Downhill Gear?

What is 8th gear for?

The Gladiator automatic transmission for the 3.6l is an 8-speed transmission.  I’ve been happy with it but now that I’ve taken several long-duration, highway trips I have to ask the question.  What is 8th gear for?

I have configured my center display to show what gear the transmission is in.  On my most recent long trip (3.5 hours to Marble Falls, TX) 7th gear was the norm, and 2.5k RPMS for 70 mph.  Overpasses it would drop to 6th gear then right back to 7th.

A few times I saw 8th gear, but this is when I was going downhill.  Now none of us purchased a Jeep to get good gas mileage, but I’m fine with getting better MPG especially when filling up the Jeep.

The best MPG I have seen is 18 mpg.  Long trip, EJS.  That was mostly 7th gear.

I have 4.10 gears and 35” tires shouldn’t I be able to get 8th gear on flat and level?

In my mind the diff gears need to go lower, numerically higher.  I don’t know the answer and this is where you the listener come in.

Do you ever use 8th gear in your JL/JLU or JT?  What is your Jeep’s configuration?

Max tow

+9.

It’s NOT Our Fault… Probably

Another end of an era, as this show has been airing episodes, we’ve seen Jeep change hands several times, we’ve seen top-level execs come and go, leadership roles change hands, and more. The behind-the-scenes story of Jeep is certainly one of many ups and downs, but this latest change is one that we didn’t see coming. And that’s probably because it’s our fault. After word got out on a global scale that the head of the Jeep brand for North America under its parent company Stellantis, was associated with the likes of us here at the Jeep Talk Show, it didn’t take long for the inevitable wave of change to wash onto the shores of Jim Morrison. At the end of 2023 Jim stepped down from his role leading the Jeep brand here in the States, making way for a guy who came from Kia, but most recently was the CEO of Maserati, also owned by Stellantis. Jim still had a role in the Jeep hierarchy, one I personally think he was well suited for. Jim spent the last year gearing up JPP, the Performance Parts division of Jeep. And if I do say so myself, I did a stellar job of bringing awareness and direction towards JPP. Earlier this week, however, it was announced that Jim Morrison will be retiring. Leaving his long tenure in the automotive industry to hopefully spend more time out on the trails. Jim is an avid Jeeper, and hopefully, we can get some of his time here in the near future to discuss what a RETIRED Jim Morrison will be doing, now that he’s no longer running a global brand.  

Jeep Talk Show Gladiator Update

The 4th Annual Jeep Talk Show Off-Road event has come and gone.  We had a good group and several new people attending this year.  We had one brand new to-wheeling Jeeper!  She was concerned about damaging her Jeep JLU or holding us up. I told her not to worry about that, come on out and she’d be with the easy-to-mid group.  John (trail leader) spent lots of time assisting her. That included helping her get her jeep in 4-wheel drive.  I remember putting the Gladiator in 4WD the first time, it was hard to get that shifter to move!

Luis with a Rubicon Gladiator (I believe he’s been out every year) was there.  I like following him for the line selection and if he can make it I can!

Using GMRS people in the group would ask “Tony and you going to do it?”  I said if Luis does it I’ll do it!  Luis would extend his arm out the window to indicate he was ATTACKING that target.

Armed with the Motobilt skid system I didn’t hesitate.  I made use of that skid system and the rock sliders a few times.  I am very happy with the off-road performance of the Glad.  Having that full skid system is great, and I’m very happy that I made this purchase.

The skid system gave me the confidence to try harder lines and I didn’t worry about creating damage that I would have to repair before returning home.

It was so much fun doing several more obstacles I had bypassed in the past.  Making it up and over is a great feeling.

Circling back to that first-time wheeler at our event… She LOVED her first time off-road and was shocked at how well both she and her Jeep did.

Must-Have Stuff for Your Jeep!

I’ve talked about these before, but after the 4th Annual Jeep Talk Show Off-Road Event – Texas I have to talk about them again.

MOTOBILT SKID PLATE SYSTEM FOR JEEP JT GLADIATOR $1,649.00

This is a four-piece full skid plate system, STEEL, not aluminum.  It is a very easy install but may be too heavy for a single person to lift hold and get the bolt started.  Rubicon Gladiators may have all the nutserts or threaded holes necessary for the exhaust side skid.  My Sport S didn’t so we welded in some bungs (supplied) to complete the installation.

Wheeling with the skids gave me the additional confidence to hit the harder (harder for me) obstacles at our event.  I was NOT disappointed and I kind of giggled at the scrapes, and crashes that happened.

Also available to the JL/JLU and Diesel Gladiators!

Check it out at motobilt.com, Motobilt is a Jeep Talk Show Tony-approved product!

This episode is brought to you by G-tops. In the beginning, the idea of G-tops was simply to let the light into your Jeep. Many Jeepers take their tops off. Freedom tops make it easy and easy to store. What if you could let the light in every time you drive your Jeep? Rain, snow, sunny, it doesn’t matter. That’s G-tops, letting you enjoy the view outside simply and easily.

 

This episode of the Jeep Talk Show brought to you by realtruck.com with over 1 million plus parts and accessories for your Jeep, truck, and life. Learn more about the best Jeep Wrangler lights on RealSource later in the episode. This show is also brought to you by Glutread. Ever had a sidewall damage? With Glutread, you can repair the sidewall on any off-road vehicle without ever removing the tire from the vehicle. With over 1,000 five-star reviews, they’re the only reliable sidewall repair solution on the market.

 

You ever had any sidewall damage, Josh? I haven’t gone off-road enough, I think, to have sidewall damage yet. It could have happened yesterday while we were off-road, but I stayed away from those mean-looking rocks. There’s been several times where I could have sworn that I was going to have just torn that sidewall wide open, but thankfully, no, I managed to get around the obstacle and kept the air where it was supposed to be. So Bill and John had been out there to the hidden falls several times to get ready for the event that we just had, and Bill comes on the radio and says, “Hey, John, that rock moved.” So he goes, “That big rock I had trouble with?” Yeah, he says, “It’s over on the other side of the trail now.” Oh, jeez. Well, luckily, it ended up in somebody’s front end.

 

So it’s funny. You never know when people go out there how they’re going to change the environment, change the trail, but I think that’s kind of the fun of it.

 

Well, I’m Tony, and welcome to the Jeep Talk Show, where we put the fun in off-road fun, strap in, grab your favorite beverage, and get ready to laugh, learn, and have a damn good time. Yeah, I’m back in the saddle because I was told to or else it’s your old pal Josh to give you that little something-something you’ve been missing all up in your ear holes.

 

And coming up in this episode of the Jeep Talk Show, Jeep is proud of their 8-speed transmission, but what is that 8th gear really for?

 

And friend of the show, Jim Borson is changing his role with Jeep once again, and this is like an unbuttered role, Josh.

