I went from a 2018 to a 2021 to now a 2024. Here are my thoughts.

[Camaroboi13]

The power was great. It was the NVH I didn’t like.

Had to google your NVH thing, as a Jeep owner I’ve never heard that abbreviation before. The last Jeep had no muffler on it and was never obnoxious to us. My wife went from an 18 Sport to the 24 Willys, both V6 models. The technology stuff you’re referring to does not happen in ours. No cutting out like you have seen. She also has LED taillights (I’m 99.9% sure) so I’m not sure how you didn’t get them, I thought that was a normal thing for the Willys.

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[S2k Chris]

Had to google your NVH thing, as a Jeep owner I’ve never heard that abbreviation before. The last Jeep had no muffler on it and was never obnoxious to us. My wife went from an 18 Sport to the 24 Willys, both V6 models. The technology stuff you’re referring to does not happen in ours. No cutting out like you have seen. She also has LED taillights (I’m 99.9% sure) so I’m not sure how you didn’t get them, I thought that was a normal thing for the Willys.

The 2.0t is very clattery at idle.

LED tails come with the safety pack I didn’t get.

 

[Camaroboi13]

The 2.0t is very clattery at idle.

LED tails come with the safety pack I didn’t get.

I didn’t get a safety package either I don’t think

Also, my daily is a diesel gladiator, so I welcome the clatter lol

 

[RAD1]

Only reason I ticked the box for safety pack was the LED tails. The lighting on the '24 is really good.

 

[Wagabond]

@S2k Chris - For the inactive 4G Wi-Fi icon, if you swipe down where the down arrow is, you get a panel of buttons for different functions to replace the ones in the top bar. (I am assuming it’s the same whether you have built in Nav/technology package or not) .

I’ve just switched the 4G Wi-Fi button on my profile with the Device Manager one, to more easily switch between phones, if my wife is riding with me and wants to use CarPlay from her phone

 

[HK1s]

I think you did well getting the v6 for a daily, it somehow make the jeep feel more refined because its a minivan engine. For my application a 2-door sport on light duty axles. It will jerk forward or burnout when I command.

for carplay, try enable both bluetooth and wifi, mine android auto is only smooth with both.

as for build quality there are obvious insufficiency, for example my passenger door rubs slightly on the body, my rear left fender rattles on delivery it settled down after a few weeks.

 

[Scott97]

Only reason I ticked the box for safety pack was the LED tails. The lighting on the '24 is really good.

Very happy with the flush mount Oracle LED tail lights I purchased for my 2024 Willys. They come in red and smoke colors. I like the clean look of the flush mount but it is not for everyone. One other benefit, the white LED back up lights are super bright. I was going to install the hitch mount back up light from DD but now there is no need.

 

[S2k Chris]

I have a set of the Oracle lights that replace the reflectors in the bumper. I wire them to the aux switch so I can turn them on to use for working behind the Jeep, such as if I want to load cargo on a hitch hauler or signal a tailgater or something. I had them on my last Jeep and plan to put them on this one. The flush mount lights look nice, but I’m not sure I care ~$500 worth.

 

[Scott97]

Yes, the price point is a bit much but I got on a roll with some Nacho lights on a new front bumper and just had to do something with the tail lights. Sometimes this mod thing is addictive.

 

[XJConvert]

Most of your concerns could / should be directed at Apple, not Jeep.

I don't disagree; some could go either way. The general form factor and positioning of it -> jeep

Uconnect buttons on the left, not hidden during carplay, and the top bar always present -> jeep

positioning and layout within carplay, and options to further add/modify the layout -> apple

 

[nU7OuxIx]

As with all Jeeps the rear view mirror is too low. It seems as though there’s an arm that connects to the adaptive cruise camera box for the mirror; I’m wondering if there’s an aftermarket shorter arm to bring the mirror up an inch. If not I might see if I can fab one up. That would be really nice to raise it up.

There's a "hack" out there where you can pop the mirror out, flip it around, and pop it back in. This moves the mirror up about an inch or so. I added some desert does it seat risers and the mirror became annoyingly low. You do have to grind a little tab but overall it was a simple and quick mod.

Why did you buy your jeep from Texas? I'm from the Chicago area as well. For mine the dealer recognized the tread lightly discount and it was enough for me to buy through them. I've heard rumors that they no longer do, and a new jeep is in the back of my head.

 

[racerdude90]

I had some weird issues with the cable too. plugging and unplugging the phone didn’t seem to help.

you may have already tried this but when i unplugged from the port in the console and plugged it back in real good it worked great for me. i almost never have issues with that now

fwiw i have a 21 so maybe it’s a little different, idk.

 

[Heimkehr]

The flush mount lights look nice, but I’m not sure I care ~$500 worth.

They're not worth the current whack of $430, or $456 for the tinted version.

