Be careful, there are a lot of fleet rentals on the market.
Is Turo rental in your available for the Gladiator? Pack it the same as you would your JK. Living with it for a few days might answer your question.
Have to get the purchase price from a dealer under $25k.
I'd say the same if they were priced similarly (as an original 4xe purchaser), but he's talking about saving 30%+ ($8-14k!) . On a lightly modified rig, he could even get a maxed out warranty from Granger for a couple grand and be WAY ahead.
I bought my 2023 4xe Sahara 4 door new. It has 35,500 miles on it (approaching 2 years), and I haven't had any problems at all. Since it is the first and only Jeep Wrangler I've owned, I can't compare it to the others. I've found that it has been very reliable, and when driven in electric mode (I charge on the fast charger made by Jeep), I am getting 39+ mpg when not traveling distances longer than 100 miles. This is almost all in-town driving. When out on long trips, it averages 22-24 mpg.
I have had my 2024 Rubicon X 4Xe for 25 months and over 25,000 miles. No issues and I would absolutely 100% do it again. Other than tiny small convenient cosmetic changes the only real change was to go from 33" KO's to 35" Nitto Grapllers.
I have a '23 4xe 20th Anniversary I got new about 9 months ago, I've put 15k miles on it, my mom has had 2 4xe wranglers a '21 and '25, and we both love them. I do wheel mine a decent bit with a few small issues, she does not and has had no issues. For me I notice the trans temp HEATS up if I'm crawling up hill in 4H or giving it some juice at sub 7mph because of the wet clutch slipping, a fix for this is crawling in 4L. I also have had service 4wd and/or stability control light, this is mostly on loose beach sand or deep mud in 4HA. Again the fix for this is keeping it in 4H. I will say I would suggest regearing if your going to 37s even with the additional power. My highway mileage with 35s is about 15 if I don't have any battery though I am rather heavy with winch, skid plates, recovery gear, and some racks on the outside. My only other complaint about my 4xe is the decreased range due to the smaller gas tank, generally for road driving I get about 220-240 miles before I the light comes on, offroad obviously thats gonna be a lot worse so I would encourage to bring extra gas if your gonna be offroading for a decent distance.
The Gladiator was a big disappointment and not what I needed for mostly beach driving in Florida, light trails and off roading in Northern VA. The JT’s steering was all over the place and the ride rough, rugged with low power from the 3.6 Pentastar engine. The Gladiator really seemed to struggle just going up even mild and moderate inclines. After a few non-productive service visits and much agonizing thought and research, I put it in the category of a very costly “lived and learned” experience. Spent the last month test driving multiple Wranglers, gas and hybrid. Gas version was better than the Gladiator, but still seemed lacking in power and rather noisy. The 4xe was the Goldilocks version of ‘just right.’ I love it! Lots of get up and go power, smooth riding, and super quiet. (My daily driver is a Lexus 350RX, so that’s saying something!)The Hybrid mode’s 27 mpg, so much better than the 15-16 mpg of the Gladiator. Electric mode is impressive and although it only has a range of 28 miles per charge, it works great for me! So FWIW, best universal advice would be: Test drive, test drive, test drive and do the research! Now off to the sugar sand beaches of St. Augustine. Happy Jeepin!
I have a 2021 4xe Rubicon and I've never been stranded. Use it as a daily driver, and, like you, bought it for the power (and the fact that I HATE the regular Rubicon red interior).