 

I think you’re aware of this, but we’ll find out more about it in your news story here in a bit. And we’re going to find out what Jim is up to just coming up. In our Jeep Gladiator update, I’ll recap the 4th annual Jeep Talk Show event. And I’ll tell you about the test and review of the Motobilt Skid System and how we went coaching for the first time at JLU Wheeler. That sounds awesome. I can’t wait to hear the details of that trip. And later in our must-have pick of the week for your Jeep armor like no other. Stick around and we’ll get a firsthand recommendation from Tony himself.

 

Are you ready? It’s time for the Jeep Talk Show with hosts Tony, Josh, Wendy, and Chuck.

 

Now, Josh, I don’t think this is anything you’ve had experience with because your Jeep is an older Jeep. But the thing that has struck me on several long trips, two EGS trips and a few trips out to Hidden Falls. I mean, this is our 4th annual Hidden Falls trip. And I’ve been there other times than just the event. I was noticing it when I was driving out on Saturday.

 

It’s an 8-speed transmission.

 

And I was turned… This is really wild. I mean, you probably are aware of this, but this is really wild from a couple of XJers where you can change the center console, the dash rather, the dash display to show various things. You can move things around. You have dashboards that you can bring up and different stats and menus and stuff that you can review while you’re going. Yeah. So I found a way to turn on what gear you’re in. I thought that was default. I thought that was always… No. There was a display always up in there that showed you… No, not at all. Well, it’s always possible. I could have turned it off accidentally before I knew what it was, but I don’t think so. I remember actively looking it up and trying to figure out how to turn that on. And this is important because I noticed that if I can keep it in a high gear, most of the time, the miles per gallon display really, really goes up very quickly. I’ve seen 18 miles per gallon on one of the EJS trips. This last one I went to. Not too shabby. It’s really not for a modified Jeep. And keep in mind, this last time I went to EJS, I had that extra 250 pounds of skid plates on the Gladiator. So that was a concern. Is it going to drop my miles per gallon? And it was…

 

I think it was 18.1, 18.2 or something like that. So it wasn’t the best gas mileage I’ve ever gotten on the Gladiator, but it was right up there, very close. It was all things considered, gear and tires and everything else. Yep, exactly. So my question is, what the hell is 8th gear for? Because I don’t see it.

 

I mean, the only time I see 8th gear is if I’m going downhill. It’ll switch to 8th gear and the RPMs on the 3.6 will drop from around 2,500 to about 2,000 RPMs. Okay, two questions immediately come to mind.

 

First is, is there a chance that the Taser Mini software is screwing with things even slightly?

 

I mean, I don’t think so. There’s been several updates since I got it. I’m just wondering if it’s mis-displaying what gear you’re in by one. When you’re in 7th, you’re really in 8th. When you’re in 1st, you’re actually in 2nd. It’s just a glitch in the software, a glitch in the matrix, if you will. Well, I mean, I believe the gear display is a Mopar R-G, but it’s not Taser. It’s not a Taser add-on.

 

Right. But you’re running the Taser software, right? You’ve got that in play. It runs in conjunction with the Mopar software. So that’s what I’m saying is just maybe there’s something in there that got changed in the way it displays things. I know that the Taser gives you abilities to mess with the menus in the Jeep.

 

I’m just posing the question, is there a chance that the Taser Mini is causing the mis-display, if that’s what it is? The only thing I can think that might be, would cause an issue is if the differential gear ratio was not set properly with the Taser Mini or the tire size was not set properly. But if any of those, any of those two were wrong, then it means that the GPS speed would not be the same speed as the speedometer. Yeah, it would figure that the speedometer display would be off more than anything, not with the actual gear selection, because that’s coming directly from the transmission itself. No, no, it goes through the computer and you can change it in the Taser Mini. So if you go to put 456s or 488s, you literally go in the Taser Mini and tell it what it is. And that would change shift points and to your point about the Taser Mini actually screwing up what gear you’re in. I believe it’s reading the right gear, but I’m not getting into the eighth gear and that’s my question is what kind of magic do you have to do to set up your Jeep where you can make it to the eighth gear? I mean, I’m running four tens and everything’s set properly with the tire size. I think I even put the closest measured size in there, not 35, but 34 or eight or something, whatever it was for the next instance.

 

Well that leads me to my second question then is have you ever had the Jeep over 100 miles an hour? Absolutely.

 

You would have to be in eighth gear then I would assume.

 

I don’t know. Pedal was on the floor.

 

Dang. Pretty sure it was, I’m pretty sure it was probably sixth gear.

 

Well yeah, I’ll get the RPMs up and we’ll downshift there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I wasn’t paying attention to that. I was passing. Yeah, I mean. And I was more, I was watching that 18 when they were coming at me. JT on 35s, you’re doing 102. Oh sweet man.

 

It was not scary. I just thought I had glanced down and I was like at 105, 108 or something like that. And Bill was driving his 392 and he can’t do more than 99 because it’s capped. Is it covered?

 

Yes, the computer caps it. And I told him, I said, yeah, I was following Bill and I said, Hey Bill, I just got up to 105, 104 or whatever it was. I said, I don’t guess I have that.

 

Yes, I can go whatever hell speed I can go. He’s like, I’ve heard rumors about the, about the, the, the, the V8s being governed. But I, but yeah, I don’t know. And as far as I know, talking about tasers, I don’t think that you can turn, disable that or change it for the 392s. Wouldn’t that be a pain in the ass? That’d be like having a supermodel girlfriend you couldn’t have sex with. Well, remember we talked more than a year ago about a Jeep kind of leaning on this, this pay to play type of platform to where if you want these certain features out of your Jeep, well, guess what? You’re going to have to subscribe and pay every month to use these things. So I’m, I bet you, I bet you there’s something deep in some menus somewhere to where if you want to lock, unlock over 99 miles per hour, well, let’s just say, deeper, you better empty every pocket.

 

So back to the gear thing, I noticed that the seventh gear does very well. I think it got up to about 15 miles per gallon yesterday morning heading out to, to hidden falls. So it’s about, it’s about three and a half hour drive out there. And it started climbing up to very quickly. And then I think I got the destination or a pull off or whatever, and it, it, it, it just didn’t get any higher than that. But I would just like to know what, what magic you have to do. I mean, it’s the 14 gears are, are, are really nice and it makes it really nice driving with the 35 inch tires. But I mean, do I need four 88 and 35 inch tires? Do I need, cause you have the toe max package, right? I’m wondering if this is something built into that. If there’s in the toe max package, it defaults you to keeping in a lower gear just so you have a little bit extra grunt when you’re towing. Well, obviously keep in mind, it does go to eighth gear.

 

Yeah. But you have to be going downhill. Yeah.

 

Is there a tilt sensor involved in here?

 

Just saying. Well, there’s got to be a right gear and tire size set up now. And I’ve also heard that weight will factor into this thing. But this has been an issue from, I don’t really remember. Well, I didn’t have the display on for showing the gears whenever it was brand new in stock.

