with the JKs, they had a while where they were sorting stuff out, you know, bugs for this, bugs for that. Um, I like how it, it’s, it’s the ones that are owner reported. So what happens if they don’t report it like to the dealership?
(…)
How does that, how many of those slipped through the cracks where they were just fixed and not done as a dealer warranty thing? Well for the award, I don’t think it has to make sense. I think it’s just an account.
(…)
If the count is zero to the count is zero or maybe some people or out of the five guys in the room tell you that you’re handsome. I mean, you know, you’re not going to stop and ask the fifth guy what he thinks. Oh, I draw the line when men start telling me. Careful I answer that.(…) Wait a minute, Greg. Especially, especially in the Bucky’s bathroom. I get the hell out of there really quick. I zip up when I’m getting coffee.
(…)
So, uh, yeah. So the first 90 days of ownership, the gladiator
excelled in seven out of the 10 problem categories, including driving experience, infotainment. Again, not a real, uh, not a real word, uh, and exterior outperforming competitors in its class. I wonder if that would be like the, what is it? The Maverick, the Ford Maverick is a little truck. Uh, yeah, I’m trying to figure out what would be the class for that. There’s not a lot of mid-sized trucks. Yeah.(…) Are they calling it a pickup or are they calling it a crossover sport? You tell like what class would that technically be? I guess pickup. I think it’s a small truck is what the mid-sized pickup. Um, so, uh, anyway,
(…)
keeps highlighting the gladiators reliability and appeal among mid-size. Well, it says right here, mid-sized pickup buyers, uh, for more detail, you can visit, uh, uh, AD power.com. So, uh, actually you can go over there and read that. I didn’t read it, but you can go over there and read it. Uh, Greg, anybody else that’s a view in this video here on YouTube or a rumble, uh, go over there and the comments, let us know what you find out, but it’s eyes pickup. I think that that’s what you could call the gladiator.
(…)
All right. So here’s one for you. Production milestone. The Jeep runger four by E reached a production milestone with 250,000 units rolling off the Toledo assembly, uh, flex line, uh, complex. Yeah. Complex line reporting Stellantis multi energy strategy.
(…)
250,000. It’s like, it’s like a quarter of a million.
(…)
Yeah. Most of the stuff I’ve heard people like people that own them and you know, like comments that I’ve seen and observations made, they’re not that impressed with them. Well, you know, it’s funny. Okay. We’ve got a, like, if you’re on our round table tomorrow, you’ll probably get a chance to talk to Travis. Uh, Travis doesn’t have it anymore, but he had a four by, you got it new and he loved it. Uh, and it actually saved him a fuel mileage, even though it only has like a 23 or 30 mile range, uh, on the batteries. Uh, it made a difference for him. Uh, he was getting like, uh, only 30 mile range. Like, what are you going to do with that? Well, he said it was getting him upwards of 500 miles to a tank of fuel.(…) Uh, and I think it’s amazing if you can go over 180.
(…)
I get, I think mine, I think I get about 260, but my skid plates all smashed. My skid plates all smashed up. So my tank doesn’t hold its full amount. It’s like two or three gallons shy of what it should hold. Yeah. I think the gladiator, I think the gladiator gets about two 50, two 60,(…) uh, the, uh, it’s 18 gallon tank. The, uh, the XJ, uh, God, what is it a little over 200 to 15 maybe, uh, in it. Uh, so again with the tail wind going downhill. Oh yeah. Yeah. Uh, with a big fan attached to the back.
(…)
So I’m making fun of this. I mean, I have heard a lot of good things about the four by E and I think it is engineered very nice. I do not like the idea of having multiple redundant, um, power plants. I think it’s a bad idea.(…) And I think it makes the vehicle overly complex and it is a stop measure. That’s yeah.(…) The extra complexity of it’s what kills it for me. Yeah. So, and there’s a lot, there’s a lot more weight associated with it. And the other problem I have with it is why do you put a 2.0 in there, put in a 3.6, you know, give it some, some, uh, good horsepower and it’s in all the rest of the jeeps. Uh, I mean, I’m sure there’s a technical reason for it, but, um, and make it, you want to add on the battery stuff to it. That’s fine, but, but put it with a three six and make sure that the thing will run perfectly fine when the battery system is dead. Uh, because I think that’s going to happen a lot. That’s huge. Yes. Make it, and I’m not saying it won’t cause I don’t know, uh, but make sure that they’re, they’ll run a separate. And then, uh, that way when the batteries do go dead, you can continue driving that three six around and just carrying the weight of the dead batteries. It’s like carrying, carrying it at Eddle Eddle on top of the station wagon.
(…)
Did you see how Chevy did it for the new zero one Corvettes? No. So the ZRE or ZRX one, they’ve got a different name for it, but they added a supplemental hybrid style front wheel drive option to the new ZR1s that adds like hundreds of horsepower. Like it, it’s, it’s crazy. Oh, and this is the way to go for the future. It turns it into an all wheel drive when you engage the thing. So, but that’s like serious high performance stuff. It’s, it’s, I don’t know how that would help you. Like if you were actually trying to track the car, which would be comparable to what we’re doing with Jeep. So when we go off road, I guess if it were a grocery getter, runabout type setup, the four B would probably be less concerning for me, but for wheeling purposes,(…) I, that’s a hard pass. I wouldn’t do it. Just just me though. Let me throw this at you. Let me throw this at you. And you know about this stuff. Let me, this is the way I’ll look at it. If they had a power plant, doesn’t have to be a battery. Doesn’t have to be a storage device to be a fusion generator for all I care. Just creates a massive amount of electricity. And if, if you could get a thousand miles out of it, or if it’s like an aircraft carrier and you got to refuel it every five years,
(…)
wonderful. Now let’s take, you got lots of electricity, lots of power available to you. Now you put a motor, electric motor on each wheel.
(…)
So that’s what they do with the Tesla’s. So if you want a locker,(…) you just have to synchronize the motors for all four tires.(…) And, and then when you don’t want a locker, that one will spin independent of the other one, but you can still get power to it. Or it can just be rear wheel or just front wheel. And the amount of instant torque that you get out of that, you have to tone it down because you’re going to be starting to twist components. I know that they twist titanium driveshafts with electric motors. Now.(…) So, I mean, you literally, I could see a situation where you would literally have to sign a waiver. So in case you broke your neck or pour an aorta during,
(…)
yeah, during acceleration,(…) accelerating. Yeah.(…) Because you have this instant power and instant torque that is, and it’s so much more efficient than internal combustion engine and internal combustion engines will never be as inefficient as efficient as an electric engine. Electric is the future.