I purchased mine for $340 as part of the promotional pre-release in Nov 2021. They were received in early Jan. 2022 as part of the initial shipping.

I'm not usually an early adopter, but the lights have functioned flawlessly thus far. Credit where it's due.

As good as they look, and work, these Chinese lights shouldn't cost more than $250 or so. This is doubly true when considering that owners with BSM will have reduced functioning of that feature with the Oracles in situ.

If or when the flush mount lights on my JLU depart this Vale of Tears, I'll reinstall the OEM tails and call it a day.

 

[S2k Chris]

There's a "hack" out there where you can pop the mirror out, flip it around, and pop it back in. This moves the mirror up about an inch or so. I added some desert does it seat risers and the mirror became annoyingly low. You do have to grind a little tab but overall it was a simple and quick mod.

Yeah and I may do that. But looking at it, it looks like there’s an arm that is connected in the box and comes down and attaches to the mirror. I thought if there was a way to swap that arm out it would be killer. Then I thought maybe if no one makes a shorter arm there’s a business opportunity there. Who knows.

Why did you buy your jeep from Texas? I'm from the Chicago area as well. For mine the dealer recognized the tread lightly discount and it was enough for me to buy through them. I've heard rumors that they no longer do, and a new jeep is in the back of my head.

I didn’t buy it from Texas, I bought (leased) it from Mark Dodge in Louisiana. They delivered it to me at the Houston airport, and I drove it home from there. Mark Dodge is a fantastic dealer, it’s the easiest transaction in the world, and they are awesome. I had leased my 4xe through them after using a broker. When CarMax reached out to Chrysler Financial for my payoff info, I guess it triggered Mark Dodge to reach out to me. My sales guy, Otis, called and basically said “hey looks like you’re getting rid of it, what’s the plan?” So I sent him my desired next spec, he quoted me a price thousands less than I could get locally (admittedly I didn’t try that hard but no one around here wants to deal) and I sent him a deposit. 6 weeks later, Jeep is here, I sign some papers electronically on a Zoom call, and then make arrangements to meet him to pick up the Jeep. Everyone there is the nicest, and I was happy to deal with them.

 

[Fatfreewilly]

I originally leased a 2018 Sport S in August of 2018. It was my first ever Jeep after years of admiring them from afar. I loved it, and honestly should have just bought the lease out. But they were firesaleing 4xes and I got a Rubicon for a bargain price. I had that for 3 years, and I loved the Jeep but came to hate the drivetrain. Lots of issues (recalls, failures) and just generally an unrefined drivetrain. I eventually grew to hate that I felt it was unreliable and I wanted nothing to do with it long term. So I gave the lease back at the end and ordered a new Wrangler Willy’s from Mark Dodge, which was, as always, excellent to work with. I picked it up on Friday from the Houston airport and set out on a 2-day trip to drive it home to Chicagoland. Below are my thoughts and impressions I posted to another non-Jeep forum. There are some flaws and upgrades, if anyone has thoughts I’m happy to hear them.


First, the drivetrain is so much more linear than the 4xe. It’s not as powerful, but it’s more predictable, and no hesitation off the line and no jerkiness or questions what it’s going to do.

It also feels (and is) a lot lighter. That results in a less ponderous/more tossable feel, but also results in the Jeep being tossed around more on the highway. I did notice that the tires were aired to 42psi cold; I dropped them to the recommended 37 cold, we’ll see how that affects things (haven’t driven it since doing so). Should reduce some of the wandering/instability. I was very happy with the mud terrain tires, they are Falken Wildpeak MT01 which I’ve heard good things about. Not a ton of siping so not sure how they will do in snow but reviews sound promising. The road noise was I thought a little muted from the Rubicon and it’s K02s, but that was at 32k miles, and apparently the 2024s have increased noise mitigation.

Features wise, I did step down a trim level. Aside from the obvious front locker and sway bar disconnect, I lost a few other odds and ends. No native nav (never used), no auto dimming mirror (kinda sucks), no front camera (optional on last build, rarely used), no led tails (might try to retrofit, we’ll see but don’t really care). Also lost the full time AWD for the transfer case, kinda regret this one but it is unavailable in Willy’s. Oh well. Theres also some pretty significant cost cutting evident. The passenger grab bar was embossed with Wrangler and had nice stainless bolts (people would use for mounts, etc); this has been replaced with a plain black panel. The rear seat loses the household plug, and crucially, the USB-A and USB-C chargers (2x ea) that were there. This is bad for my kids and I’ll probably do some sort of retrofit. I know my Rubicon had them, I’m not sure about my Sport but I thought so. I don’t think there’s an option pack that I could have selected to bring them back. Also stupid stuff, like the clip on the back quarter in the trunk for the hardtop wiring harness and washer line. There was a nice little mount to hold them, now you get a stupid door to open and try to cram them in and they only mostly fit. The trim in the back seat is also kind of crap, I had to press some of it fully into place, and there’s a big gap at the B-pillar where the trim doesn’t reach the body. On one hand, it’s a Jeep; on the other it’s a $56k Jeep. I think they’ve gotten sloppy. From the driver’s seat though, fit and finish is pretty good.