 

So it was after I had done the, the lift and the tires. But before the skid system. So and it’s always been a situation where it drives around in seventh gear. So, and if you’ve got the right kind of wind or it’s uphill, you’re going to be in sixth gear and that’s really going to hurt you on your miles per gallon. Now, keep in mind, none of us buy a Jeep for miles per gallon, but if, but if, but if you can get better MPG out of doing something, especially if you’re going to be making some modifications, I think you could take it into account that maybe, maybe I need to go with the 488 or the five 13 or whatever the five, the five, whatever gear is. So whenever you’re going lower and numerically higher, there might be an actual fuel savings benefit.

 

Well, I could see that for sure. I mean, just in the math and the physics behind it all. But I’d say this is where a call to action comes in and we need to talk to the listeners out there and just basically ask them, okay, what’s your Jeep configured? Like, have you ever seen eighth gear? You know what? Just give us the specs. And if it’s, if it’s thing where, well, it’s like, yeah, I’m in eighth gear all the time, but I don’t have the toe max package. Maybe that’s the difference. Or maybe it’s like, I have 35s and I don’t have the toe max package and I’ve never seen eighth gear as long as I’ve owned the Jeep. You know, maybe there’s something into the tire and gear configuration or something, but this is where you, the listener is going to come in. You need to let us know what, if you’ve seen that eighth gear and how your Jeep set up. Yeah. I would love to know. And some of you may have to turn on that, the, the, what gear, what gear, what is it gear? No, I want to know what, yeah, what gear you’re in. So you may be very happily driving around in seventh gear and not know it.

 

But yeah, so then the other information I was going to give you guys is 70 miles an hour, a 2,500 RPM approximate. I’m not looking at it on a digital display. So about 2,500 RPM at 70, which all in all is not bad, but it could be better. I mean, I really liked it when it dropped down to 2000 RPMs and driving 70 miles an hour. And you got to figure that’s going to help out a little bit. Now all of, and I’m sure everybody’s aware, these are not oversized gears. What do you call them? Overdrive. These are overdrive and I think seventh and eighth are both overdrive gears. I think six is the one to one. Would make sense. Yeah. I mean, I’d like to have at least one overdrive gear that I can get into and stay there.

 

Well, especially on the long road trips, absolutely.

 

And I did notice that it was really easy and I don’t know that this is, maybe it has to do with wind. It was really easy to keep it in seventh gear at 70 miles an hour, driving out to Hidden Falls about 430 in the morning. So I think the winds, there was no winds and… Air’s a little bit cooler. Yeah. Yeah. Of course the air cooler would be denser. So, but anyway, yeah, let us know what you guys experience. And if you’re an eighth gear all the time, I will appreciate the information, but hate you at the same time.

 

Well, don’t hate us. We’re just the messenger. I mean, you can blame us, but it’s probably not our fault. Okay. Maybe it’s our fault, but you can’t blame us. He did do an interview with us.

 

That’s another end of an era. As this show has been airing episodes, we’ve seen Jeep, you know, the actual Jeep company change hands several times. We’ve seen top level executives, they’ve come and gone, leadership roles, changing hands. And the list goes on and on. Jeep has definitely, well, had a big story to tell. And the behind the scenes story of Jeep is certainly one of many ups and downs, but this latest change is one that at least I didn’t really see coming. And that’s probably because, well, it’s our fault. Or at least it could be. I don’t know. After the word got out on a global scale that the head of the Jeep brand for North America under its parent company, Stellantis was associated with the likes of us here at the Jeep talk show. It didn’t take long for the inevitable wave of change to wash onto the shores of Jim Morrison. At the end of 2023, Jim stepped down from his role leading the Jeep brand here in the States, making way for a guy who, well, he came from Kia, but most recently it was the CEO of Maserati also owned by Stellantis. So I guess they’re hiring from within Jeep still had a, Jim still rather still had a role in the Jeep hierarchy. One I personally think that he was well suited for. Jim spent the last year or so gearing up JPP, the Jeep Performance Parts Division. And if I do say so myself, I think he did a rather stellar job of bringing awareness and direction towards JPP. Now earlier this week, however, it was announced that Jim Morrison will be retiring, leaving his long tenure in the automotive industry to hopefully spend more time out on the trails. As you may or may not know, Jim is an avid Jeeper as he’d been here on the show and told us so himself. And hopefully we can get some of his time here in the near future to discuss what a retired now Jim Morrison will be doing now that he’s no longer running a global brand. Tony, what do you, what do you think about Jim stepping down? Do you think that he’s just going to call it quits or do you think there’s going to be a hiatus and something coming back? I don’t know. This doesn’t seem like a guy who just goes idle. Well, you mentioned it. He’s a big Jeep fanatic and I think he’s going to continue to be a Jeep fanatic, even if he goes to work someplace else. And I can see that happening just simply because of his position prior to being moved into the Jeep performance arena and now with the retirement.

 

I don’t want to see him working for somebody else, especially somebody that’s a competitor to Jeep, but can you imagine some company that is very much interested in being effective off-road and competing with Jeep? It would be an excellent opportunity for them to get somebody that’s been involved in Jeep since 1995. You think Ford is going to put a package enough attractive on the table for him to be like, “Okay.” I do. That’s where I was going with this. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I believe they’re headhunting out there. I’m pretty sure that there’s been a phone call or two that he’s received, but I don’t know. I can see Jim pushing the Broncos.

 

Gosh, dang it. It sucks. It sucks. I can see it, but it just grinds my gears. I mean, if you’ve ever been let go of a company and you’ve done a good job for them or really busted your ass for them, and I think that’s definitely the situation here with Jim. Without question. And for whatever political reason or disagreement on how the company should move forward or anything,

 

they end their relationship with you. You want them to at some point, if not immediately, understand that that was a mistake.

 

That you shouldn’t have made that decision. For whatever reason you made the decision, you should have thought about it longer and not made that mistake. Well, you know what they say. Hindsight’s always 20-20. This isn’t really hindsight in my mind. I’m not any big deal inside of Jeep. I don’t know all the ins and outs. I do know that Jeep has had sales issues for the past several years, and it’s not uncommon for people, higher ups, to be replaced because you have to do something for the investors.

 

But I don’t think this was a good idea. They either immediately know it, they immediately knew it before he retired, or they’re going to know it soon if he goes to somebody else. It’d be funny if he went to Maserati and they started building four-wheel drives.

 

Yeah, it would be funny.

 

So the tone of what you’re saying, and correct me if I’m reaching too far here, reading too much into this, is that you think that Jim is forced out, that he’s not doing this naturally on his own accord, that it’s like you need to step down. We’re going to make it seem like you’re retiring just to kind of save your reputation, but your services are no longer required. Is that kind of what you’re hinting at? I have no internal or external information on this. That’s just my guess. I think that he was forced to take the job of the Jeep Performance Arena, and I think it probably didn’t sit very well with him.

 

Or maybe it’s fine. Yeah, this sounds good. I’ll have more time with the family, more times to go off-road, and I get to play with all the goodies from these vendors.

