Here’s What I Love & Hate About The Jeep Gladiator After Living With It For a Year!

[Applause] [Music] uh so in today's video we are talking about the 2020 jeep gladiator we have had for over a year now i'm going to tell you all the things i love and really dislike about the gladiator talk about the pros and the cons of the mods that we've done to it and just talk about the overall ownership experience that's coming up right now [Music] so this jeep had an msrp of 55 355 dollars it is pretty well loaded let's start out by talking about the engine now this jeep has the much hated on the common sections 3.6 liter pentastar v6 a gas engine naturally aspirated but it's one of my favorite aspects of this jeep it makes enough power to get you pretty much everywhere you need to go 285 horsepower 260 pound-feet of torque of course it's not a sport truck but the best part about this engine it's durable it's been around in the wrangler since 2012 they use it in just about every challenger charger minivan that fca or now stalantis makes and i've talked to service techs who say these engines will go over 200 000 miles and they just keep on trucking and then we come to the transmission now you can get the gladiator in its six-speed manual this one though has the eight-speed automatic one of my favorite aspects of the jeep actually i was really surprised by just how smooth and responsive this transmission is uh and of course it makes the jeep easier to sell and speaking of selling this jeep one of you could be the new owner of this jeep i'll talk about that at the end of this video our gladiator is rolling on a set of 35 by 12 and a half bfg km3 mud terrain tires a 35 inch tall tire works perfectly with the gearing on this truck now of course the rubicon has standard 410 gears and the 35 is a good combo with the automatic and the pentastar v6 if you wanted to go bigger than this like a 37 i think on a regular basis driving around especially up here at altitude you'd either want to re-gear the jeep or maybe look at the diesel gladiator now personally i don't think i would buy that diesel because uh it's an eco diesel and the first gen of it had a number of issues apparently this latest generation is all new and redesigned but i'm still a little bit hesitant about the diesel but it is a powerhouse and if you want to be rolling on 40s or 44s you got to look at something a little bit more beefy than the good old pentastar another really smart design here in the gladiator is the spare tire the hole for the spare tire is actually large enough to accommodate this 35 inch tall tire which is bigger than the factory setup and apparently you can even fit a 37 inch tall tire and you just got to air it down so it kind of squishes into place [Music] now this jeep is equipped with a number of mopar accessories and mopar is basically jeeps in-house accessory company and the great thing about the mopar accessories is you buy them through jeep you can get them installed through jeep and they're covered underneath your factory warranty the suspension on this has been one of the biggest surprises this is the mopar two inch lift with the fox shocks and uh i've been very fortunate to drive many many lifted vehicles and this is by far the most sordid the most comfortable and the best lifted vehicle i've ever driven it's the only vehicle i've ever driven where lifting it has actually made the ride better it's more compliant it's softer it's better on the highway it's better off-road this lift is a big recommend from me now what about the wheels we chose this is a very controversial look but i love it so steel wheels and this is actually a spare wheel we actually on this jeep have five spare wheels of course all four main and the spare tire one thing that i don't like about the spare wheels though of course is that the uh the hub itself is exposed to the elements because it's kind of just built originally as like a temporary stop gap measure it just looks bad now with all these mopar accessories there is one in particular i'm really not that big of a fan of i'm not sure i would recommend for most people and that's back here so this is called the dect system it's made by a company called dect and the idea is it's a storage solution to make your pickup truck more practical basically you've got these two cubbies that pull out and deliver you some additional storage in theory this is a really cool idea because what it means is when you close them up you can close the tailgate then lock the truck and your items will be secure but in practicality they're just not really all that useful maybe if you're a hunter for example you could find a big use for something like this but they just don't provide that much storage and then the worst part about them is it really eats up pretty much all of your bed space i mean yes look at this you do have some nice kind of treaded surface on top of the deck that you could stack stuff on top of but you'd be better off maybe building a system yourself like we did in our tacoma or just leaving it as a standard truck there are so many different types of racks and storage solutions available for the gladiator this one is made by a local company actually called rackstars and the installation is really simple it's held up very well first of all the tent or whatever you're gonna put up there is braced in three places which means it's really sturdy i do like these molle panels we went ahead and stuck a set of these roto packs on there i mean i think the rack i would strongly recommend the way it works is it bolts into either your factory or accessorized rail system so i had to get a set of the mopar rails here and then those just bolt in and the rack bolts to the rails oh one more important thing i need to mention about the rail system from mopar if you're going to get your truck bedlined ideally they would put little plugs in the places where the rails bolt into because i had to re-tap like 15 different holes to get these rails to fit because the bed liner had make their way into the little threads and gobbled them all up so that was kind of a mess but apart from that the rack was a really easy install now the bed on