Travel back in time with the Jeep Talk Show to its 2015 XJ Talk Show days! Catch this special, never-before-seen video featuring Tony, Josh, and a new potential co-host, Tammy—also known as Jeep Momma. Fans will enjoy seeing Tammy’s first interactions with the team in a fun, mock episode. If you’re a Jeep Momma fan or curious about the show’s early days, this blast-from-the-past episode is a must-watch.

In this Jeep Talk Show Flagship II episode, Natalie and Tony discuss Stellantis’ search for a new CEO, with changes expected by 2026. While no cats make an appearance, there’s plenty of fun conversation, including Natalie’s realization that size does matter—at least when it comes to Jeeps! Tune in for an entertaining and informative episode.

There’s a jeeper for everyone. I think that’s something that is so special about this community. I really learned that this week too, doing an event. There literally is a jeeper for everyone. Yep. Ducking. I mean, that’s another big thing. Yeah. That is uniquely Jeep. I mean, it’s been co-opted on several other platforms now.

But so, you know, I wonder if, I don’t know who it was that wasn’t friendly to Jim while he was at Jeep,

but I’m wondering if it’s this guy.

I wonder. Maybe not directly, but you know, like indirectly. Yeah. And I think it would be, I don’t think there’s any way in hell Jim would even take the job, but it’d be really cool if they said, you know, we screwed up. Numbers are really bad. We’d like to have you come back. They need an American running this thing, at least for the Jeeps and the Dodge Ram, because I don’t think the Europeans get it. I don’t think it is such an American icon. So I do believe you might be on to something there. I did meet, I got to meet Jim last year at Forefest and he was lovely. We chatted for about 60 seconds, which probably felt more like 60 years to him because he had to talk to me, but it was amazing. He was just such a great guy and you never know. You never know. So there’s a lot of time in between right now. And I think it’s kind of interesting. You know, contract expires in 2026. So you already know you’re gonna have your job. I think that’s kind of an interesting twist. And I don’t know. I guess they could let him out of the contract. You know, if he started looking around and he could find another company, he could make them lose 20% year over year. As our resident fake lawyer, yes, they can break the contract early. They don’t have to pay a little bit. I am not a real lawyer, but I play one on the Jeep Talk Show. I like that. I do. So, I mean, I don’t like to see bad things happen to anybody. Yeah. You know, absolutely not. And I don’t know that anybody would be able to do any better

with Jeep right now. With all the stuff that’s going on. You did see where they dropped the interest rate a half a percent, right? Right, half a percent. You know, a friend of mine just bought a Jeep, but fully loaded gladiator is used. It has about 45,000 miles on it, but it looks brand new. Oh my gosh, 12% interest right now. And I was just like, oh, Eric, like I’m so excited for you. It’s his first Jeep, but oh boy. It just, it shocked me. It shocked me. And he’s gonna wheel it actually next weekend for his stock. I didn’t think it was up to 8%. I didn’t think it was 12%. His is 12% right now. And so he’s hoping maybe in the year he can refi, which I hope so too for him, but he’s, you know what? The joy is there right now and he’s blinded by love. (Laughs) Right. Well, as long as he can afford it. And like you say, refi in a year and then it won’t be so bad.

So the automaker however, added there is still a possibility Tavares is staying on longer.

Maybe he just needed some on the job training. Maybe he just need his ass kicked. Yeah, there’s that too.

(Laughs) Oh man.

Nothing, I don’t mean to be hateful to you, Carlos. I’m sure you’re doing a fine job and it’s probably just not, it’s a,

well, I think it was when the dealerships, the owners of the dealership started complaining about the amount of inventory they had and kind of getting jerked around from Stellantis that this is what happened.

I don’t know what the answer is, other than make the Jeeps cheaper and stop pushing the EV stuff. Yes. Stop doing the hybrid stuff. I mean, you can have them, that’s fine. But just make a damn good Jeep. Oh, and the Ram pickups, Ram pickups are generally really good trucks. They are. Just make a good damn pickup. Yup, I agree with you 100%. I wonder if that EV’s in our top 10 list. No, I bet you it’s not.

(Laughs) I bet you it’s not. So I don’t know. I mean, we’re gonna have to see what happens here. I don’t like anybody being out of a job. I’m sure he’ll be just fine though.

And I would like to, I don’t know. I guess this is what you see whenever the inventory’s up and sales are down. People have to be sent along their way to bring somebody else in. And I think a lot of times it’s just a knee jerk reaction. It’s not necessarily doing anything. There’s nobody out there that has the magic bullet. There isn’t, not right now. Trying to make people feel like the shareholders and stuff feel like something’s going on. I agree with you. And I can’t help but think that having a company that’s publicly traded is not good for longterm. It’s not. Because you can’t make longterm plans because you may not be there.