(…)
It is. It is. It just needs a sound generator because the electric is never going to sound as good. Sticking the little speakers under the ass into the Jeep. So it sounds like exhaust when you’re going. They’ve already got that. But the torque off road, all that stuff, it’s going to be so much better with the electric. Uh, and it’ll be very, very touchy too. You got to turn it down for off-roading because you don’t want to launch that thing in the air.
(…)
I’m too old school, man. I, I, I enjoy the idea of the internal combustion engine. I like the ability to, you know, tweak it, play with it, customize it. It’s, it’s not like, it’s not cookie cutter. And if you start doing the electric, which I’m sure there’s guys out there for some of these, like the Tesla plaids and some of the other high end hyper, you know, fully electric cars and they’re racing them, you know, they’ve got ways of doing things, but for your average consumer, that’s not really going to be the, you know, most accessible of stuff. I wouldn’t think so.(…) I know I saw several years ago, I think, and this goes back because it was on one of the forums. There was a guy that built a rock crawling buggy and he was West coast out there somewhere in the desert. And this thing had hydraulic cylinders to raise and lower basically booms that he had his wheels and tires attached to. And he had hydraulic motors. He stayed level chains like in a, yeah, he stayed level and the wheels would go pickup, do this. Plus, he can telescope them in and out. Oh really? Yeah. Do this. Yeah. I think he had like 38 inch TSLs or something on it. I think they had a little diesel engine in it. I think they took him out behind a rock and the way we shot him.
(…)
That thing was so crazy. You know, it was like, just, and it was all home built and the way he put it all together. It was so long that it worked. He had to go slow too because he was manually articulating the rig. It was very, very slow. It’s not something you’re getting anywhere in a hurry, but I don’t know where we’re at to it. A lot of hydraulic hoses, a lot of hydraulic fluid, a lot of articulating points. So again, pretty complicated and overengineered, but cool all at the same time. So I have a million dollar Jeep talk show idea. So you know these situations where people will be climbing up a steep incline and then they’ll flip over or sometimes they’ll get a two off camber and it’ll roll. I want, I want, I want reaction jets. I want reaction jets like they have on spaceships, spaceships. So that whenever you start getting too far of the nanny controls,(…) yeah,(…) think of the nanny controls. You’d have to have to keep some idiot from pulling the lever or pushing the button while you’re upright and it blows you over. No, this is all handled automatically. You get past a certain percentage and the reaction jets get you back in line.
(…)
Yeah, that wouldn’t be complicated at all. No,(…) neither one, but it’d be cool. All right. So anyway, they got 250,000 of these four by ease and I think the four by ease have done very well for Jeep and it’s one of the few Jeeps that have done, done well financially for Jeep. So I say, keep making them. And you people keep buying them. I just, I get the feeling though, the more you dig into that anyx and the design behind it, you may think the way we think that it’s just like overly complex. Now, if you’re keeping your Jeep for two years, four years, whatever, who cares? Get it, drive it around. It’s not, it’s not something that you’re going to get and keep. I keep my Jeep for a long time. Yeah. I mean, I’ve got an XJ that I bought brand new. It’s a 1998, uh, one owner, uh, XJ. So I don’t plan on getting rid of this. Gonna have a few of those who are left. Oh, no. One owner XJs. That’s a rare rig right there. I’ll tell people I want owner and they’ll say, Oh, mine’s a one owner. Uh, cause uh, I got mine for my grandma and I tell him, that’s not a one owner. Grandma was owner number one.
(…)
You were owner number two. Oh, but it’s in the family. No, bullshit. It’s not a one owner. That’s mine too. I bought mine brand new off the lot in 2017. Still got it. So there you go.
All right. So we always have to talk about recalls. Why do we have to talk about recalls? Uh, because you know, you can’t just have good news.(…) Yes. Recalls and issues. Recent recalls include over 7,000 grand Cherokees for like this and accurate speedometers or speedometers, uh, 206,000 grand Cherokees and Dodge Durango models for ABS break issues and 89,372 grand Cherokee models for steering control problems due to a damaged bolt steering control. You know what? I don’t know this for sure, but I think the steering control is the Jeep steering itself. You know, like whenever you’re changing lanes and you didn’t signal and it tries to hold you in that lane that you were in. I think that, I bet you that’s the steering control is talking about nanny controls. Yeah. Okay. Lane lane assist and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I’m predicting that’s what it is. Could be wrong, but I don’t think so. I think that’s what they’re talking about. Uh, but, uh, so no, I think it’s good that they have these recalls and they, they fix things. Uh, but, uh, and I can understand inaccurate speedometers would be a little, a little irritating, but call up Google maps. It’ll tell you what your speed is. I wonder how far off it is. Speedometer one’s got to be programming. That’s going to be like a, it’s probably a line of code that got screwed up and loaded into all the ECMs or something. Somebody, somebody put in the wrong way. Yeah. Somebody put in the wrong ratio or something. Yeah. Uh, and the sad thing is, and I, and I understand why they don’t do this, but you know, and I hate to bring up Tesla again, but Tesla does over the air updates, which obviously could be problematic, but in a situation like this, they could have a recall, which basically meant make sure you’re, you’re, you don’t drive your gladiator between, or not gladiator, a grand Cherokee between this time and this time while we do an update. I mean, they could fix that speedometer thing. I would, I would suspect, I suspect with all the computer stuff they have, but then they wouldn’t have, if it was a program, they should be able to, you’d think so. I mean, well, the, the entertainment system in the wife’s Jeep, she’s got a 2024, that’s got that fancy big, big screen, you know, all with all the nav and everything it updates on its own.
(…)
So it’s, it’s a real thing. They do it. So I think the issue is the modules because third aftermarket makes a lot of the modules for the Jeeps and they can’t communicate with all those modules or not designed to be able to update those, those separate modules. At least that’s what I’ve read. Um, so I think that’s the reason why they can’t do the whole thing. The nice thing about Tesla is they built the whole thing. So they make sure it’s over proprietary. Yeah. That makes, make sure they could talk to all of it, which I just think it’s, it’s a better, actually, I don’t really care for Apple, but Tesla is kind of doing like what Apple does. They build all their stuff. And that way they can make sure that it works the way it’s supposed to out of spec by somebody or close to being out of spec by some third party vendor.