this truck is pretty small by pickup truck standards it's five feet long not that great compared to a full-size truck but compared to a wrangler you can carry so much more now the towing thing is interesting this truck is rated to tow seven thousand pounds i have towed seven thousand pounds with it at least when it was stock and it towed pretty well it's a little bit slow and i'm not sure i'd want to do it every day but in a pinch it does work i think if you're towing more than like 4 000 pounds regularly though probably shouldn't get the gladiator it just gets a little bit unhappy now a big pro for a lot of people is the off-road capability i do think that out of the box and modified this is by far the most capable rock crawler of any midsize pickup truck or maybe even any pickup truck on the market today of course in rubicon forum you can get the front and rear locking differentials right from the factory you can get the sway bar disconnect right from the factory most people are never ever going to need that stuff so i would say for 90 percent of people just get a sport or maybe an overland but if you really want the top dog you just can't beat the rubicon now on the road as much as some people will have you believe the new jeep gladiators and wranglers are wheelbarrows it really isn't that bad i mean sure the steering isn't sports car like but it works and the ride is really really sublime it's squishy it's almost raptor like now at highway speeds it isn't all that loud you know over 80 plus miles an hour you start to hear some wind noise but it really isn't a bad driving thing i mean it's it's 20 21 guys you can't sell a vehicle that drives and rides like a cabbage cart it's got to be able to drive and ride like pretty much every other truck and the gladiator does a year in and my biggest dislike with the jeep gladiator is still the seats i just don't think they're very good now of course at 55 000 this one has the leather seating upholstery they've held up pretty well granted only 9000 miles or so but they're just not very soft or comfortable or supportive you do have lumbar support down here but only on the driver side and then of course you have recline and also back and forth movement but at six foot one inch tall i've talked about this before and i'll talk about it again the seat it just doesn't go back far enough for the taller individuals that's a shame because i have plenty of headroom uh you know i don't feel too cramped in here apart from the seat which is just mounted too far forward i think they did that to preserve rear seat leg room so it could be maybe best in class or something but i hardly ever carry rear passengers i would sacrifice their legs for a more comfortable driving experience now of course to completely contradict myself i guess another positive if you do have a family the rear seat leg room is very good because the seats don't go back very far but in all seriousness yeah i mean even at six foot one the rear seats are in some ways more comfortable in the front seats of course i'm kidding a little bit but there's plenty of leg room in the back seats even with the seat pushed all the way backwards and yeah it's a good place to spend time heated seats incredible they're really really hot heated steering wheel you could fry bacon off this heated steering wheel dual zone automatic climate control i mean this is this is kind of luxury features from 10 or 15 years ago that are now in a open top jeep pickup truck now the uconnect infotainment screen is incredible as well one of my favorite screens in the business actually i'm going to say right now my favorite screen in the business it's just easy to use it's quick it's responsive it makes sense nothing is hard to understand it's a you know it's a good looking screen as well they do make a slightly smaller one a seven inch this one is a big 8.4 regardless of which one you get you're gonna be happy with it one thing i like about the gladiator more or less is the four-wheel drive lever now it's nice and chunky and getting into too high is very simple but sometimes you really gotta fight the thing to get it down into four wheel drive low but i don't know i still prefer this over in old fashioned actually new fashion i should say rotary knob well it makes a lot of noise there's 40 there's 50. there's 60. okay so not terribly quick but it will easily keep up with highway speeds even in the mountains towing with these big tires probably not recommended i just don't think it would be all that stable or all that quick but stock it does pretty well fuel economy with the lift about 16 to 18 depending on the roads and the conditions which isn't very good but it's it's manageable an option i would definitely recommend if you're thinking about modifying your jeep with lights and other accessories is the auxiliary switch panel right here this is four built-in buttons that allow you to turn on stuff like these mopar lights and the reason i would recommend doing this from the factory is because if you want to do this after the fact like we did it's a monster job it's like seven hours you gotta remove pretty much the whole dashboard there's all sorts of wiring that has to go in underneath the hood so that these can be properly wired up it's just it's it's a real bear you're better off getting this from the factory take that box and then you can just simply add your lights and plug them into the fuse box now speaking of lights this jeep does have the mopar light pods we've got these ones up here on the pillars and then also the ones in the front they are very bright and they of course have the jeep branded light covers and you can see i've melted this one pretty good while they work excellent and i think they're very high quality they're also ridiculously expensive so maybe don't go mopar on the lights but the brackets are really good super easy to install and they actually fit really nicely i like the way they designed them one option you should definitely tick when you're buying a gladiator is the led headlight group i don't care so much about the led turn signals but the stock halogen headlights are pretty poor it must be said and if you