 

And I don’t think I’m telling out of turn here, but Greg Henderson was going to be talking to Jim about the door pockets that he’s coming out with. So you know the nets that are on the inside of the– they sag. So some plastic that very much look like factory, even has the hash marks and stuff, like it’s in the plastic from Jeep, and it’s Jeep-specific hash marks. So Greg’s in bed with Jeep pretty heavily, and he was going to be talking to Jim about

 

getting a bunch sold to the Jeep Performance, and now this is gone. So I don’t think that he was forced out. I think that Jeep wanted to keep Jim as part of this, because you could always go to that resource anytime you need to.

 

I think Jim said, “F this.” I don’t need you guys. If you don’t need me, I don’t need you. I got enough money, and I can go do something else or just do nothing and play with Jeeps. So now I think I have no information, but I think that you’re going to see Jim pop up with somebody else in a major, major role. Well, there’s no way that he’s just going to go start selling Jeeps at a dealership or something. Now, this is an upper-level exec. This is a six-figure salary guy. This is maybe even seven. This is not some Johnny-come-lately. He’ll just drop into any job. It will be an upper-level executive position if he does come back into the automotive field.

 

Like I said earlier, this is not a guy I can see going idle. But everything that I’ve read about this makes it seem like this is a move that Jim is doing on his own. I think so. I think so. This is a decision that he made, that he gave it some thought. This is what he wants to do. This is the direction that he’s going now. Oh, no. I think what he wanted to do was work for Jeep from here on out until this was at retirement age and decided to get out of it. But that was not… I think that things are changing at Jeep. I think they are going to more of a luxury EV market and not so much the off-road. It’s funny you bring that up. I don’t know if we… Do we have time? I kind of want to go down this little bit of a rabbit trail exactly on this topic. I’m just depressed that you ask because in the past you just go and we would go. They go, “Oh, crap.” So what I read something here recently about Jeep making that move and how there’s this sort of riding on the wall. EVs aren’t exactly doing as good as they were expecting. As the government expected. Yeah. Right. And Jeep didn’t exactly go all in. Now recently they just announced they’re going to be releasing an all-electric Wagoneers. It’s going to be the Wagoneer S. Yep. I think it has been released. I think I saw that last week or so. I don’t think it’s going to be available in the showrooms until this fall. But yeah, it is out. I think you can order it now, etc., etc.

 

But the intended purpose of the Wagoneer S was direct competition with the Tesla Model S. I didn’t read that, but I suspected that based on performance. And so even though we talked a few episodes back about an all-electric vehicle that Jeep is releasing in the UK, how it’s not going to be seen here, we talked about sort of why that might be and everything. This kind of plays into that a little bit. Jeep is really focusing on going directly after Tesla. I mean, when you think about EV, the first name that comes to mind is probably going to be Tesla. Sure. And so for the luxury electric vehicle, again, you probably go to Tesla. Now Jeep with the Wagoneer knocked out of the park in the luxury segment right off the bat, right out of the get-go. The Wagoneer just was an absolute head turner. It’s a great bus. Paint it yellow.

 

It’s got a lot of features. It’s winning a lot of awards. And a lot of other car makers are scrambling to try and figure out an answer to it.

 

And now with this direct competition with Tesla, I think Jeep is making the right move electrically. When we think about EV, we were scared that they’re going to be going all in with all EV. The entire line is going to be shifting. I think they’re actually reading the little bit of the bones in the sand, if you will, and are thinking, okay, we need to make a slight pivot here. And there’s the Recon that was all EV that they’re talking about. That’s not exactly getting a whole lot of traction.

 

This Model S with the Wagoneer direct competition with Tesla, we’re going to see how that’s going to do. It still has four more quarters as far as sales go. $80,000. I think $74,000. You can get one trimmed down, but after lices and taxes and fees and all that kind of stuff, yeah, you’re going to be into it at $80,000. Oh, and by the way, I don’t know if you caught this or not, the Recon, which is the all-electric smaller SUV, kind of like an XJ sort of. It’s boxy, so it’s nice. But that was an all EV. Well, the new CEO of the Jeep portion of it is saying, we may offer a, I think they said a 3.6, at least a nice option. So they’re not going all EV on the Recon. No. Possibly not. That’s the direction I’ve been seeing. A lot of the media that’s been coming out of the Jeep camp is that exactly.

 

We’ve got a lot of powertrains that we’re going to be offering. And while everybody else is going all in on this EV stuff, we’ve got this other stuff over here. We’ve got a partial hybrid EV, we’ve got partial battery electric, we’ve got a bunch of combinations here. And so we’ve got something that everybody’s going to be looking for. And I think that that’s as all these other EVs, these other companies start going all in on the EV stuff, that Jeep is going to start climbing up and above, and they’re going to be setting themselves above and beyond all the others. I’ve been very impressed with how Jeep is going towards the EV market. And don’t get me wrong, we do not have the battery capacity or the electricity generation we need for it to really be viable.

 

I do see, I can’t remember if Jeep was looking at this or not, but you know how the locomotives are diesel electric? The diesel just generates electricity to charge the battery. I can see Jeep possibly doing something like that. I like that better as a hybrid than the actual thing where you could drive all electric or all internal combustion engine. Have the internal combustion engine idle, not idle, run at its optimum efficiency charging the batteries.

 

But then again, we circle back to how the technology is not quite ready for that. We don’t have the energy density in the battery technology to support that kind of system. Well, if you’re continuously charging it using the fuel like gasoline or something, now you are going to get a range and if you improve the efficiency. Because I think the diesel electric locomotives, they need the torque and the power from the electric, but they need some way of keeping the batteries charged. I don’t know if they have batteries on there. They may be going straight from the diesel into a generator into the electric motor, which that’s good too. Because now, I mean, you can reduce weight if you’re running the…

 

I just, you know, you remember that show from like the late 90s, early 2000s, how it’s made and they show you exactly how something… I think it’s still on. Oh, it is. No, it’s still on. I was just watching the episode last night and they were doing locomotive building, but I wasn’t paying attention. I like to see, I’m going to look that one up. I remember them talking about how they build these things, but dang it, I missed… Well, you know that’s working and you know that that’s viable. I don’t know if it’s a size type thing. I don’t know if you need a really big motor and diesel engine to make it viable. It’s going to look like something out of Jay Leno’s garage, you know, it’s going to have 12 and a half feet of hood before you get to the front bumper. We have a lot of plutonium left over. I’m just saying, you know, it might be time to go nuclear on our vehicles. I’ve been waiting for nuclear drive trains since I was a kid. I mean, I grew up watching the Jetsons. Come on, that stuff’s supposed to be here by now.

 

We need more power.

 

I don’t know. I think Jim’s going to be just fine, but it pains me to know that we don’t have somebody that I know to be a just amazing Jeep person. Yeah, right.

 

Without that kind of a person at the helm, I’m a little bit worried about the direction the Jeep brand is going to go.

 

Hopefully he’s sort of set the rudder and we can kind of continue going this direction for a while and hopefully people don’t start getting in the way of things.

 

What if his belief and his eagerness about Jeep and off-road was the reason why he was moved into the Jeep Performance and now that he’s returned? He wasn’t playing along. He wasn’t going along with the narrative. Because the narrative is electric and big vehicles.