(…)
I’m glad the Tesla cars and trucks didn’t have the same learning curve for a figuring out problems like they have with the Starship program.
(…)
Do you see that most recent explosion?(…) Yeah. But, but you understand that’s the whole design for, for Starship is rapid prototyping. They, they do that on purpose. They expect it to blow up. I know, but it’s like, it’s, well, yeah, yeah. I remember hearing that and that they said that, but damn, that’s a lot of money, a lot of money to just literally be burning up.(…) If it’s chump change to you, daddy, no, no, no, it’s jump change to Eli.
(…)
So, so you weren’t alive during the Apollo stuff. I didn’t pay that close attention to it, but the Apollo missions, I don’t remember. I think they had a, um, out of Saturn five at the Saturn one or something like that, they had a problem with unmanned. Uh, the Saturn five never had an issue, but they spent 10 years building and testing before they launched anybody, a manned a person in there. The, the, what, yeah, what Starship, uh, SpaceX and Starship has done is amazing compared to government. Oh no, I’m not. Yeah, no, it wouldn’t mean as a dig. It’s just the, it’s the money and the effort because even though I know they can afford to do it, it’s, it still has to be, and just an insane, you know, gut wrenching feeling to watch your baby explode on the launch pad. Do it make me cry? I’d be like, fuck, how many hundreds of millions of dollars was that? I think it was 2 million in fuel.(…) And actually that one wasn’t fully, that one wasn’t fully fully fueled, but you know what it was? They have these big tanks in their carbon fiber tanks, uh, that hold gas. We were talking about the reaction control stuff and those tanks have the pressure. They’re, they’re a very high pressured gas and they may be liquid that turns into gas and they use that reaction controls to, to move the Starship around in orbit. So one of those tanks let loose and cause the entire thing. So it wasn’t even the Starship. It was the reaction control tank that taken out the rest of the ship. And it never happens though, but it’s going to happen. Okay. Those Raptor engines, they’re, they’re a kerosene based rocket fuel. If I’m, if I remember what I saw,
(…)
is it methane? Okay. I thought it was kerosene. They pick methane and oxygen. Uh, so, cause they can get oxygen from Mars. Methane is very prevalent.
(…)
So they went with a fuel that they would be able to generate on Mars.
(…)
That’s why the rocket scientists say, I wouldn’t have thought about that. I love the space stuff. I’ve been following all of it. I don’t know as much as what I’d like to, but, uh, but yeah, I just kind of figured if you went to Mars, you kind of, you assume you’re not coming back anytime soon. If you call the way out there, you’re just kind of, yep, here I am. I’m going to go down this rabbit hole just because I’m very interested in the subject. So the first, uh, beings that are going to go to Mars are the optimist robots,(…) those robots that, uh, Tesla is building and they’re going to load up our ship with robots and they’re going to tell them what to do and they’ll be able to communicate with them free. Uh, talk one way, I think it’s 20 minutes depending on what the orbit between within Mars is. Are these the ones that I see in the videos that are suspended from engine poise that start going all eight shit when nobody’s near them?(…) These things are much further along than that. Uh, it was a, they walk around, they, uh, they could, they’re doing work currently.(…) It’s all, it’s, it’s the same AI that’s, uh, that is self driving the Tesla vehicles, uh, except there, it’s different for the robot. I mean, it’s the same basic technology.(…) It’s just a lot cheaper. So, uh, there will be,(…) um, they’re looking at these things being $10,000 and I predict that, uh, you’ll have one in your house. If you go back and watch I robot and how the robot was helping grandma cook. Yeah.(…) I don’t, I don’t want that in my house. No, thank you. Within a few years. I’m not talking about 20 within a few years. No. And I suspect I’m not, I suspect I was late to the smartphone game. I don’t want to fucking robot in my house doing chores for me. I suspect I’m not going to go there is going to be like, you know, Jeep will do these, these kits that you can do to like, put the Jurassic stickers and stuff on. I suspect that Tesla is going to come out and see three PO a modification that you can take your, uh, your optimist robot and configure it as a C three PO. So you can have C three PO walking around your house, be in a smart ass. I personally want to tears from a interstellar cause I want a smart ass. So cars would be the one, yeah. Tars would probably be the one that I’d be okay with because we talk shit to each other and not be bored. But beyond that, I would like, I don’t, it’s like, does this, how, this is how judgment day happens. If you want Skynet to take over the fucking world, this is how we, how we do it. So, so all Tesla has to do is develop a lightsaber. And then if we have lightsabers, we’ll be able to battle the droids.
(…)
Fucking lightsaber. Yeah. And then see, go point counterpoint. I think about the Rick and Morty episode where he gives one to Morty and he drops the thing inverted and it just goes to the center of the planet and they’re chasing it. It’s like that. That’s what would happen. It’s like the China syndrome. Yeah.
(…)
It needs a dead man switch on it.
(…)
And so we’ve got, we’ve got AI enabled robots with fucking lightsabers washing dishes, you know, and, and sweeping.
(…)
So we don’t have Larry here to tell us it’s a Jeep show fellas talk about Jeeps. So I want to reign us back in on all my own. And so we had a couple of topics that you were going to talk about tonight.(…) So this is something that we’ve talked about before. We’ve never talked about it with you. What should I pack for the trail?
(…)
Everything you’re going to need no matter what.
(…)
No, I, uh, that’s, that’s, that one’s a important one in a lot of different ways. Um, there’s always basics that you should have no matter where you’re going or how long you plan on being there. And those basics include, but are not limited to any tools that you might require for a field repair on your rig and the appropriate spare parts to go with a decent first aid kit, emergency type supplies in the form of water and snacks, some kind of food or something, something non perishable.
