I have a 2018 Wrangler JLU sport S along with my Raptor. I take it all over the place and it’s great for crawling on the trails. I was VERY seriously jonesin’ for the Gladiator as an overlanding vehicle and waiting for the supposed diesel to be released but it still hasn’t even been formally announced yet.
My JL hasn’t left me or my wife on the side of the road but there is still quite a bit to be desired. The steering is garbage. I’ve never had death wobble but there is a lot of slop in the steering. I suspect the bushing are of a poor quality and have simply gotten worn with all the off roading I’ve done. I’m planning to get some Yeti replacement components from Steersmarts to tighten things up.
My next biggest gripe is the POS uConnect 7” system. It’s true garbage IMO. It crashes once a week and doesnt work the Carplay half the time. Whoever is running the dev team behind this needs to be shown the door. The 8.4” uConnect is supposedly better and gets OTA updates but once again the Q&A for this software is crap. They regularly break major features like the Off Road maps and take weeks or months to fix the issues they create.
But, other than that, it’s great and I love it. My wife has taken it as her daily and we’ll probably buy a Rubicon as a replacement for it in the next year or two.
Quick story on how I got my Raptor. My wife had an unmodded JLU Sport of her own and had never driven my Jeep until the week of last Thanksgiving when we had a major snow storm. She needed to get to the grocery store and I was working so I told her to take my Jeep (BTW, Falken AT3Ws are kick ass in the snow). She went to King Soopers and came back with no issues.
When she came up to my office, she had this huge ass grin on her face. I asked her what was up and she said, “I WANT A LIFTED JEEP!” Three weeks later I parlayed that into me getting a Raptor and her getting my Jeep. All I had to do was promise to get is wrapped in whatever color she wants.
As I said earlier, I was considering the Gladiator. Ultimately I decided the size of the Raptor was a bigger positive than a negative. The back seat has more than enough room for my son and his huge ass dog. The bigger bed will lend itself more to our overlanding adventures. The only real downside to the size is that it cuts back on the trails I can go on. It’s too wide for trails like Crystal Lake, just south of Breckinridge. But there are plenty of trails we can take it on and it will definitely be more fun to camp with this truck.
