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Sanity Check On 2022 Two-Door Rubicon Build

NYJeepGuy

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LED package - this is one that is incessantly hyped/recommended here on the forum, but didn't make sense to me. It's easy enough to change out myself aftermarket, and I see full kits in the ~$500-600 range - quite a bit cheaper than the factory.
I looked into this when recently ordering a JLR. The cheapest option seem to be buying LED light bulbs to go in the halogen housing, but it seems like this really doesn’t work well in practice. And unless you want smaller lights that are really designed for JKs, there don’t seem to me that many great options. You can buy mopar OEMs, But they’re expensive. Or Oracle Oculus lights are excellent but again, not cheap if you’re buying for the whole vehicle.

Then I recall there being issues where you have to go to the dealer (or get a tazer) to program the lights so they will work correctly, at least for most options (considering the Jeep is set up for halogen). And there’s also the installation and all the wiring. I watched some videos on how to install some different lighting options. My final conclusion was that all of this messing around wasn’t worth saving a few dollars (not even that much when you consider what good lighting options cost).
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NYJeepGuy

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Also, one other thought. When I was planning my order, I did a lot of comparing between the cost of ordering an option vs. the cost of getting it aftermarket. It eventually dawned on me that I shouldn’t be comparing the MSRP price to the aftermarket price bc I was ordering the Jeep 5% under invoice. So that’s the price I should’ve been comparing to the aftermarket price. Anyhow, just pointing this out as it’s not something I thought about at first.
 
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Powelligator

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That's a really good point, NYJeepGuy. That said, I'm thinking if I go hog wild and order everything under the sun from the factory, it's my luck that the Hardtop Headliner, for example, only comes from china and there's a shipload of them sitting offshore on the west coast, so build time for my Jeep just increased by six weeks, for something that I can really live without.

In other threads there seems to be no rhyme or reason for what individual options will put a Jeep in indefinite hold status.
 

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That's a really good point, NYJeepGuy. That said, I'm thinking if I go hog wild and order everything under the sun from the factory, it's my luck that the Hardtop Headliner, for example, only comes from china and there's a shipload of them sitting offshore on the west coast, so build time for my Jeep just increased by six weeks, for something that I can really live without.

In other threads there seems to be no rhyme or reason for what individual options will put a Jeep in indefinite hold status.
I understand your rationale, but I would force myself to not consider that. Order what you want and know it'll get here when it gets here.

During the 8 weeks it took mine from order to delivery, there were no fewer than half a dozen different things that seemed to be holding orders up - there's no rhyme or reason. Also, being in the early days of the MY 22 builds, they surely have decent supplies, as opposed to the end of a MY run.
 

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MJWhiteRubi

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I ordered my JLUR XR with just about everything except the safety stuff. Wanted it mostly done and could focus on adding other stuff later like winch, comms, etc. I figure I’ll swap stuff if I run into limitations.
 

JABCAT

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I installed the headliner in the hard top of our JKU 3 years in, and I wish I had done it sooner. It did add some quietness to the interior and helped keep it a little cooler/warmer depending on the season.

The LED lights are worth it, stock halogen lights are awful. They honestly should just be made standard at this point.

My wife's '20 Grand Cherokee High Altitude as all the "advanced safety" pkgs, and I'm not a fan of most of them and have them set to off. We've had the adaptive cruise control slam on the brakes a few times out of nowhere when either coming around a curve & it thinks a vehicle is in your lane or when vehicles are merging onto the highway in the lane next to you. So now I just keep it off. Blind spot alert - if you have your side mirrors adjusted correctly, there is no blind spot. On our GC, the car is already in our side mirror well before the alert is activated. Back up assist - the car has a back up camera, so other than being really annoying, the beeping is pretty unnecessary.

Steel bumpers - you can typically pick up a set of take-offs for 1/2 of what the option cost is. I have a set waiting for our '22 Sahara Altitude to arrive and paid $850 total for front, rear & front skid plate.