 

I would agree with you wholeheartedly if it wasn’t for Carlos Tavares coming out time and time again and squashing the EV narrative that’s going on right now.

 

He’s come out multiple times. The infrastructure is not here. We are not ready. We should not be pushing this hard for these things to come into fruition at this time because we don’t have the support behind it.

 

He has pulled no punches in where his stance is with the EV narrative. If it wasn’t for the man himself, the top man is Stellantis coming out and saying that hey all you people that are crying EV you need to tone it down a little bit because it’s not here yet.

 

I would agree with you but he’s out there. He’s saying these things.

 

He’s got the job.

 

He may be saying it after he got in.

 

Or he may be saying it after looking at it with the information coming from internal from Jeep.

 

With so much going on in corporate hierarchy and narratives that we know not to be true but you know it’s a hey you know we’re being told don’t believe you’re lying eyes.

 

They have to think that more intelligent heads will prevail.

 

You’re really hopeful. I know I always hope for the best but I can’t remember which one you’re not supposed to take. I’m taking the purple pill right now.

 

Oh you’re pro Richard Simmons.

 

Well I do live in Oregon. Everybody out here has purple hair.

 

Well hey let’s talk about G-tops really quick. G-tops is a patented system that has been around since 2008. It’s not a sheet of plastic that scratches across the width of your Jeep. Trust me this is not some just half ass type of thing. It’s a Freedom Top Plus. It’s OEM plus. G-tops block 99% of UVA and UVB rays. That means your interior is not going to have that UV fade and hey no skin cancer on the top of the ears right. Or your head if you’re bald.

 

Made of impact resistant acrylic like aircraft canopies. It’s not going to break your neck like goose when you eject. G-tops comes with snap in sun shades that will stay in place even with the most aggressive off roading. So you know not to worry about here can you hold this while I do this other thing. G-tops comes with a five year 50,000 mile limited warranty. How much does it cost? To have Jeep tops installed in your factory Freedom Panels it’s about 1200 bucks and it’s available for JKs, JLs and JTs. You want something like no else on the top of your Jeep go to G-tops.com that’s J-E-E-T-O-P-S.com today for more information.

 

Josh do you remember the man that you were talking to about the canopies that were for the TJ way back when. Oh yeah right I remember that. That reminds me of the G-tops not in quality or how it works but the ability to see clearly through the top without having to take anything off. They share a similar concept but definitely far different function absolutely. Yeah so and I think one of the things that people really get concerned about is the heat. So just got back from the fourth annual Jeep talk show off road event. It was 96 or 97 out at Hidden Falls and I have those shades that I could have put on never thought about it. It never was that it was I was not getting a bunch of heat coming from the G-tops and so I know some people have been concerned about that. I think it may be a little hotter but nothing that I could say oh this is this is unbearable I got to put these shades in. Well that’s where a lot of the heat is generated by the UV. Exactly. A lot of it and so when you’re blocking all the you know 99% of UVA and UVB rays you’re going to be blocking out a lot of that heat but still allowing the light to come through. Yeah it was a lot of fun just being able to see up and around things and fortunately I didn’t lay it over on the side and have to use them as escape devices. I’m like a boss.

 

Hold that handle.

 

The great news about the G-tops is you can win some of these for your Jeep exclusively here on the Jeep talk show. Listen to the end. Oh look what we’re doing for you. Listen to the end for more information and details on the G-top giveaway.

 

I’ll be coming up here in just a little while but in the meantime you got to have good lighting on your Jeep and ample lighting is essential to any vehicle especially when you’re going off-road especially like off-road centric applications like for instance the Jeep Wrangler. Whether navigating a dilly lit country road, a dark street or pitch black trail in the dead of night having vibrant headlights, tail lights, accessory lights and off-road auxiliary lights ensures you can safely navigate any terrain at any time in any condition. If you’re looking to upgrade your Jeep Wrangler’s factory lighting well you’ve come to the right place. In this guide we’re taking a comprehensive look at Jeep Wrangler lights including the benefits of modified lighting, types of lighting and our top recommended products in each category.

 

So I didn’t go for the thousand dollar LED upgrade for the Gladiator and those incandescent lights sucked. So this is definitely something you want to do unless you’re buying the big bright LEDs from Jeep but even though these might be some better options. So from the factory your Wrangler’s lighting is hardly sufficient on-road.

 

Even the brand new JLs come with a standard dated reflector beam style halogen headlights. Come on Jeep. There are several benefits to upgrading your Jeep Wrangler’s factory lighting and in this section we’re covering the top four. So you can read the full article at realtruck.com slash blog just search for the best Jeep Wrangler lights or look for the link in the show notes for this episode, episode 1058. You know Tony asked the question up at the top of the show have you ever had sidewall damage on your tires? Well it’s even worse when you’ve had it in the middle of nowhere. Imagine being on the trail a thousand miles from anything anywhere and all of a sudden that root of rock just goes ahead and well decides to aerate your tire. Glutret allows you to repair the sidewall of your off-road vehicle in just a few minutes without removing the tire from the vehicle. Glutret’s sidewall patches are designed to be a temporary repair but can stay on for hundreds of miles. Getting you right back to where you need to be. Get you back to safety. Glutret has slashed all four tires and repaired them with just one kit on the Rubicon trail. If you can get off the Rubicon well you can get out of anything. Glutret’s most popular kit is just 24 bucks. Money well spent to have in the glove box. Glutret’s newest kit, the Expedition kit is a spare tire itself and comes with everything you need for sidewall damage. Emergency valve stem replacement and even plugging a puncture. It comes with T handles and a Cordura bag both made in Montana. So made in the USA. Save 10% with code JeepTalkshow10. But remember this is for off-road use only and for recovery only. Don’t want to make sure you’re using this to get to and from work every day. But you can get you off the side of the road if you need to. But even better Jeeper you can get an even bigger discount from Glutret by using the Patreon subscription. You subscribe at a $5 or higher level here with the JeepTalkshow on Patreon where you can get access to this better discount and many more from Glutret and others.

 

Gladiator.

 

My name is Gladiator.

 

Gladiators. Are you not entertained?

 

Are you not entertained?

 

Is this not why you’re here?

 

Gladiator.

 

Oh that was abrupt. Oh I got short too.

 

A little software modifications there upcoming in future episodes. So it just amazes me. You know, Josh, you put together these great intros.

 

And then you go and drop the ball. Yeah, isn’t it amazing?

 

Isn’t it amazing how much cooler they are with video on top of them? It’s almost like a professional dang deal here. I think we know what we’re doing around here. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about video wise, we’re on YouTube. So you can watch this episode on YouTube and all the other episodes that we’ve done recently. You can go and see what’s going on instead of you know, this listing to us. But we’re still doing the audio only because it just I think that’s a lot more convenient. But you can you can do both. You could listen to the audio only or you could tune in to our YouTube channel.

