Kay and I ordered our third Jeep Wrangler in mid-April, 2021 and finally received it a couple of weeks ago. Our first Wrangler was a 2-door TJ in 2000 for our 20’th wedding anniversary. It was white, with chrome numbers, a straight six-banger engine, and the one regret, an automatic transmission. We loved that Jeep but never were happy with the 3-speed automatic that Jeep installed at that time.
We kept that Wrangler for about 10 years but eventually sold it. In 2014 we decided to get a new Jeep Unlimited 4-door Sahara as Kay’s daily driver. This time we were sure to order it with an manual six-speed transmission, and loved it. It was a bit of a challenge for Kay to drive it every day as a busy Realtor with a manual transmission, but it was so much fun she just made it work. Probably the biggest downside for her was the noise. As everyone who has owned a Jeep Wrangler knows, they are loud vehicles, especially with big tires.
We kept that Wrangler until it developed “the death wobble”. Anyone who has owned Wranglers for long knows about the aptly-named “death wobble”. We took it to the dealer several times and they were unable to fix the problem, and Kay got scared to drive it, so we ended up selling it. Death Wobble and daily driver don’t go together!
Eventually Kay purchased a Mercedes crossover as her daily driver, and it has worked great. Very comfortable and quiet to work from, but not all that exciting to drive. I have my Chevy Silverado, which we love. Same thing – great truck, very functional, comfortable, and is great for hauling our toys around town or on long vacations, but lets face it – it isn’t a Jeep Wrangler.
2021 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon
Once again we decided to order a Jeep Wrangler. This time we knew it wouldn’t be a daily driver. We decided to order a 2-door manual transmission hard top Rubicon JL with all the bells and whistles we wanted – leather seats, GPS, trail camera front and rear. Like any other Rubicon it has locking differential front and rear, as well as front swaybar disconnect. It came with 33″ tires, which is plenty for the type of travel we like to do.
Upgrades
We have a few upgrades planned to personalize our Wrangler to our taste. Nothing radical since we are not into serious rock crawling. Our first upgrade is some power steps/rock sliders from Rock Slide Engineering. We want ease-of-entry for some family members who want to ride with us, but we don’t want to give up any ground clearance, so these are rock sliders that also have a power step that drops out of the bottom.
Our next major purchase will be a winch. While we normally won’t be driving in places that we expect to need a winch, it is nice to have one if we are alone and get stuck in deep sand or snow or mud. A winch is like insurance – hopefully we never need it, but nice to have if we do. And since we didn’t purchase the ultra-expensive Mopar front steel bumper with a winch mount, we will need a front bumper that can handle a winch.
A few other minor upgrades are either done or in the works – a shorty antenna, foot sill plates, grab handles, a sun shade top.
We plan to keep this Wrangler a long time and it fits our lifestyle perfectly. What fun!
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