Seats - if you're going to have the top and/or doors off a lot, I recommend the cloth seats with some high-quality seat covers such as Bartact. No point in spending the extra money on leather that could get damaged by the elements. If our model didn't have leather standard, I wouldn't have opted for it. We had leather in our JKU & they were covered from day 1. They looked like new when I sold it a couple weeks ago with 61k miles, so it was a good highlight in my for sale ad :)
 

Cowboy from hell

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Im disgusted by how a special order has all these necessary add ons and such. Blatant money grab! I ordered my 21 rubicon last summer and hated the fact that I was told I had to order this to get that. Almost walked away, but I wanted a damn rubicon. So I said to the dealer" bare bones...I will build it the way I see fit!"...I only opted for a premium soft top and grab handles.
 

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Folks,

I’m in the information gathering stage of ordering a two-door Rubicon and just need a sanity check from the hive on a few things. I’m looking at both Jeep’s website and the order guide, dated 1/17/22 as posted above. I understand that the order guide always trumps FCA’s website. That said, I have questions and comments…

4.88 Gears. Awesome, Thanks FCA! This’ll set me up easy for 35” tires. You know, it sure would be great if you could take it one step further and offer the 2-door with the Xtreme Recon Package from the factory but failing that, I’m still glad some marketing whiz kid read the competitive report on the Ford Bronco and asked an engineer what could be done to get a better crawl ratio than brand X. Odd that the option itself is not listed anywhere on Jeep’s website, but they do crow about the 100:1 crawl. (Little tiny words: “available”). Maybe I should really be thanking Ford for that decision…

Snazzberry Red. What Jeep giveth, Jeep taketh awayeth. I saw that color on a Wrangler the other day and loved it, decided right then and there that that would be my color, after living with black on both my ’83 CJ-7 and my ’06 LJR. Sadly, missed it by “that much” according the the 1/17 order update. Play the sad trombone.

Sarge Green is another cool color, and yay, still available. But holy buckets the red dash and trim is jarring with that color. Even made me take a trip to the local dealer to see for myself what it looks like in real life. No sir, I don’t like it.

In 1983 I remember thinking, “Longer wheelbase than the CJ-5, makes the Jeep luxuriously smooth on a long drive.” In 2006 that had changed to, “Coil springs and air conditioning, how luxurious.” Now I’m looking at what’s offered and thinking, “Adaptive cruise on a manual transmission Jeep Wrangler for crying out loud! What a world we live in now!” Here’s a question - do the safety feature options, the blind spot monitoring and the adaptive cruise, does that all still work if you put taller tires on and a lift kit?

Nit Pick time: No dual top group for 2-doors, Sad! But does anyone know if I can still order CWJ, the soft top window storage bag with a hard top? The Mopar parts soft top kit does not come with that bag, and I’m going to need it. Speaking of tops, the Hard Top Headliner; has anyone ever driven two Jeeps back to back and compared the noise, or maybe lack thereof, between the two? 500 Bucks seems kind of steep for three carpet squares clinging for life above my melon.

The Cold Air Intake - does it really do anything? I’d think that if it did, then FCA would put that on as standard equipment to boost the horsepower a slight bit, makes the published numbers look better versus the “horse”. Anyone have experience with just the cold air intake and nothing else?

Leather Trimmed Bucket Seats, $1,600. But then, there’s two more leather seat options for double the money each. What’s the difference, other than perforated cow or stitched cow? Are the seats a different shape and or design?

If you want the steel bumpers guess what? You have to shell out another $1,600 for LED lights, half of which you already bought as part of the Safety Group. Yet if you want bun warmer seats and a heated steering wheel with your manual transmission, you’ll get the Jeep three hundred bucks cheaper than the folks who are paying $2,500 more for two extra gears and one less pedal under the dash. Are we there yet?

Thanks for putting up with my rant...
4.88 gears - 100% do not get anything else if you are planning on going to 35" tires and the 6MT. If 4.88's were a factory option when I bought my 2020, there's a chance I wouldn't currently have a 2022 Ecodiesel on order.

Sarge and the red dash - I wasn't a fan when I ordered my Sarge 2020 JLUR either, but it was slightly less obnoxious after driving a couple hours with it the first day. That said, on the 2nd day of ownership I swapped the red dash panels out for a set with black leather and red stitching (which matches everything else in the Rubicon interior). Part # 6AC261R3AD-6AC241R3AA. They were $350 for the pair, and I sold the Rubicon red dash pieces on Craigslist for $150 about 48 hours later.