(…)
And this is bare minimum stuff. Um, if you’re going to be a good clip away from civilization and you know that your GRMS and your cell phone are going to be useless, then some kind of satellite phone or otherwise, you know, communicating device, et cetera, et cetera. So those are all like the basics. Now how much of each one of those things, if I know I’m going to spend a week, you know, away from the state, like going out of state and really throttling on the rig, I’m probably going to take a wider selection of stuff with me. Hey, I don’t have to carry it all on the trail. If I’m camping nearby or get an Airbnb or whatever the case may be, I can ditch some of it provided I can find somebody that’s nice enough to take me back to the room to get my shit. But beyond that, uh, you have to know your rig, what are the potential failure points cause everybody’s going to, it’s going to be different.(…) I’ve seen guys that pack everything from full size steering gear boxes to alternators to spare batteries, you know, like they go all out. And then like a lot of guys normally would do spare you joints, maybe a actual shaft or something like that. If you’re breakage prone and you know it, um, you know, things of that nature, but basic fluids, couple of quarts of each, you know, if you have hydraulic assist, it’s a good idea. To have the appropriate extra fluid for that case, you do have to replace a line. Again, goes with that. If you have hydraulic assist, you should probably have a couple of spare fittings and at least one spare pressure hose, you know, serpentine belt, stuff like that.(…) So, let me ask you a quick question about the hydraulic hose popping a hydraulic hose or popping a leak. I guess popping one office is probably more prevalent than popping a leak. Uh, well, I guess it just depends on if you rub up against something. Anyway, silicon tape, uh, that, uh, adheres to itself. I know it works on, uh, uh, radiator hoses. It will literally hold the pressure of radiator. Uh, do you know what the silicon tape is? And then you think it wouldn’t be hydraulic hose?
(…)
No, absolutely not. You’re talking about the difference between, um, your average cooling system. It might run anywhere from 15 to 25 PSI internal pressure. Cause that’s the cap. Some of them are a little bit higher. Yeah. The cap’s going to go and it should, if everything’s working as it should, um, long before a hose will rupture. If the hose is intact. Now you, yeah, you probably get away with that stuff. Hydraulic systems, much higher pressure. Oh, there’s nothing you can wrap it up. Okay. Is there no, well, there’s probably, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it, but I’d have to guess somebody’s probably got like a field serviceable type splice kit or something. Probably as a hose with the clamps and stuff that you’d have to put on. You know, depending upon what you’ve got, because some of like, and I know we talked about like PSC before and even some of the other guys, you’ve got the crimped in style hoses where the ends are crimped onto the hose and they’re not serviceable. And then you’ve got the field repair option from PSC where they’ve got special fittings that you’ve just basic hand tools where you can swap the ends on, on your braided steel pressure hose and do field repairs. So those things, yeah, you’re talking hundreds of PSI and that is not something you’re going to stop with a piece of tape or duct tape or any of that. It’s unfortunate. Most of the ones, yeah, most of the ones I’ve seen damaged it’s abrasion. It’s the two main causes you smack into something with the front end and get the Ram and damage one of the fittings or hoses that way, or literally just because of restrictions on packaging where you’ve got hoses routed. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to keep them from, you know, depending upon how you do it. Sometimes they rub. Now they do have sheaths and isolators that you can use to prevent that. So if you go into it, knowing that it’s a possibility,(…) do it, but sometimes you realize that wouldn’t be that much that big of an expense to have the hose, especially if you get the ones with servosable fittings.(…) And again, like we talked about with the hydro assist, if for some reason you damage the hose and can’t fix it, or you damage the Ram to the point it can’t be used, you can take the pressure lines off of your steering box, put caps on those two boards,(…) disconnect the Ram from your steering and just have full mechanical steering again. You just pull that stuff off, which I’ve done that before. I smacked into a boulder big time right after I did my one ton swap several years ago, drove right into it. And it was kind of in a staging parking area. Those of you familiar with Finley stairs over at Wolf caves know exactly which rock I’m talking about. And yeah, my dumb ass rolled into it with a full head of steam heading towards the rocks to go play. I forgot that I parked in front of it. I was first one there waiting for the group to show up. Everybody shows up. We pile in. This is the way we’re going. We’re going right up here. Follow me. And three feet in front of me is this, you know, Ottoman size sofa. And I drove right into it. Doin Tyrod and hydraulic steering. Did you get a smattering of applause by everybody around you? No, everybody looked at me like, what the fuck are you doing? You know? So before I got on the first trail at the start of that weekend, I destroyed my hydraulic assist and had to wheel the rest of the weekend with just manual steering or well unassisted. So yeah, pay attention to your surroundings, kids.
(…)
Don’t get too excited. Yeah. Walk around before you go. Yeah.(…) You also want to make sure that you include basic recovery stuff, some kind of tree saver. If you have, you know, winch, obviously, if you don’t have a winch on your rig and you’re off road and you’re doing it wrong, don’t depend on other people for a winch. Get your own damn winch. And the rule that we like to go by in the industry,
one and a half times the curb weight of your vehicle. So popular options for a two door Jeep, it’d be like a 9,500 pound capable winch, even a 10,000 pound. I have a 15,000 pound capable. No, I’m sorry. I had, I’ve got a 12 K on there now, but I upgraded to a higher strength synthetic rope. It’s a bubba rope. And so the one I’ve got on there now are stronger than the factory synthetic rope that came on it. So actually my rope is stronger than my winch. So I don’t ever have to worry about literally breaking my winch cable. Cause the winch will give up before the cable does. So, well, you can still, you can still shock the, uh, the, the cable and nap it though. Um, but, uh, well, if you’re doing it wrong, yeah, but yeah, recovery points, um, tree savers, if you have to, if there’s no boulders or other vehicles to attach your winch cable to, um, D rings, if you’re a D ring fan, soft shackles are another great option and the soft shackles are made out of the same material. Most of the time is our synthetic winch lines. Just a, it’s a larger size. Um, you know, uh, good, just a good tow rope, even if it’s a recovery strap like the big flat ones that are kinetic or just a standard tow rope, you never know that they come in handy and it doesn’t take a whole lot of room. So those kinds of things are very important because you know, and these are things you have to check. If you’re one of these people that doesn’t use your winch very often,(…) it needs to be checked and serviced and maintained and all that kind of stuff periodically, like everything else we do. Sometimes you just need to mess with it so you’ll remember how it works when you need it. Yeah. I’ve seen people burn them up. They put them on, use it once and then forget about it. And then all of a sudden they want to rescue somebody or have to rescue themselves and it doesn’t function properly or goes kaput because you know, bad connection or you know, they didn’t maintain the synthetic winch lines, unlike steel cable, synthetic, which lines most of them are susceptible to UV damage. So it’s important not to leave them baking in the sun all the time. Now, though I’m sure there’s some out there that have built in UV protection to some level, but the lotion, the 500 SPO.
(…)
Yeah. All the zinc, all the zinc, but now steel cables, there’s still die hard guys out there that swerve them down by steel cables on winches. I’m not one of them. I’m, I, I think it’s their only way to go. It’s, I mean, talking about a minuscule amount of weight compared to armor that you put on your Jeep.
