Seriously... this would make a GREAT marketing campaign for the Wrangler
Yes, test drives are the key. What the review says is true. Be sure it's for you.
There's no getting around the fact that compared to modern cars and crossovers, the Wrangler just isn't going to have the same on-road manners. Offroad prowess carries a price.
Agreed, especially the bold text. No one should be getting talked into a Wrangler if they don't want one. You buy a Wrangler because you're aware of the pros and cons, and you want one.
This.
Exactly. I am part of this forum, so I say this not in a demeaning way, but this forum is jaded. We aren't the bulk of Wrangler buyers. I laugh when I see the posts about how the JL has become too much like an SUV in this, that, and the other. My mother has a MB GLC300, it stickered for about the $55k that my JL stickered for, and there just is no comparison. I mean that from both viewpoints, they aren't competitive vehicles, my mother pointed out to me that CR listed her car as one of the best SUVs to buy, for their intended audience, absolutely cannot argue with that, it's a well made vehicle that checks off all of their safety and family features. People buying Wranglers are happiest when they go into it eyes wide open, or if they are just completely not car people and all of the little things are wholly irrelevant. Most of those people will indeed never take off the doors, top, fold the windshield, or go off road unless by accident, so I don't fault CR for their viewpoint, or their honesty, that would be as silly as reading a review in JP magazine and having them talk about the 70-0 braking, ease of egress from the back seat, and benefits of standard side impact air bags.
I commute in it everyday to my projects which are allover so cal. Some times it is a road trip commute like san diego to malibu and sometimes a short hop 45 min up the freeway. Right now I dirve a jk2008 rubicon with a oldman emu 4inch lift.
I've had similar discussions with many car guy friends about this. One of them bought a Ford Focus RS recently, and we were discussing the interior, he bought the nicest version of a $20K car, for $40K. A lot of cars have gone this route, when I bought a Hellcat I was all too often reminded that I was inside of a $25K car from a design standpoint, one of the main reasons I sold it. You can "fancy up" a base model, but in a lot of respects you maintain the price point features of the base vehicle, and when you have such a broad disparity in price between the base, and most loaded as possible versions, you are going to be marketing to different demographics. The imports (Honda, Toyota) that compress their option packages into much narrower bands seem to get this less, but at the expense of people getting what they really want, with them it seems more of a get what you are assigned, what we think will sell in this region.
That would be fine if they applied that same logic to their sports car reviews. But those never focus on the lack of trunk space, the lack of features for an $XXXK vehicle, high maintenance costs, how bumpy and stiff the steering and suspension is for imperfect pot-holed urban roads most people drive on, or how loud the ride is with that noisey engine, etc.