Safety features - I didn't order either of the safety groups and, looking back, I'm glad I didn't with the manual transmission. The adaptive cruise will annoy you once you put on 35" tires because, the way the Aisin transmission is geared versus where the Pentastar makes its power, you'll be shifting ALOT on the freeway, even with 4.88 gears. Also the addition of the adaptive cruise control (the module of which is located above the center rear view mirror) makes the windshields significantly more expensive to replace, and as a Jeep owner I'm sure you are already aware, you'll be replacing windshields.

Hard top headliner - I installed aftermarket (Hotheads brand) headliners in my JL 2 days after purchasing her. For those first 2 days, I was impressed with how much quieter the JL platform was than the JK platform before it. I did notice a difference after installing the headliners, but it wasn't as dramatic a difference as I expected it to be. If I had to do it over again? I'd probably save the money. The JL's are MUCH quieter inside than all previous Jeeps have been.

Forget the CAI - not worth the money unless you just want a little more motor noise.

Seats - I can't speak to the leather seats, but I can say that the seat heaters in the cloth seats work exceptionally and I really enjoy the cloth seats. Would I order them again? Well, on my 2022 Ecodiesel Rubicon that I have on order, I kept with cloth seats.

Steel bumpers - I'm personally a fan of the steel front bumper, but if I had it to do over again I'd probably just order the plastic bumpers and buy a used steel front bumper off the forums or Craigslist or the like. The steel rear bumper has been proven to be pretty weak if you're using it to slide, so in that case the plastic rear bumper serves about the same purpose for less money (meaning it's merely a placeholder until you decide which aftermarket rear bumper you want).

LED lights - I absolutely could not go back to halogens now that I've had the factory LEDs. Whether you accomplish this with OEM solutions or aftermarket, absolutely get your headlights upgraded to an equivalent to the OEM LEDs. The days of driving a Jeep at night being a blind pursuit are over; the OEM Jeep LEDs are some of the absolute best on the market. They are better than the OEM HID headlights that were on my 2016 Challenger Hellcat by a significant margin. Better than the Morimoto HIDS that were on my JKR. Better than the HID and LED systems I had on my 2008 Ram pickup. Better even than the Baja Designs bumper LEDs and upgraded Halogen headlights on my 2002 Ram pickup combined.
 

TheBirdie72

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Not a rubicon here. Got a 21’ Freedom Edition 2 door sport. But - the Freedom “Oscar Mike” package added a lot of upgrades that you asked about. In addition to rubi rock rails and Oscar Mike themed badging standard in the freedom package, I also got:
  • LED head/fog lights - These are great! Much better than any other headlights I’ve had before.
  • Front steel bumper / rear plastic bumper - Perfect combination of both. Winch-ready steel front (that I added a bull bar to), and plastic rear is fine since steel rear OEM bumper seems to be lacking by most people’s opinion.
  • Heated leather-wrapped cloth seats - Had leather in my last vehicle (‘14 Cherokee), but the wife wanted cloth. This was a great compromise! Cloth in the middle, and leather trimmed around edges and headrest, embossed with the “Oscar Mike” theme. Jeep should offer this as an option I think!
Jeep Wrangler JL Sanity Check On 2022 Two-Door Rubicon Build 0CD9D377-B254-44BE-ADD8-171A0670D7E0

It’s a shame Jeep isn’t offering a Freedom package for 2022. Would be a great option for those looking for a Jeep, but not necessarily a Rubicon. 🤷‍♂️
 

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RedBaron91

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I'd skip the Mopar soft top bag. I bought the BJD Customs bag which is perfect for the two door. I leave it attached to the front seats, but you can also mount it on the wall.
 

Rubi SoHo

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No, just the 6MT
Phew…I’m in the 8speed auto camp, but would have specc’d 4.88’s if it’d been an option. Not sure I’ll pay to regear to 4.88 now, unless it seems needed when I go to 37’s, but probably would have done it from factory if I could have.

My dealer wasn’t too good at helping me see how to order things that weren’t on the online configurator. I honestly thought the XR package with the 6sp was not yet an option when I ordered because I couldn’t build it on Jeep’s website. I wanted the auto anyway, but dealer didn’t even ask me about transmission preference.
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