 

All right. So the fourth annual Jeep Talk Show Off-Road event has come and gone. You know, it’s sad. I know. I didn’t get an invite this year. You’re always invited Josh.

 

We had a good group and several new people attending this year. We had one brand new to Wheeling, a brand new Wheeling Jeepers. She was concerned. Welcome aboard Jeepers. She was concerned about damaging her Jeep JLU and.

 

Oh, OK. Hang on.

 

She was concerned about damaging her Jeep JLU or holding this up, you know, because she didn’t know what to do. She. Oh, sure. I need help. I need help. I need help. I need help. But I love having newbies out there. And we may we may newbie in a positive way. So I told her because we were chatting on Instagram, a direct message, I told her not to worry about that. Come on out and she will be with the easy to mid group. Now John John Lee, he was the trail leader for the easy to mid group, spent a lot of time assisting her. She was on stock Jeep. I’m getting the picture here as far as what kind of Jeep she was driving here. Yeah. No modifications. It was a Sahara. So it had those plastic running boards on it. So you know, you don’t normally need the rockers out there. The easy trails and stuff. It’s some really some moderate things. I did use my rock sliders and especially this kid system, but I wasn’t going all the places that everybody else was going. And that’s the thing. The other thing you guys need to know just because we’re going off road doesn’t mean there’s not bypasses or an easier route up. There could be a complete bypass or there can be variations of the climb up. It could be something that you need a buggy for something that you need a little modifications on your Jeep to do. And then maybe one that’s really easy. And then there’s a bypass. So sometimes there’s three choices that you can make, including the bypass.

 

So John spent lots of time assisting her and that included helping her get her Jeep and four wheel drive. She tried doing it herself, but she got on the GMRS radio and says, please help me because I’m not in four wheel drive. So I remember putting the gladiator in four wheel drive for the first time and it was hard to get that shifter to move. I mean, I thought I was going to break something. I was pulling on it so hard. Was it just like it was stuck or was it like kind of like in the older Jeeps where you get that Z gate linkage to kind of bind up and it just won’t move? I don’t know, man. I pulled on that handle and it said a nice angle and a nice big grip and I pulled it and I pulled it and I was, I mean, I was kind of jerking on it trying to get it up. And then eventually I just put my, put the mustard to it and pulled it up and it went in gear. Now I think that it helps if you’re moving just like two or three miles an hour, a little bit for it to change. And also too, it was probably just really tight because it’s brand new from the factory. I don’t have problems getting it into four wheel drive anymore. It’s not, it doesn’t stick like it stuck the first time and you know she hasn’t had hers in four wheel drive. There’s no reason for her if she hasn’t been off road. So I suspect it was just because it was new. I don’t know if it was a 2024 or not, but it was, it definitely was a very pretty Jeep.

 

So Louis or I’m sorry, Luis, he’s a kid man, had a Rubicon gladiator. I believe he’s been out every year that we have been there. Yeah. I never see him on discord, never really see him in anything online, but boom, there he is. He’s at the event. Yeah. He goes over and says hello and I will use him as the barometer for what I’m going to go do. Uh, in past, uh, past years, he would go do things that, uh, that I didn’t do because I didn’t want to take the possibility of damaging the Jeep. But you guys are set up similarly, I’m guessing. Well, not really, but then that’s kind of good. He has a similar lift. Uh, I think he also has 35s, uh, but his is a Rubicon.

 

So I figure if we’re about the same and he has a Rubicon and he can do it, I should be able to do it too. So the cool thing this year, I got a full skid system. So I’m like, I want to go. I’m going to, I’m going to do some stuff cause I’m not worried about damaging the underneath, uh, catching something, some low hanging fruit and then being down. So I was following him as I do a lot of times we, we kind of angle up there where he’s in front of me and it was funny. He had a GMRS radio going, but he wasn’t talking on it. Uh, I would say to somebody on the GMRS, I was like, Hey, Tony, you going to try it? You going to try it? You know how they do. And I said, I said, I don’t know. I’m going to see if Luis is going to do it or not. And then Luis sticks his hand up the driver’s window and points at the thing. Like I’m going to attack that. He’s calling his shots. Yes. Oh, right here.

 

So he went off and then I went up and I got to tell you, I don’t know when he was using lockers or not, but, uh, the, the max toe package on the gladiator has a limited slip in the rear. And normally, normally speaking, I don’t really put much onus and limited slip, you know? But I’m just amazed at how well that gladiator will climb up stuff. And I was doing stuff that people with lockers, I don’t know if they were using them, people with lockers, uh, were doing with some difficulty and I had some difficulty too on some of the more, um, uh, aggressive, uh, climbs. Uh, in fact, it was pretty funny. Uh, I, I, I, and I would kind of giggle every time I would hit something with that skid system because it’s like, yep, that’s what it’s there for. I don’t have to worry about it. It’s I’m just going up.

 

So, uh, Greg from, uh, uh, not an unofficial, um, underground graphics, uh, he has a fairly well built 2020 gladiator, a four and a half inch lift. Uh, the gray one, right? Uh, yes. I was saying it was green, uh, earlier, uh, somebody else, but it is, it’s gray with yellow, a lot of yellow graphics on it. Right. Beautiful rig. Nice job. Yeah.

 

Uh, uh, uh, fairly, I would say is a very aggressive, uh, track, uh, as we were going to, um, um, wild count, wad’s wildcat mountain, the wildcat lookout, I think is right. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but in years prior, he kind of took it a little more conservative with that vehicle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he was always doing more than me, uh, with it, but he’s had a lot of work done on it. Uh, okay. In fact, he just had a four to one, uh, Rubicon transfer case put into it. Uh, he just got it back earlier this week, early, early in the week, uh, for the, uh, the event. So he was being a little careful with it because he wanted to, uh, he didn’t want to just go out there balls to the walls with, uh, the, the, the new changes. I don’t know everything else that was, uh, that he did, but he’s on 39. I’m sorry. I have a shake down run for him on this one. Yes, it was. Uh, so he’s on, he’s on 39s. Uh, and, uh, uh, he’s got, now he’s got that four to one, uh, Rubicon transfer case in it. I don’t know all the things he, he’s had done to it. He’s still on the same day, no 44 axles, but anyway, he went up this thing. Uh, and I was like, well, and the, the, the thing that was kind of scary was he was getting kind of close to the top and the gladiator starts rolling backwards, not fast, but enough where he lost his ability to go forward. And he like, he took his foot off the gas and it kind of rolled back. And I thought, and do I want to do that? I said, well, I’m just not going to roll backwards. Uh, so, uh, he goes, he makes it just fine. And then I go up there and, um, it start, I kind of get stuck. I’m here in the, you know, the skid plate and everything else. And I kind of, it doesn’t really want to make forward progress. And I said, I’m not rolling backwards.

 

So I gave it the gas. And I heard a guy on the, on the GMRS. He’s goes, give it the beans. There you go. A little skinny pedal. And there was, there was debris and chunks and rocks. I could tell that it was just going backwards behind, you know, from those tires. And then I got up, I got up over there on the top. It really wasn’t a big deal. And, uh, I got on the GMRS radio and I said, Oh man, I hope I didn’t pelt anybody with, uh, with rocks and boulders and stuff. And, uh, Bill came on there. He goes, you were, you were throwing some pretty good sized rocks.

