I recently had bought an 18 JKUR with half doors for fun until the diesel JL came out and had a chance to have the bugs worked out of it. But last week, I had some time to kill and test drove a Sahara (only JL on the lot at the time). I have mixed feelings about the JL:
The good:
Power/acceleration, trans, is all worlds better, even on the Sahara. Ride was nice with the Sahara street tires. Seating position was high (Land Rover Discovery II kind of high) and visibility was great. Love the exterior styling.
The bad I wasn’t expecting:
While the overall road noise inside the cabin was muted compared to the JK, there was a lot of wind noise concentrated along the top of the windshield frame. I drove a JK hardtop Recon back-to-back against it to verify — the JK was much quieter at 75/80 along a windy interstate. The top of the JL windshield being closer to one’s head may make it seem worse, but to me the wind noise seemed higher pitched or sharper if you will — and more annoying. The fact that the rest of the JL cabin is so quiet may make the windshield wind noise seem to stand out more.
Second thing, which was the deal killer for me, is the leather heated seats are hard as fuck. Seriously, what the hell, Jeep? I know I’ve got a skinny butt, but it felt like I was sitting on a flat rock with a blanket thrown over over it. It made my lower back hurt (I got issues there) and feel fatigued by the end of the test drive. If you don’t have back issues or have plenty of ass padding, you’d probably be fine, but there’s no way I’d want to have seats that hard as my daily driver. If I ever do get a JL, this means I’ll be stuck getting cloth seats without the heated seats option.
The reduction of the shoulder room by the doors being closer in was a real let down. My shoulders were nearly touching the b-pillar. If you’ve ever driven an older Land Rover Discovery, that’s exactly how much room you feel like you have inside now against the windows.
And here’s where I may disagree with the common wisdom on the interior, but compared with the Recon I drove, the interior looked and felt like a cheap version of a G-Wagon. The hard top interior looks like styrofoam — I actually had to feel it to make sure it wasn’t, and I half expected to be able to pinch off a chunk of it. The dash reminded me of an old Mitsubishi Montero, but done up with cheap silver plastics. The stitched leather dash insert on the Sahara looks cheaply made. I did like some of the design accents like the grab handles and hard top latches, but overall my impression was that they simply tried too hard to make it cool. I absolutely hated the big stupid auto shifter with the giant Willys icon on it and the Battlestar Galactica-inspired red “trigger” on the front of it — so much “try hard” everywhere inside.
After the test drive, I realized I might be in a JK longer than I realized, and I ended up walking out with the granite Recon I test drove. The dealer swapped over my KO2s, and I was on my way.
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