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Should I spend the money on a soft top for Summer??

Redskinfan72

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Please advise...I know there are limited options out there right now for the JL. Best Top does sell a solid product and the OEM top is north of $2,000.

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Mojito!

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Please advise...I know there are limited options out there right now for the JL. Best Top does sell a solid product and the OEM top is north of $2,000.

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I hesitated because of cost. Bought the premium OEM anyway, never looked back or regretted it!
 

Mangoman

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Absolutely get a soft top ! That was the first thing I bought when I got my JL. Had both tops with my JK. The JK soft top was perfect as far as I’m concerned. They should have left it alone. Bought my JL with a hardtop because I didn’t like the OEM design of the soft top. So I bought the Trek Top.
 

MotownJLU

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I have my hard top on for Michigan winter, but I can't wait to get the soft top back on! I was lucky to get a nice discount on a factory soft top because my father is a retired Chrysler employee and gets discounts on Mopar parts. Depending on what you want to do, down the road you can always sell it for about 70% of what you paid for it if you keep it in good shape. I've also seen good deals now on Facebook marketplace and Craigslist from people bought their JL with a soft top, but preferred the hard top so sold it. It'll be harder to find for a two door, but I imagine the resale would be higher down the road.
 

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thecritter

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Absolutely do it bought ours with a hard top found soft top for sale 1800.00 Now the only time hard top goes back on is when we travel to go skiing. Texas weather we very rarely get the white stuff will be 70 deg and 2 days later its 40.
 

Gee-pah

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Please advise...I know there are limited options out there right now for the JL. Best Top does sell a solid product and the OEM top is north of $2,000.

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Rick, love my Dual Tops though I do, as I suspect you may realize, asking whether you should get a piece of gear for a vehicle on a forum devoted to its love is like asking a forum on "love of parachuting" if you should take your first skydive.

Rather, let's talk about pros and cons. And these aren't question for you to answer here, as they are for you to ponder.

First, what kind of discretionary funds do you have for this purchase? If you're financing a non-necessity that depreciates: let's just say I hope you don't.

Second, let's assume you have these funds, what other gear might you want to purchase for your JL that buying the soft top will defer you getting?

Third, outside the JL space (gasp), might these funds go to other things that interest you?

Fourth, is there room for compromise? The Bestop Sunrider product is much cheaper than the entire soft top. Especially if you're not carrying around too many people in the back seat of your 2 door, you may find this product a more than adequate compromise. Maybe you want to exchange hard top for soft, paying for the latter with the former.

Fifth: are you willing to wait for an aftermarket that may produce a 2 door top that's cheaper than the OEM/Bestop Soft top, or pick one up used?

There's no right or wrong answers here, only that which is right or wrong for you.

As for me, and a lot of us, opening the soft top on a nice day on open road offers similar serenity to sailing, and hard to put a price tag on.
 

nositting

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I bought the dual top. if I had to choose just one top to go with, it'd be the soft top. it's the most versatile. I absolutely love the ease of the sunrider position as well as putting the top down on warm summer days. it takes 3-4 seconds to put the top in the sunrider position. if you have the extra cash, i'd absolutely do it.
 

Will_Jeep

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@Redskinfan72 It all depends on what you want to spend, but there are deals to be had.
For example:
Mopar Sail Cloth: @1250 - https://www.bamwholesaleparts.com/search?search_str=82215806
Mopar Twill: $1600 - https://www.bamwholesaleparts.com/search?search_str=82215147
I have never used BAM, but I have seen them mentioned on here.

Just find the part numbers on QT, and then plug them in to google and do a little searching.

I too will be looking for a soft top soon, but for a JLU, and when I started looking at the end of last summer (after I got caught in a thunderstorm with no rook on, the Jeep has never smelled the same!) I found some deals locally. Also, as @MotownJLU said, keep an eye on the marketplace forum here, Craigslist, etc. The JL may be rarer, but they come up for the JLU.

Question to those of you who have bought a soft top, did you go for sail cloth or twill?
If one or the other, why?
- I'm curious what the real difference is :)
 

rallydefault

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Honestly, only if you see yourself using it frequently. I always shake my head at people with soft tops that stay up all summer. I don't know. What's the point? If you just wanna roll with the enclosed experience, awesome, just stick with the hard top.

So, like most things, just be real with yourself. Are you gonna raise and lower it on nice days? Are you ok with getting the inside soaked every now and then because rain can be sneaky or maybe there's a night or two you're just too lazy to go outside and put the top back up even though you know a storm is coming (not like I've experience that or anything...)
 

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Jennalee

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My first wrangler was a hard top. Told myself I’d never get a hard top again. Was hard to find a place to store it and was too hard to take on and off so it only came off for one summer. When I bought my JL I got the premium soft top and I just love it. Doesn’t get too cold where I live so I always cruise around in safari mode or with the top rolled back unless it rains. As soon as it stops raining the windows get pulled right back out. It’s super easy to do and while I never had fun in my hard top my soft top has just been exhilarating to drive around.

The soft top windows are tinted in my premium (don’t know about the standard) so it looks really nice and doesn’t have that cheap plastic look the older models had. I say definitely get one!
 

quietpeen

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Simple answer is yes. I got a standard one(not the premium twill) for a decent price and I love it. During the summer it spent most of the time folded down and if it was raining all day I just drove my car.
 

unsavory

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You already have a bunch of opinions here, but I'll throw in another perspective.

If you have a garage where you are able to install a hard top hoist, you may find that you never use the soft top. The reason being that you have to remove the hard top anyway. So why not just roll around with no top at all?

Originally I got the dual top group, and ended up never using the soft top, so I sold it.

Of course, your summer weather might dictate whether or not you actually need s soft top as well. Here in California, it literally never rains in the summer. So once the top comes off, it pretty much stays off unless I need to drive a really long distance (ie: 1.5 plus hours gets a little noisy with no top).
 

quietpeen

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You already have a bunch of opinions here, but I'll throw in another perspective.

If you have a garage where you are able to install a hard top hoist, you may find that you never use the soft top. The reason being that you have to remove the hard top anyway. So why not just roll around with no top at all?

Originally I got the dual top group, and ended up never using the soft top, so I sold it.

Of course, your summer weather might dictate whether or not you actually need s soft top as well. Here in California, it literally never rains in the summer. So once the top comes off, it pretty much stays off unless I need to drive a really long distance (ie: 1.5 plus hours gets a little noisy with no top).
What you are saying makes sense in Cali, but where I live the weather forecast could say sunny all day and you put the top down and then come afternoon and its cloudy and all the sudden raining. Yes that is bad forecasting by weatherman but it definitely happens so its nice to be able to go out and in 5 minutes put the top up and side windows on.
 

ViperJon

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The only problem is carting around the windows when you put it down. They’re fairly big and scratch just looking at them.
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