 

Well, this is one of the reasons down here. That’s one of the reasons why you don’t follow close. You need, because number one, you don’t want to get rolled back on. Uh, and the other thing too, is there may be some debris coming your way. Exactly. Yeah. I don’t know if that’s proper wheeling or not, but I didn’t really care. I was making that, I was going to make that run all the way up and I did. So that was a lot of fun. I got to do things. Uh, well, I shouldn’t say I got to do things. I did things this year that I’ve never done before. And it was because of that skid system I put on there, because that gave me the confidence to do these things and not have to worry about, uh, uh, at least as much getting damaged to the, uh, to the Jeep and not being able to make it home. Did you find yourself correcting your line selection? Nope. Like, no, I don’t, I don’t have to go there. I can actually go here instead because I’m not worried about scratching things up or whatever. I don’t think I have enough seat time to pick my own lines yet. So I’m just following the gladiators that are in, uh, gladiator or gladiators in front of me, if they make a really bad decision, I might pick a different line.

 

One would hope.

 

So I kind of learned my, uh, learn my lesson at EGS a year before last, whenever I was picking my own line. It sounds like you were on some more advanced terrain. Did you, did you split paths with the, with the first time off-roader that you were talking about in the beginning of the segment? Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is what I’m saying. There’s usually more than one, you’ve been out there. There’s more than one, uh, way to get up the, the obstacle. I mean, there’s like virtually no obstacle. There’s like, in some places there’s like a mid-level obstacle. And then there’s the, the really advanced one buggy type stuff. Um, and, uh, so I certainly wasn’t doing buggy type stuff. Um, but, um, yeah, so, uh, no, the, the, the, the first timer, she was right behind John Lee, so John Lee would say, just follow my tires, just do the same thing. I’m doing. And then at one point he goes, Oh, he goes, Oh, hold up, hold up, hold up. I went the wrong way. Don’t go that way. Cause he was just driving, you know, no one, no one, what his rig could do.

 

I know at one point there was some rock stacking and, uh, we, we sat for a really long time and I think it had to do with him trying to get her up and over an obstacle. It wasn’t a major obstacle. But, uh, by the time we got up there, uh, it was pretty funny because it was kind of like, um, I guess I would call it a bypass. It was kind of a windy type thing where you had to turn a pretty good, not 90 degrees, but pretty, pretty far to the left and then pretty far to the right. And, uh, I was behind, uh, Greg and his, uh, his gladiator and there was a much.

 

Well, I don’t want to say much easier going forward. The straight forward was going to be a lot easier than trying to twist that long gladiator through that stuff. It could be done. So he started going and there was a pretty good step down on that, uh, that route and, uh, he went through it and it was, he really didn’t have a problem. He went slow. He, you could see him dropping down pretty hard, uh, because it was a pretty good drop and I said, screw it. I’m just going straight. And I, I turtled on it. Oh, and you have to come get a, get a shove or get a yank. No, I told the guy behind me. I said, I’m going to back up.

 

So he got off my ass and I backed the F up. Then I, I hit it a little harder, uh, to get it down. And it’s funny. I can see a swirl type pattern on the skid up around the engine. Uh, where you were actually hurtled. You were full on center. Yeah. Wow. So I made it down and it was just, it’s just, it’s such a cool feeling to be able to make that forward progress. And also too, when you’re doing something that, uh, a better built, uh, Jeep gladiator, uh, was, was having problems with, but you accomplish the same thing and that Greg doesn’t have skid system. So the height and both the height for the tires and, and, uh, his body left or his a suspension lift, uh, certainly helped him and it would be too, but I, I really like having those skids on there. I really, really like it. It’s just such a, no tires remorse. No, uh, absolutely not. Okay. No, I love those things. I don’t know where you were at with warranty or anything like that, but is that going to come into warranty or service packages or anything? Is there going to be any, uh, any problems there? Only thing I can think of, I don’t think there’d be any warranty issues. Only thing I can think of is whenever they, uh, cause I got more free oil changes is when they go up there and they’re going to take the plug out of the oil pan going, where is it? There’s, there’s this metal in my way. It’s got a little, uh, door with a three, uh, countersunk bolts that you have to take out. So I’ll be checking to make sure the door gets put back and it’s not a swing down door, it’s a complete removal. So, uh, as I was saying, it was just so much fun doing several more obstacles. I had bat bypassed in the past, past making it up and over is a great feeling. Now circling back to the first time we were at our event, I spoke in a living crap out of her. Oh, I’m sure she was.

 

But I spoke with her after we had completed the run for the day of around 3pm and she loved her first time off-roading. Oh, right on. Shocked at how well both she and her Jeep did. Well, very good, man. That’s awesome. I mean, we’ve said that we’ve been saying it for years, Tony, we’ve been doing this since what I’m in 12 years now or better, um, you know, a stock Jeep and I, and honestly, it doesn’t matter if it’s a 30 year old stock Jeep or a three year old stock Jeep, they are very capable in completely stock form. And most people are, especially if this, their first time wheeling, uh, oftentimes very, uh, very overwhelmed as to just how capable the vehicle it really is. It was wonderful to see on the smile on her face and, uh, that she didn’t just hate it. I’m never doing this again. She’s, she’s in. And I told her about her discord server, but she could come over because we love spitting other people’s money on modifications. Yeah.

 

Well, hopefully she, uh, she took your advice to heart and, uh, I’m going to have a new, uh, a new listener to the show and new fan of the show. And, and if nothing else, at least give her an opportunity to, uh, have another venue of information to get her going in the right direction when it comes to modifications and things like that. Yep.

 

From the mind of Nicky G.

 

Hey, this is Nicky G. You guys talked about removing trash from the trails.

 

And, uh, here in North Carolina, every year, a local hunting club has a, uh, squirrel competition where you go out in the woods, you hunt squirrels and whoever comes back with the most weight of squirrels wins, but, uh, they not only count the weight of squirrels, but you can count the weight of trash that you bring out. Oh. And a one year guy won it that did not shoot, not one squirrel, but he brought out a bunch of trash with, with them. And I always thought that would be a good idea for a Jeep club to have some competition, see who can get the most amount of trash off the trail.

 

Well, that’s not why I’m calling. I’m calling to tell you that. As everybody knows this week, I’ll be in Maggie Valley at the, uh, Maggie Valley Jeep invasion, and I booked my hotel and they wanted to charge me $10 more for air conditioning. Oh my God. Yeah. That’s not cool.

 

That was a stinker. Let’s see if we could do better. I was walking through the woods and I saw a beehive that didn’t have an exit hole. Yeah. It was unbelievable.

 

That one’s not better, but I think that’s the best it’s going to get. All right, boys and girls, I’ll chat you later and have a good one. Bye. For the shows that I’m on, I’m just going to say it’s. Phone ended in there. Nikki G. Check the box with or without bed bugs.