want to update them after market i think it's like 900 just for the headlights it's a lot of money [Music] another option i would definitely recommend is the steel bumper you can get this from mopar like we did not too big of an install or you can get it from the factory it's really beefy really sturdy you definitely win in any kind of fender bender and of course the end caps are removable the worn winch is awesome too now these are expensive very expensive but if you're going to spend money somewhere you should probably spend it on recovery rather than visual accessories because that thing's always going to work i've had such good luck with the warren winches they work in pretty much every kind of condition now the snorkel is going to be one of those things you either love or you really hate i will say the jeep performance part snorkel is very well made really robust it's a really big job to install because you got to cut this big scary hole in the hood whether or not it does a whole lot i'm kind of on the fence about because yes it does suck in nice clean air from up high at least that's the idea for water forwarding well there are little plugs in the base of the air box that you can pull out and put back in for deep water not really sure how much you that gets you though because of course a fuse box is like right about this height so anything higher than that and i think you're gonna start frying some very expensive stuff but it looks cool and it actually makes the engine sound very different because you get that induction noise right by your head one option i would definitely recommend is this right here the keyless axis so all jeeps have this key all jeeps have push button start but if you don't get this button you're going to have to pull your key out of your pocket and unlock it or if you have a really base model you're going to actually have to put the key in the door the keyless uh entry option is super convenient you can just walk up grab the door handle and it opens definitely recommend it i just wish they would have had that same feature here on the back doors now the freedom panels are pretty brilliant the idea with these are you can simply undo a few latches and then you can pull out the front panels which are super light and easy to remove without pulling out the rear section of the roof which is really heavy i have used the freedom panels a bunch but funny enough i've never actually pulled off the whole roof it's one of those things that i always said i would do summer came and just never really got around to doing it now another thing we've never actually done to this jeep is pull the doors off it is a very simple procedure to do and a lot of people that own jeeps love to do it i don't know why we've never done it it's just so much fun with the doors on why take it off also it's uh i don't know it becomes very compromised with the doors off you can't put anything in it it's kind of one of those things where you do it once which i've done before in an old jeep and you love it and then you just never do it again you can also fold the windshield down which i've heard is much easier on the new jail but can't do that with the snorkel in place however it sounds like i'm putting these features down this is the only pickup truck in existence currently for sale that allows you to do that stuff so it's an automatic win so the jeep gladiator overall not a bad thing to drive excellent off-road uh i think it drives better than the wrangler because it's got a longer wheelbase it's a little bit softer and a little bit more compliant and your passengers will be happy because they have a ton of space in the back seat and they're not being credited by luggage which you can put out in the bed it is a little bit upright the windshield is certainly vertical the seats is pretty bad as we talked about but the steering wheel is nice and soft and the radio is really good speakers are right above your head turn on your incredible heated seats and crews down the road regardless of the weather [Music] so the jeep gladiator after one year of owning this truck i can strongly recommend it it's been great i do think they look a little bit goofy in stock configuration with these small tires but that is easily fixed and that's one of the best parts about owning a jeep they're just so easy to accessorize there's so much you can do to them to really make them your own the pentastar v6 obviously not a very flashy engine but i think it's a solid power plant the automatic transmission is good the interior features are excellent the seats are bad the mopar lift is incredible the 35 inch tall tire is the perfect compromise from on-road performance and off-road capability i love that you can take the top off i've never taken the top off it tows pretty well it hauls a little bit but overall you just can't have more fun in a pickup truck in any class and 55 000 is pretty expensive but you're not going to find anything else that can match this capability from the factory with the top off on the market today if you're interested in buying this truck it's time for us to sell it on we've had it for a year we've got new projects coming so send us an email ask tivoltruck.com if you're actually serious about buying it maybe we can put something together and then if that doesn't work we're going to stick it on our auction site tflbids.com and see what happens there well as always this is tommy with tfl offroad check out tvloffroad.com for the latest and greatest in new truck reviews

Channel: TFLoffroad

Views: 181,224

Rating: 4.9151626 out of 5

Keywords: TFLoffroad, jeep gladiator, jeep gladiator rubicon, 2020 jeep gladiator rubicon, 2020 jeep gladiator, jeep gladiator review, jeep, gladiator, jeep gladiator 2020, 2020 jeep gladiator review, gladiator rubicon, jeep gladiator interior, rubicon, 2020 jeep gladiator rubicon review, jeep gladiator price, 2021 jeep gladiator, jeep gladiator features, jeep wrangler rubicon, 2020 jeep gladiator overland, jeep truck, jeep gladiator design, long term review, 2021 gladiator, 2021 rubicon

Id: Y6yoT7OukGE

Length: 17min 38sec (1058 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 21 2021