(…)
I don’t have any armor in my Jeep, dude.(…) That’s yeah. Well you need armor before you start running into sofa size rocks.
(…)
But yeah. Um, whichever you have, if it’s, if it’s steel cable, make sure that you don’t have any Fraser kinks, knots stuff, you know, what you use gloves,(…) keep that thing lubricated. Don’t run it dry all the damn time. And there’s some guys that rub load the lotion on it or worry about pointy sticks or sharp rocks. Or the sun.
(…)
So, but yeah, making sure you’ve got an under, that’s a great point. Understanding how all of this stuff works, how many, I mean, you, you and I are of the same generation. We grew up with the widow makers, you know, you know, high lift jacks. If you don’t know, if you do not know how to use a high lift jack properly, the thing can kill you. It literally can mane you. So your winches is a similarly dangerous. Knock your ass out when the handle comes up.(…) I’ve done it. I’ve done it. I learned the hard way to kick back. Yeah. And it’s, it’s a lesson you don’t forget. It will absolutely hurt you. Um, but yeah, making sure all your stuff’s in tip top shape. You don’t want to go out there with half ass recovery gear. You don’t want to go out there with one bottle of water in a granola bar, you know, Oh, I’m just going to be there with one hour of water. Your radiator hose is going to pop and you’re going to be a place where you do not have enough water to put in that radiator. And you’re going to be limping back to where you can get water. So take enough water, find out how much, how much you need to put into your radiator. You know, so when you pop a hose, you get at least good enough in there. What’s your fluid capacity on that system? Exactly. An emergency. Yep. And it’s not a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing to have too much water. So if it doesn’t pop a hose, now you have the water for yourself.
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Well, we’ve all seen stories and reports from like, what is effectively a simple wheeling trip. Like, um, you know, uh, black bear, you get black bear is scenic and beautiful. And it’s only dangerous if you drive off of the road, if you do that, well, good luck. But it’s also one of those. Who’s the guy, the guy, I can’t remember the guy’s name, bleeping Jeep. Uh, I’m forgetting his name, but he had a mat. Matt. Yes. He had a new tube, a YouTube that he did. And they had a flash rain storm with fleet. And I think there was some hail and that’s where he was by black bear pass. And they had, they even had landslides that they had, they got stuck in. Uh, and uh, yeah, so you never know. And they were, they were out there with a bunch of people, but they were stuck. They couldn’t get off the mountain to get down into whatever town. The same thing happened to the guys. Um, what is it? Off road addiction, not Oklahoma. I think they were at green acres couple of three weeks ago when we had, I guess it’s been a little bit longer now. Um, with the, with all the big, big back to back to back rain that we had in Texas and Oklahoma and stuff there for a little bit, they got caught out on some of the hardest trails you could ever hope to be on in a massive downpour that went on and on and on. It was winch fest from then on out. They could not get, and these are well built rigs, like very well equipped with experienced drivers and the trail conditions and weather conditions forced everybody in the group to spend the rest of the day winching themselves out of the trail system to get back to camp. That’s how shitty the traction was. And that’s a good reminder about the realities of going off road because it’s not always going to be a butterflies and unicorn. Sometimes it’s going to be work.
(…)
Absolutely. So the more prepared you can be for those eventualities, and there is such a thing as going overboard. I mean, you can overdo it for a short trip and some people do that anyway. They do it all the time. Like no matter where they’re going, they always have this long list of stuff they’re going to, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s, you know, it’s kind of like your side or just better to have it not need it. Yeah, but it’s just the weight. I mean, taking a thousand rounds with you is probably overkill.
(…)
Couple of hundred. Yeah, sure. If you’re just going down to QT to get a soda, yes, but I might take two magazines and stuff. Yeah. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have to call a timeout because you got to, you have to go back home and get more ammo.(…) Guys don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back. I’m sorry. I’m out of ammo. Just give me, give me 15 minutes. I’ll be right back.(…) Well, and there’s, and again, with trail etiquette, and I know this is going to, this is going to hurt some feelings when I say this, but for most people there’s that are like avid hardcore wheeling, like they’re, they’re out all the time. They’re doing big stuff. They’re going places. There’s nothing more irritating than having the new guy to the group show up, ill prepared, and then mooching off everybody the rest of the weekend. Oh, hey, do you have a spare you joint? Oh, Hey, do you have this wrench? Oh, Hey, do you have this fluid? Oh, Hey, do you have some grease? Oh, Hey, do you have some electrical tape? You know, it’s like,
(…)
you knew you were coming out here to do this, right?
(…)
You know, you knew where you were coming to and what you were going to be doing. Why wouldn’t you prepare?(…) Some people just don’t think of it in those terms. They assume incorrectly that everyone else there will help them if needed. And a lot of times that is true. You know, a lot of folks are going to be willing to help you 99% of the time, as long as you’re not being like an idiot about what you’re doing on purpose. And yeah, so pissing people off, but it’s still kind of just like mutual respect and being self-reliant. Don’t count on others. And it’s, you know, the old adage, you don’t go wheeling alone. You really shouldn’t, but people do it. But Greg, I’m guilty. I didn’t think I was going to break anything. I didn’t think I needed these parts.(…) No, no, no, no. You’re just, you’re just going rock crawling. What can happen? You know, you’re going to scratch your slider. You’re going to maybe scuff aside. Oh yeah. I need some touch up paint.
(…)
So, you know, just be honest with yourself about expectations of what you’re trying to accomplish, who you’ve got, plan for who you’ve got with you. If you’ve got the wife and kids with you, obviously snacks, drinks and first aid stuff is going to be a little different than if it’s you and your son or you and the boys, you know, I’m not going to go into a whole bunch of detail there, but parents and women understand what I’m talking about. Oh, you may need some toilet paper and take toilet paper with you. Don’t borrow toilet paper for somebody else. You know, toilet paper is going to be currency when the zombie apocalypse happens. Everybody’s going to be trading bullets for what we thought was COVID. And that, yeah,(…) toilet paper manufacturers are like, this is awesome.(…) People are like, I just want to shit. So I’m sure we can spend a lot of time on recovery gear. Water first aid. I think we’ve covered it pretty well. Let’s, let’s talk about, I want to, I think this is important.(…) Let’s talk about basic recovery pointers.(…) Difference between a point and a recovery point. Oh, this was good. I didn’t even think about this, but this is just, yes. Very, very important.(…) If you have a TJ or an LJ or a JK or a JL or a JT, you have factory bumpers with factory installed points on the front end that are often misused or mislabeled as recovery points. Those cast factory hooks, no matter which version you have from the factory are tow points. And what that boils down to the difference is a tow point is something we use for flat towing a vehicle across pretty much level ground. You ran out of gas, you broke down. It won’t start. Something like that where you can put it in neutral, hook a strap to it and drag it to safety with no obstruction. A recovery point is something that is integral to the chassis of the vehicle that we can attach a winch to. We can attach a jerk strap to it. We can attach a chain to it if we want to. And I don’t mean wrapping it around the axle housing. I mean like a dedicated point of attachment for either a soft shackle or a D ring that we can yank on with gusto or winch on and put a full weight of the vehicle at a weird angle or uphill or downhill or upside down. Or dangly from a tree.