 

All right. On this week’s interview episode, which is tomorrow, Natalie with high lift off road, uh, she is a host on Jeep talk show, chick chat, and is also going to be our guest here on this interview. Learn more about Natalie and high lift off road.

 

Well, earlier we talked to teased, if you will, about the possibility of you winning a set of G tops and modifying your freedom tops. All you need to do is listen to the round table episode live or, or later, and get this week’s question. We’re going to post a question. You need to get that question and then go to Jeep talk show.com slash contact with that question and then click the link that takes you to the form that you must fill out completely to be entered to win. That’s really it is just listen to the show. Find the question, go to the website, click the link, enter it in, but a bing, but a boom, Bob’s your uncle. You’re entered to win. This is your last week to enter your last chance to get in and, and have a chance to win a set of Jeep tops chance to win a set of Jeep tops and modifying your freedom top. This is a big deal. This is a huge giveaway. So go over to Jeep talk show.com slash contact, get that link, ready fit, familiarize yourself where that form is and then listen to this week’s round table discussion, either live or afterwards. And I enter that question over at Jeep talk show.com slash contact. Good luck. Jeepers. I am so looking forward to announcing a winner and them getting their G tops and interacting with us on what they think about them personally.

 

Everybody that has seen the G tops and in my gladiator is amazed. And this is including Greg Henderson and Greg Henderson, the SEMA car filter, is amazed at the quality. That’s a tough audience to see you impressed by the way. Yes. And I was nervous about sending him my, my G tops to be, I mean, my, my freedom panels to be cut open because if it’s not a good product, now you got freedom tops with a big ass hole in them. Yeah.

 

A little bit of a extra ventilation there, if you will. Yeah. Well, I mean, I’m sure the G tops would be in them, but if there’s leaking or if it gets extremely hot during the summertime, there’s always, all these concerns that you have, you know, it can’t be all that good, right? Cause everybody would be doing it. Nope. Wrong, man. They are excellent. Had them for a head G tops for EJS that made it a lot more interesting and fun. Uh, and, uh, here recently, I mean, we’ve got a lot of rain, there are no leaks. Uh, and, uh, it was, it was just a blast being out to this, uh, uh, fourth annual Jeep talk show event and being able to see up and no, it was not hot on me. It may have been a little hotter. I don’t know, but I didn’t notice it. And that’s the point. So even so you’ve got the shade panels to snap in and, uh, and that’s a nonissue then at that point, very, very much very, I’m just really happy I got this one. And, uh, I’m going, they also, uh, Josh, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but they have a panoramic for the main hatch.

 

So from almost from one side to the other, you can have panoramic view and, uh, you know, it may take me a little while, but I’m getting that. Cause I want the whole, the full, uh, G top experience.

 

Well, nice to have some options anyways. Yep. It is. All right. In our must have stuff for your Jeep. Now I’ve talked about these before, but at the fourth annual Jeep talk show offered event, Texas, uh, I have to talk to him, talk about them again. Skid plate system for Jeep JT gladiator $1,649, which is a God off amount of money to me, but apparently not so much for some of you guys out there buying a $2,000 in shocks, uh, for your, for your Jeeps. So this is a four piece full skid plate system steel, not aluminum. I’m not picking on you. If you like aluminum, if you want to do aluminum, that’s fine. Uh, God be with you. Uh, it is a very easy install, but maybe too heavy for a single person to lift, hold and get that first bolt started. That’s really the biggest thing is getting that, getting one of them started, that kind of holds everything else up there, but yeah, at the very least, if you are going to try and do this yourself, you got to have a good set of floor Jack, at least one floor Jack. Yeah. And be, uh, be prepared to mess up that paint that you put on there because I did it with a floor Jack and a blanket on top of the thing and it’s still messed up the paint.

 

I know it’s a skid system. The paint’s going to get messed up, but still, you know, you want it to be nice for a little bit. So, um, now, uh, like I said, this is all steel, not aluminum. It is a very easy install. Uh, now I will tell you that if you have a sport, a sport S or something that isn’t a Rubicon gladiator, you may not have all of the nuts, shirts or threaded holes necessary for the exhaust side skid. I was able to mount all the belly pan, the engine, uh, and transmission and the gas tank one, no problems whatsoever. Just, you know, getting it up there after painting it was the difficult part. And, and all the bolts, um, to go in there, they’re everything is smooth. It is so nice and smooth underneath there. Uh, think of a boat and think of something smoother. Um, so, uh, but I had to take the, uh, take the gladiator over to, uh, Zach’s, uh, Zach’s business, uh, off, uh, off road, unlimited. And he was able to weld in the buns, uh, that were, that I needed to get all the mounts for that, uh, exhaust side skid and, um, the buns were included. And I’ll say it again. I like saying buns. It’s just cool. Um, so, uh, if, but if you have a, uh, a Rubicon, you probably don’t, you probably all have everything you need threaded and you can do this in the driveway at home. So my sport S, uh, had to have those buns welded, uh, and, uh, but it was very quick to do. And, uh, wheeling with the skids gave me the additional confidence to hit harder, at least harder for me, obstacles at our event. I was not disappointed and kind of giggled at the scrapes crashes that happened.

 

Also available for the JL JL you and diesel gladiators. Check it out at motorbuilt.com. And I just mentioned again is the skid plate system for the Jeep JT gladiator or the JL or the JL you and look on there. They may have it for a earlier model Jeeps too, but those are the ones I was looking at. So, um, check out, uh, check again, check it out at motorbuilt.com. And I’ll just mention motorbuilt is a Jeep talk show Tony approved product. I’ve got several of their products and, uh, is, they get really nice stuff, very well built and beefy. Beefy. Ah crap. We went and pulled a bill and we ran out of gas. Well, looks like that’s the end of the trail for us today, Jeepers, but that doesn’t mean the fun has to end for you. Jeep talk show has at least four episodes a week now. And if you don’t want to miss out on our interview shows, roundtable discussions, or even the chick chat, be sure to subscribe right now. And speaking of subscribing, consider keeping the Jeep talk show on the air by subscribing to the show via Patreon ready to hit the trail with us. The place to go for all the information, how to subscribe and how to contact us is all at jeep talk show.com slash contact. You know what I forgot to mention? Uh, the Jeep talk show is running a 30% off deal for Patreon subscribers right now. You can become a Patreon subscriber, uh, for $3 and 50 cents a month. Uh, it’s for a limited time and a limited number of people. Uh, and if you want to lock in that right, subscribe for the full year and you’ll get the Jeep talk show for three 50 a month for the entire year. And that will actually pay for itself with the discounts that you get at all of our, uh, network of retailers. Yes. Use the Jeep talk show as intended. You can read all instructions before using the deep talk show use of the Jeep talk show beyond his intended purposes may be dangerous. The Jeep talk show is not meant to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any disease, especially that rash you got from Tony that one time. I was going to say frequent application may cause a rash, just use more, uh, more of the lotion,

 

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