Jeep Gladiators Selling Poorly - Now with Big Dealer Incentives

[RevolverRob]

Jeeps - all of them - are pants on head retarded MSRPs, to me at least.

Worse road manners than a school bus, medium reliability, and moderate off road capability.

But if you could get ~10k off MSRP on the Overland model like OJ found - then it gets a lot less retarded. With a manual transmission? Do it. Drive it for 60k miles and sell it practically for a profit. Jeeps with manual transmissions will always be in demand amongst the enthusiast side of the camp. Like manual equipped Tacomas. Used ones turn out to be unobtainium and end up bringing a premium.

Also, maybe I’m pants-on-head retarded, but the Gladiator is the only model in the Wrangler line that makes ANY SENSE as a daily driven vehicle. The four door modes have so little storage it’s stupid. And the two-doors are only marginally better if you rip the backseat out. At least the Gladiator with a cap or tonneau has usable storage space.

[Dan_S]

The frame quality is questionable, at best - one that was maybe two years old, front axle detached itself from the frame at highway speed, and it came into my uncles shop for repair. You notice a trend when it’s mostly Jeeps and Rangers coming in for frame work.

[willie]

Jeeps rank very low on quality surveys. Mechanics seldom praise them. My two leaked and leaked.

[Farswot]

Showed me lots of stupid-broken Jeeps on warranty repairs.

Said virtually every one sold will be back, if not for recalls, for just failing.

Mostly drivetrain problems.

Please, never buy one is his advice.

I'll keep my '67 Kaiser-Jeep M54A1 5-ton cargo, the "Big Mac Attack".

Farswot

[Mjolnir]

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/02/10/...ts-incentives/

tl;dr:

Up to $9,000 in incentives from some dealers
Poorest selling vehicle in Jeep's lineup

___

Get one now, if you want one, I suspect they won't be around in three model years.

It’s CHRYSLER.

Enough said.


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[JRB]

It’s CHRYSLER.

Enough said.


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At my last wrenching job, I was the shop foreman of the largest high performance shop in my state. Two in ground dynos, one of them AWD, 7 lifts, the works. 1000+hp Corvettes, Hellcats, and Mustangs, were common builds and customers. Lots of superchargers and lift kits in all of the big 3's trucks and tons of Wranglers, especially once our in-house full time tuning and software wizard figured out how to remap Dodge auto trans mapping to work with superchargers, lift kits, gearing changes, etc. We had a LOT of 3.6L Wranglers with various supercharger kits, Hemi V8 swaps, etc come through for tuning after other shops screwed it all up.
(If you go that route, stay with the 3.6L V6 and install a Magnuson SC kit, or the Edelbrock SC which is a rebadged Magnuson. If you need more HP than that, do an LS swap don't bother with the Hemi)

I worked on some exotics too, I've wrenched on Ferraris (mostly 360's and F430's), Porsches (lots of 996/997's) AMG's, //M's etc. The Japanese stuff too of course - tons of Evos, WRX's, etc by the boatload, especially WRX's since they love to nuke rod bearings and ring lands.

In almost 20 years of wrenching on performance cars and race cars, I crewed for Formula D twice, built demo cars for Monster Energy and Icon, did burnouts in Hoonigan's lot a few times, and drove a 1500whp Mustang through 5 states just to prove we could.
I'm still a nobody in the big picture, but I've lived and worked in that world long enough to have been a player.

Through all of that I learned one very sage and important thing;

Ferrari, Chrysler, Benz, Toyota, doesn't matter what badge is on it. They're all the same piece of shit as anything else.

What *DOES* matter are the specific models. Every brand has its turds and its legends, and regrettably you can find examples of both in the same body or chassis in many cases, especially with the big three.

If you're going to buy a Wrangler to do Wrangler things, get an early 00's TJ Rubicon with the 4.0L.
If you absolutely need 4 doors, get a JK Unlimited 3.6L Rubicon with the 6spd manual and you'll live happily ever after. Avoid the lower trim models, avoid the 3.8L V6 models, avoid auto transmissions unless it's behind a 4.0L.
Avoid literally every other model on Jeep's lot except the Grand Cherokee SRT models. The smaller and cuter it is, the bigger piece of shit it is. Run away from anything with Chrysler 4cyl and the 9spd auto trans like it has SarsHerpaCoronaAids. Same for any trucks or SUV's that have the dial-a-shifter HVAC knob instead of a shift lever of some kind. They have NOT figured that shit out yet.

If you don't want to spend Rubicon money but still want to do Jeep stuff in a Jeep, buy a '90's XJ Cherokee 4.0L 4x4. Auto or manual works great in those and everything is cheap and pretty simple, and if beat it up a bit doing 4x4 stuff it's no huge loss.

[camsdaddy]

I think jeeps are a lot like Harley's and glocks. The ones I have seen that have given the most trouble have been modified by the owner. Most often it's not the product that causes the failure but the mods.

[JRB]

I had a 2004 TJ Rubicon with the 5-speed manual transmission (they switched to the 6-speed in 2005) that I traded in for a 2011 Scion xB a few months before my son was born.

Shut up. I know I’m stupid. On the plus side, I can haul over 300 board feet of 8’ dimensional lumber completely inside the Scion with all the doors and windows closed. Can’t do that with a Jeep.

Child seat + 2-door anything = misery.
I wouldn't call that stupid, I'd call that pragmatic and correctly prioritizing what matters in life.

The world's best, finest, and sharpest knife doesn't help much when you need a wrench or a plunger.


Besides, when it comes time for you to enjoy something else, a 100 series Land Cruiser can do 85% of what that Rubicon can do but with much nicer road manners, more space, and best of all - 4 doors!

[fixer]

I'm a former Ford guy from way back and now a Toyota geek through and through for several dozen well founded reasons. I like to run trails and camp (I won't say overland). The 4runner and Taco are great. The Tundra can be made to work.

However the ease that Rubicons glide over the stupidest obstacle is mind boggling. The Runners and Tacos (and FJs) can make it in stock form on the same trail but its dicey.

I've semi seriously thought about getting an Unlimited Rubicon for trail use only... but mother of effer not for $60,000 out the door.

Dan Grec's Jeep turned out to be unbelievably reliable in his Africa adventure.

http://theroadchoseme.com/

However I'm not sure if his was an outlier or not. Everyone I've known with a Jeep made in the last 15 years or so had really unbelievably bad luck. Neighbors, co-workers, friends...

So while I have a definite crush on Rubicons on the trail, the other 355 days a year I really don't. And where I live I have to have something that is easily 300k mile reliable with minimal, easy to do repairs.

[hufnagel]

The MSRP pricing is drag-your-dick-in-broken-glass level retarded. If I want a truck for truck stuff the Ram Classic is a much better deal. If I want a Jeep for Jeep stuff, the Wrangler remains the better deal.

It doesn't help that it's fugly.

There is/was a brand new diesel crew cab short bed in cali for $21k after incentives.
I'm not ashamed to admit, I started doing the math on how much ramen I'd need to eat to be able to save enough to fliy out, buy it, and drive it back.