(…)
Right. That’s the difference between a recovery point versus a tow point. And all too often people get seriously injured using tow points as recovery points. It’s a very bad thing to do. So let me make sure I understand this. The, the, the, the hook, which I’d never cared for the hook. It’s on the front bumper of a, I’m being specific now it’s the factory hooks, the ones on the TJs were those real sharp jobs that had the little metal deal as like a, like a keeper. And they pointed back towards their radiator grill. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I call them hooks. And I think the gladiator had the same thing for our change bumpers. Those things aren’t tied to the frame. They, they, they’re tow points. They’re not recovery points. They are sand. Well, those style are just bolted through the top of the bumper. The newer versions that are mounted this way where the hooks come up and do like that off the front of the bumper, like still pointing back towards a grill. Those literally have the studs in them that hold the bumper onto the chassis.(…) And it’s just a cast cast steel is all it is. It’s not meant or designed to take all that force and pressure from a hard gank or a wind pull. I did not know this. Now people will still use them that way. And it’s scary to watch it happen. They get away with it on occasion. And they get away with it a couple of times and they think, Oh, it’s okay. I use that like people that double back their winch. If you’re using a snatch block to double your pulling capacity, I’ve seen it done that way too. And it’s, that is not, not at all how those are supposed to be used. Now, what I’m hearing here is the, the individual can use this to convince the spouse that they need a new bumper with proper recovery points. Yes. I like this. Yep. And there are some really good ones out there. Moto built, it’s got some bad ass ones. Generite’s got some bad ass ones. And they have the recovery points built into it. And it’s all very, very well constructed and designed to take that kind of stress. Yeah. So you’re, you’re basically going to, if you’re yanking on a hard enough to hurt anything on one of those kinds of aftermarket bumpers, and I mean one of the higher level ones, not the cheap Chinese stuff that you get off of eBay or Amazon quality components, those types of bumpers, like from gen rider motor built or somebody else properly installed, put together actually stronger than the factory frame of a late model G. You’ll rip the frame apart before you break one of those bumpers if you’re doing it right. So not that anybody would purposely try that. I don’t know, maybe whistle and diesel, but he’s all on his kill dozer thing right now. Anyway, I don’t, I think he’d get bored tearing up Jeeps. It’s not cool enough. But yes, definitely important to understand the difference and when to use them and what for, and that just comes back to educating yourself. Don’t rely on the internet to tell you that read your owner’s manual. It tells you in the owner’s manual. I was just getting ready to say I have a sneaking suspicion that this is not going to go my way, that I’m actually going to have to read the owner’s manual. And I’m just against reading. I think reading instructions is the sign of weakness. You need to figure this shit out yourself. I can just type it into Google. Yeah. Well, you can’t tell what you’re going to get from Google though. If it’s printed from Jeep, you got a 99% chance that it’s good, good information.
(…)
Well, these days, I don’t know if you’ve been using Google lately, but since they’ve started using the AI responses first,(…) dude, I have, I have, I just just shits and giggles cause I’ve seen other people doing it like within the, in the gear world and stuff where you type in, what is the pinion preload for an, an advantage M 300 Dana Spicer axle and it’ll say, well, pinion bearing preload should normally be, you know, X amount of inch pounds for this application and six to eight inch pounds for use bearing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, that’s not at all the answer. Not even close. That’s a generic AI read this somewhere. I heard somebody saying it at the barber shop. I hate fucking AI. I really do. And did you see the one where the guy put the picture up of a ring gear that’s completely painted and compound. It does not have a pattern on it. It’s just the whole ring gear is just covered compound and it asked AI, how’s my pattern look? And he was like, Oh, it looks great. If your backlash isn’t spec, you should just run it. You know, like,
(…)
there was no pattern there. It’s just all paint.
(…)
Hey, I didn’t know the damn difference. Apparently. Nice. So nice contrast you got going there. You should put that in the artistic show. All righty. So basic Roper recovery points. And so what you’re saying is, is that the, the factory tow points that’s on the Jeep, you should not use for covering it. That would be the rear hook, uh, the rear single hook, like on the, the, the, the JL.(…) Those are a little bit stouter than the front one, just because of how they’re designed and how they attach. But I have seen the frames let go from people yanking on those hooks because the hook and the three big ass fit out of their metric, but a 15, 16 socket fits them, whatever metric size that is. Um, I’ve seen people tear up their chassis on JK’s yanking on those hooks. And I bent the chassis under my Jeep by dropping off of a rock ledge that that hook caught on and suspended the whole rear of the Jeep momentarily. It actually twisted that side, my box into that frame, like it tweaked it.(…) So no, I would not re if it’s an absolute have to, if you have nothing else and you’re willing to take the chance, if it’s that kind of emergency situation, I mean, I guess go for it. It’s your, your role in the dice, but I do not recommend it. What about the factory steel bumper? Is that any better? Or is they use the same thing?(…) Those things are wimpy. There’s not that much to them. The only thing that I’ve seen,(…) um, on some of the aftermarket bumpers and some of the aftermarket winch plates that work in tandem with a factory bumper, a lot of those will have reinforcements built into them that sit right behind those hooks.(…) And so if you imagine, and I’ve got one of those winch plates on my Jeep. So if you look at it from the side, like you’re looking across the side from the wheel and tire, there’s the factory hook that’s like this. And then the winch plate that bolts directly to the chassis with a whole bunch of hardware on top has these one inch diameter dowels basically that poke up out of it and fill the gap behind the hook.
