Mudding Harmful to Jeep?

[RubiSc0tt]

I’m having a hard time justifying the 1/2 hour of mudding fun versus the endless hours of cleanup. And you’ll never ever get it all.

Disclaimer: I live in the Rust belt. TL; DR: Mud causes rust, and rust is bad. Ergo- excessive Mud is bad.

When I was young and stupid, I didn't care. Then it eventually became a hassle because of exactly this reason. Then it was a pain in the ass working on the Jeep because despite pressure washing in the manner the OP said, things would still fall in my face and into my eyes when under the Jeep, working on it, despite eye protection. With my vision issues, this was a huge hassle that ended up being pretty painful sometimes, especially with rust. Several years later, my first Jeep (the 98TJ) began to completely rust out from under me. I sold it and bought my 04 Rubi. I was more careful with this one. It had far less rust issues, but still had them. Both were weekend warriors that were daily driven. I'm being even more careful with my JLUR- It's gotten full underside Fluid film, has been washed bi-weekly during the winter.

I'll be avoiding any unnecessary mud on the trail. If there's a little mud or water, I'll deal and clean up later. I'll cross properly and only with as much throttle that's needed to keep forward motion. But I'm not going looking for smelly, stagnant mud pits to get buried in because quite frankly- been there, done that. If you're on public land it's irresponsible land use and disrespectful. It's still not great on private land, but if the land owner is OK with it, that's your call.

let's all go out and do some "intellectually rewarding" off-roading!

I don't know about you, but off roading is always intellectually rewarding for me. Lots of hand/eye coordination, fine motor skills (throttle and clutch finesse), and if it's a particularly difficult trail- line choice and interpretation of physics how your Jeep will react!

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[nunziotocci]

I can't tell if OP is a troll so here I'll answer. yes, offroading will mess up your jeep. Yes mud is not good. It's best to enjoy life locked inside your home.

I'll take posts that aged remarkably well for $100, please. LOL.

 

[Wabujitsu]

It’s a Jeep. It’s made for mud - but not salt. Even though we don’t have to deal with salted roads down in FL, if I were to take mine to the beach and it touched salt water, I would clean it IMMEDIATELY. Off-road mud, I give it a few days or weeks to have it pressure-washed, but I immediately at least run it through a car wash - which I’m sure the car wash owner just loves! I expect to be banned from that car wash soon...lol! I have a detail guy who comes over and pressure-washes underneath for me.

 

[HankRubicon]

My local dealer (they are not great by the way) had to remove the radiators as there was mud in the back of the radiators - I did not pay (due to other mishaps from them) - but in the end of the day I saw the pics of the back of the rads and the car was overheating a lot....
Need to fins a way to remove the cover of the car and get it cleaned once a month or after a bad session - not a fan of mud for the sake of mud, but where I live sometimes you have no other choice....

 

[vegasblue]

No. Just no. I don't care how good or bad it is. I work on my own junk and constantly having crap fall on your face and in your eyes is not worth it. Muddy trail, sure. Going "mudding", no. Did it as a kid, did it in the last Jeep. 6am to 7pm pressure washing the damn thing, no. Nope. No. No. No. No.

 

[BrendanMarine]

Bumping this cause yes, mudding is harmful.

I took a brand new wrangler mudding two weekends ago, tried washing the engine bay like 4 times, and it’s still overheating on the freeway. I’ve asked the public how to clean the radiator apart from just spraying it and no one seems to know. I’d recommend keeping these things out of the mud if you care about it.

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