Trap door for roof harness:

The new infotainment is really really good. Huge map, and a nice status bar that shows the current song so you don’t need to have the split screen for CarPlay. No way to change the song without going into the menu for the passenger, but driver can do it with steering wheel controls. Also the gauge cluster is nicely simplified from the 4xe; that one was very busy, this one is like my Sport and much cleaner. You can chose what to show at the top, I do temp, compass, and range.

One maddening thing is that the center arm rest has a USB-A port inside, but it’s wired CarPlay. And it’s notoriously unreliable. It was bad on my Sport, bad on my Rubicon, and now bad on my Willy’s. It cuts out every 2-4 minutes. If it was a dumb port it would be no problem, but it’s a smart port so when it cuts you lose your CarPlay connection briefly (30s or so). I don’t know why in the world this is such a problem. What I’d like to do is chuck my phone in there on long trips plugged in and charging and running off wireless CarPlay. What this actually means is that to charge it I have to use the dash mounted aux inputs, which work fine, but it means a cord, and it means finding a spot to stash the phone. Not bad with 1 person in the car but with 2, that becomes a pain. I may try to wire up a dumb port in there when I do ports on the back of the console for the back seat and that way I can charge in the console as desired. More to come on that.

As with all Jeeps the rear view mirror is too low. It seems as though there’s an arm that connects to the adaptive cruise camera box for the mirror; I’m wondering if there’s an aftermarket shorter arm to bring the mirror up an inch. If not I might see if I can fab one up. That would be really nice to raise it up.

On the subject of the adaptive cruise, this was a real surprise. It’s excellent. I hate the one in my wife’s car because it is way too passive (closest follow setting is too conservative) and because when you can get back up to speed it accelerates real slowly. The Jeep is the opposite. The closest follow setting is uncomfortably close in some situations ( I was behind a couple Harleys at one point and had to back off some to give them room) and when you pull out to pass or a car turns out from in front of you, it races HARD up to the chosen speed. Like aggressively so. I’d turn it down a notch if I could. In a few instances (maybe 5) it accelerated so hard over bumpy pavement that it engaged the EPS which then cuts the cruise control. I need to look into the calibration of that. Or maybe the aired down tires will help. It also 2-3 times phantom braked for a car in the next lane, or for a barrier as I went around a turn, or something, but 2-3x over 1200 miles isn’t terrible. I never would have spec’d this, and probably won’t use it day to day, but it was nice to have on the road trip. And you still have regular “dumb” cruise as well, though I’m not sure when you’d use it.

Updated screen:

That black icon at the top center is telling you the hotspot is turned off. Given that I can’t imagine why anyone would pay for a 4G hotspot when everyone has phones and 5G tablets, that seems like a big waste of space but that’s a small nit to pick. And yes that’s a Taylor Swift song playing, my daughter was with me so shut up.

I put the soft top on from my old Jeep, ripped the doors off, and parked next to one of our cheer coach’s old TJ.

As far as mods, I’m going to install the KC round LED bumper lights and the Oracle rear LEDs (replace red triangle reflectors) from my last Jeep. And at some point reinstall the hideaway GMRS. I might look into rear LED tails, and I want to solve the charging issues. And while I have the console ripped open, it probably makes sense to install a rear heated seat kit too, would make my kids happy when we go to WI to snowmobile. Otherwise, I’m just going to drive the thing.

tl;dr:
Good: better infotainment, much better drivetrain, much simpler, good adaptive cruise, general Jeepness

Bad: fit and finish in the back, some cost cutting, stupid audio/charging problem, some adaptive cruise squirreliness, less directionally stable than heavy 4xe

Overall: I love Jeeps and I love this Jeep

That Hotspot icon can be changed if you long press it I believe. I have the 'phone management' button there to easily swap android auto/car play between the wife's and my phones.

Also if you get JSCAN, you can activate the auto-highbeams since it has the camera. They're a little spastic as they're a bit aggressive, but it works fairly well.

Same thoughts with the Adaptive Cruise Control, it's rather aggressive haha. Highway I'll keep it on the closest setting to reduce the auto-braking, but on like a 1 lane follow the leader type road I'll space it out.

Phone-wise I have a dumb charger in the cigarette lighter and the bullet point phone mount. I like the setup but the wire can get annoying at times. I don't stream music all the time, so I'll run maps on my phone and like xm on the radio to see both without having to flip back and forth. I wish XM and Android Auto could share the damn screen.

Does yours randomly chime btw? Mine does and I haven't figured it out yet. Seemingly no rhyme or reason. Sounds like a little notification chime.

Happy jeeping! 2024 Willys in Bikini:

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