(…)
So when you tie to it, you’re tying to that. You’re not using the hook by itself. So some of them are like that. And that’s, that’s key because you’re, you’re putting the load where it needs to go to be dispersed to the chassis and not putting everything just on that one little bitty cast hook. So that, that’s a cool feature if you find one of them that way. Yeah. So I’ll just add the motor built stuff is really, really nice. When I got the gladiator, I did not have a modern Jeep. So I didn’t know where to go. I looked around a lot. And then I looked at motor built and really the main reason I went with motor built was their, uh, their stubby bumper, let the winch sit really low and keep it out of the airflow of the radiator, which running hot in the XJ was always an issue. I, and I, I wasn’t going to have that problem in the gladiator, but I didn’t want to take any chance at it. So I got that motor belt bumper. I got it and look at it. I’m not a welder, but everything looked really, really sharp, very, very well put together. Beautiful bumper installed that. And then I, it was easy. I got the same series. I think it’s a crusher rock crusher. I think is the, is the series a bumper for the rear. And I got that one for the gladiator because it wraps around and you need to be able to detect that, uh, that, that, that little bit of the bed behind the wheels. And I, I mean, the, the overhang on those, the departure angles suffer a little bit because of the bed design. So that, that is a helpful feature to have built and made into the structure. And I got the brackets, uh, that like they do for the Rubicon gladiators, I got the brackets attached to that. So now ain’t nothing hitting that bed. It’s going to hit the brackets, the heavy duty brackets or that bumper whenever. Right. And of course you have a bad, uh, departure ankle on a gladiator. So you, you have to have protection. Love those. I still feel like they had introduced a two door short bed version would have sold like hotcakes. Like you remember that when AV was doing the brooks with the TJs and LJs. Oh yeah. It’s, if, if, if FCA had done that with the gladiator is an option for when they introduced it. Oh my God. Can you imagine? Well, and then I’ve gone on this same path with our round table grew and the round table and that they’ve convinced me, uh, how many two door wranglers are sold compared to the four door wranglers,(…) the four door wranglers are out selling because everybody wants a family vehicle.(…) It’s true. Is your JK a JK or JKU? It’s JKU. The first late model one I had was a 14 two door. It was that doom metallic color and it was a, it was a Sahara too. Um, but it just simply did not, even with just me, this is back before I was remarried and it was just me and the two teenagers. When we wanted to road trip, we wanted to go somewhere. We simply did not have enough room for all our crap in the back. Yeah. I mean, that’s the reason why you’re never going to see a two door gladiator. I think that, I mean, my first four, my first four wheel drive vehicle was an 83, uh, square body, uh, Chevrolet truck. And it, of course it was a two door. They didn’t have, uh, they didn’t have any of that stuff back in 83 as far as I remember. And it was so neat. I put 37s on it, a four inch lift, and it was just so much fun to drive around in. I thought I was in hog heaven until I got a Jeep. Then when I got a Jeep, I realized I now I have a vehicle that I can go anywhere in. I don’t need something that’s wide and a wide area to be able to drive this truck through. I’d still like to have that truck, uh, great for the high water in Houston, uh, and, and great for just driving around. Yeah. So, uh, but, uh, but yeah, uh, but I loved it. It was absolutely wonderful. But, uh, yeah, it was, uh, it’s a different, a different thing. Oh, have you seen the new motor bill? Bobtail beds? Yes, I have.
(…)
Freaking awesome. Yeah. I love that. I’m not a huge fan of the gladiators simply based on aesthetics. Now, if that’s bad for no other reason, but yeah, that’s short bed. It was on a two door gladiator. Now you’re talking better. Oh, that’s even better. It looks kind of goofy with the four door, but that’s fine. You can get used to it. No, it is really cool. I got to see one of those, uh, motor built had a deal, uh, 2024, uh, EJS. They, uh, they went over to grandma, grandpa’s and grandma’s, uh, place and had a thing where you could go meet and talk to them and see their stuff. And, uh, so I got to see, uh, the, the gladiator with that short bed on there at that event, uh, spoke with Dan and bender while I was there as well. And, uh, bender’s good people. I like bender. He’s cool. He’s funny. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, so it was really funny. Uh, I’ve, I’ve mentioned this before. Um, whenever I posted a picture of those, those pieces of, uh, those braces that you get to put on the back bumper, they go to the, the frame of the gladiator to help protect the area. And I, they, nobody’s ever going to see those things again. I got them along with the bumper and I was just looking at them and just absolutely gorgeous the way they’re welded, the way they’re put together. I posted it up on Instagram. Uh, bender’s been on the show several times. So we’re already following him and vice versa, Jeep talk show on, on Instagram. And I posted, put the picture up. I went, these things are actually gorgeous and bender responded. Thank you. You’re welcome.
(…)
He’s in his best element. Yeah. I didn’t even know he was with moto built until then. So,
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but it was really cool. It’s, it’s just artistic. It’s like they’re building furniture over there. Uh, just, just beautiful, beautiful stuff. I’m very,(…) very, uh, they’re their whole R and D team, everything that they’re cranking out. I’ve, I’ve just price point versus quality. It’s, and I know I’m going to hurt some, some Jen Wright fan boys feelings, but it’s hard to beat moto built in that respect. Their stuff’s Burley. It is utilitarian, but it’s still stylish. Jen Wright almost had me. I just didn’t want aluminum. I’m very much, really with a steel. I don’t like, uh, the, the whole idea of the synthetic stuff. I mean, synthetically the future, but it’s not right now, at least not for me. And, uh, the generate bumper is really, really nice. I think the generate bumper, I was looking at the, the, the winch would set up a little higher than the moto built. That’s really what did it for me. That’s the reason why I went to work with a moto bill, but generate built beautiful stuff. Tony’s been on the show several times. Uh, and, uh, he, he absolutely fantastic. Uh, he wants everybody to know. Yeah. There’s stuff. It’s him to understand how things work. It’s not just a buy my shit. He wants you to understand how things work and then you can make the best decision for you. And if it’s him buying his stuff, right. Um, but anyway, um, so yeah, it was very close between the motor built and generate. And then, uh, I got the motor built stuff on. I’m very, very happy with it. The only thing I don’t have, uh, that I would like to have from motor built are the sliders and we’re going to talk about sliders tomorrow on our round table episode.(…) So, I’ve got some opinions about that.
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The discord server was always already a little rowdy about your opinions about that. So this will, this should be a, this should be a good, uh, good show. I’m ready. I’m ready.(…) I’m ready. Hang on a second.
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All right. So here’s a little segment that we’re going to do. We do this from time to time. Little known Jeep related facts. Uh, tell me if you’ve heard about the Jeep and a crate myth, Greg, have you, have you ever heard that? You’ve seen a crate. It’s not a myth. It’s not a myth. It was actually a real thing and that’s what makes it so amazing. So this, this may be one of those, uh, erroneous AI bits of information. Then post world war two ads for Jeeps and crates for $50 persisted into the 1980s, but were largely scam.(…) Only a few hundred surplus Jeeps likely intended for a land lease programs were sold this way in the early 1950s. The idea stemmed from Jeeps being shipped disassembled in wooden crates for quick battlefield assembly, sometimes in under three minutes. I can’t believe they could put a Jeep together in three minutes out of a crate. Well, you have to understand that they were basically just putting the wheels and tires on it and folding the windshield up. But three minutes, that’s fast. They weren’t, you know, they weren’t like building it from the chassis up. It was, they had to take it down just enough to make it fit in the crate. They wanted to ship it in and then I’ll open it together. I wonder if the kit came with a sniper rifle because if you’re under fire, you can work faster.
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Maybe I don’t know. So I wonder if I would want to be, I wouldn’t want to be standing behind a Jeep. I’d rather be like an entrance or a tank or something. I guess. What do you think is Jeep and a crate a myth or not? It sounds like it happened, but not widespread.
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Right. So yeah, they, it was a real thing, but it wasn’t like, like you said, it wasn’t on the level that people assumed it was, you know, like the sea monkeys in the back of your comic book magazine, you know, it wasn’t that readily available, but I do know that they’re, well, Mahindra has tried, is it Mahindra? Yeah. Or Roxar. Roxar Mahindra. Yeah. Mahindra is the main company I believe. Yeah. They, you know, they tried to capture and some, you know, emulate some of that vibe and feel with the thing that they came out with. It’s in some States, not even recognized as a motor vehicle. You have to tag and sticker them as a UTV,(…) which is kind of odd to me, but it’s still a cool idea. Yeah.(…) Yeah. Yeah. But I don’t know. Most folks these days, you’d have to be a dot heart aficionado to want to drive around at an MJ. I had a buddy that had one when I was in high school, the old flat fender Willis and no roof, no doors, two little jump seats, nothing in the back, not even a spare. This thing was a flat for manual transmission.(…) The only thing they did to upgrade it was convert to a 12 volt battery system and put, you know, radial tires on her. That was it. And this guy drove this thing every day, rain, snow and shine. And I wrote in it with him to lunch a couple of times my senior year. And I was like, this is no fun.
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It’s very much utility. It’s not comfortable yet. Very much utility. God bless him for doing that. A Desa daily driver. That’s really cool. He did though. I thought I was a bad ass doing it with mine. And then I think about that kid. And then you see these people taking it off road with no roll bar. That’s. Yes. No, just a single hoop. You know, those, those are the real hardcore OGs. Those guys do not, it’s like zero fucks given. We die like men.
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Right. You know, but I mean, would you Tony, would you go run, you know, steel bender or, you know, would you, would you go out to Moab and try to keep up with those guys and Pritchett Canyon? No roll bar, no, no harness, no nothing. I’ve never been to Pritchett. I’ve done a, I’ve done metal metal masher, which I broke a metal masher. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those guys, that gladiator did a lot of things. Cause I don’t have a lot of wheeling experience. Like I was talking about my ex J over heats. I’ve done a lot of building on it. I’ve put a lot of stuff on it, but I never could get anywhere. Cause I didn’t have a trailer to put it on. So just taking a Jeep off road and especially I didn’t, I didn’t think that gladiator was going to be much off road is amazing. It is absolutely amazing.
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A stock Rubicon will do things that most people don’t realize it’ll do it. If you know how to drive it, I believe you really experienced it because you go, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. People talk. And then when you go out there and you see what you can do, since I put the skid system, motor built skid system on my gladiator, I’ve only, I’ve only used it on a hidden falls. Uh, but I use the hell out of that thing. I was going places that I wouldn’t have gone before. And cause I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about the gladiator and here in the wife, cause she’s, she says, I’m going to tear it up. I want to break it. Well, I’ll fix it if I do. But now with that full skid system on there, I mean, you can still break it, but boy, that, that confidence that you have. A lot better protect. That’s the confidence in knowing that you have that protection is invaluable.
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I was, I was afraid I had peppered some people with debris when I was going up a particularly difficult for me, uh, not the gladiator going up a hill. And, uh, uh, people were, uh, I think somebody said on the, uh, on the GMRS, give it the beans. It was just spinning and going, I made it up there. Okay. All right. Well, Greg, we’re going to go run long. It’s, it’s so fun talking about all these things. You get your wealth of knowledge. And I’m sure you joining us here on the show, uh, week after week. Oh, did we get our weekly questions submitted from viewers yet? Do we have one? Uh, I don’t know. I was hoping somebody would have sent in a call. Question. No, I haven’t seen it. Uh, I can make one up. Why is the, the best color for a Jeep red?
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Why?
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Oh, I can’t find the button. Where the, uh, it’s not this one.
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I can’t find it. I’m on the right, the right screen.
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I hear it. Oh, red Jeeps are sexy. That’s why it’s red Jeeps are sexy. Yeah. Send in a question. But no, if we get a question, I’ll put it in the show notes. So we’ll make sure that we say it. Thank you. Y’all fire away. Ask us whatever you want. I’m like that. That’s probably one of my favorite things.(…) Yeah,(…) that’s cool. I like that. All right. So did the Jeep talk show episode, get your engine roaring, show us some love by dropping a five star and a question, uh, but a five star rating and a blazing review on your go-to podcast platform. It’s your way to help us expand our Jeep family. Keep the adventure rolling by hitting follow on social media and joining our newsletter crew for the hottest Jeep updates and unmissable events. I think the next event is a group of Jeep talk show people going to the Rubicon. I think that’s happening in September, but if you join our discord server, you can see what’s going on with that and when they’re going and make sure, I think it’s still happening. It always, nobody’s talked about it in a while. Actually they need to start talking about it pretty soon, September, like I’m remembering. Um, got a burning question or a wild idea for our next episode fired over to us at jeep talk show.com slash contact. Thanks for cruising with us and getting ready for more thrilling journeys ahead. Greg, thanks a lot for being with us. Thank you guys. Y’all have a good night. Broadcasting sense.