No, exactly. And it’s almost like sports teams too. I mean, if you’re not doing well, like right now, NFL is kind of, I know for us, the Bengals, we’re struggling and everyone’s calling for who’s head, the head coach. So it does start at the top. And right now we’re all, it’s struggling. Jeep is just struggling. Yeah, I mean, everybody loves a winner and they don’t like a loser. No, definitely not. God, it’s just, it’s tough. I mean, I wanna see Jeep do good. I don’t wanna see Jeep go out of business.

And I’m not saying that’s what’s gonna happen here, but you can’t keep going forever losing money. Correct, you can’t. Because that forever really will end. So, and we need our Jeeps guys. Absolutely. The Lanas, get it together. And you know, and speaking of Jeeps and we need our Jeeps, whenever we did this story, I think it was on the last flagship episode, we did a story about the 2025 Jeep Wrangler, not having an automatic available,

if it was a 3.6 V6.

It made absolutely no sense to me unless they’re trying to keep people from buying Wranglers.

Not a lot of people out there know how to drive a standard. And of course we know that the Jeeps had a lot of problems with standards since they came out with the JL, with the flywheels blowing up. Oh. Yeah, it’s just, they have an issue with those things and they’re gonna, you know, the question is, are they fixing the clutch and the transmission on the 2025?

Otherwise, that’s gonna be a really short, short trip. Jose, what a waste.

What a waste, again.

But I mean, we don’t know, but I will say this, Jeep Talk Show team member Bill told us on Discord server today, Stellantis may be manipulating the early 2025 model year supply to a less popular configuration and colors, I was not aware of the colors, to drive new buyers into older inventory. And this makes sense based on what we were just talking about. Yeah. The older inventory has piled up on dealer lights and this will help clear out older inventory and help dealers with not having to discount as heavily on those older model years by pushing buyers in that direction. So it is a bit ingenious. It is. I mean, it’s not like companies don’t manipulate their customers, they do.

You know, sales,

you know, G, that dress doesn’t make your butt look big. Any of you do or say anything to make the customer happy. Exactly. And make the sale, so that’s part of sales. We only have one left, you know? Yes.

And so I can understand it, but it makes me kind of feel bad. If it makes me feel like Stellantis is screwing us.

It does. Yeah.

I mean, it’s not illegal, I’m sure. Yeah, definitely not. I mean, so anyway. We gotta get rid of it somehow. That older inventory’s gotta go at some point. Well, I like deep discounts.

I do too. I like the idea of deep discounts. I do, I have short pockets, deep discount, you know? So I’m sure we will see, and the information from Bill continues. It says that he’s sure you will see the return of V6 automatic option later in 2025 model year. So if you were planning on buying a Wrangler in 2025, you might wanna wait until the end of the year. If you don’t have to have a 2025, you may be able to get a really good buy on an older Jeep,

because they wanna get it off the lot.

Yeah, and I suspect that if they are coming out with a 2025 Wrangler with an automatic,

right at the time they do that, or right before they do that, that would be the best time to get the old inventory off the lot. Gosh, so here’s a girl question. I can’t wait to said that, but do you think an automaker would ever skip a year if they’re sitting on so much inventory? Oh my God. Like could you ever just skip a year instead of just trying to reinvent it? Like I think right now they’re trying to reinvent. So why not? What would that do to the UAW workers though? I know, that’s the other problem. Yeah, so you really can’t. You have to always keep going. What would they do? They could put a pause on all the plants. They do do that. Yeah.

Man, that would just be, it makes sense. I mean, sometimes it’s, I mean, I just feel like, what if, what do you do when you’re sitting on all this stuff? You have to think that that would really hurt stock prices though. Oh, it’d be horrible. It’s not a good idea. I’m just saying, what if? Yeah, no, no, no, but I mean, it’s one of those things where then they may even have thought about this and just said, now we can’t do that. That would be too much backlash from many, many things.

God, could you imagine all those workers just not having anything to do? That’d be awful. Yeah.

Don’t do it. Yeah, no, we’re not suggesting that. And if they do do that, I didn’t suggest it. Natalie did.

All right, so I got broad shoulders. I can throw you under the bus. Thanks.

Sorry, so no– It depends on how wide those bus tires are. So we’ll see.

Nice segue. All right, so I thought this was interesting. I did a little research today for some Jeep news and I saw right away, I saw 10 best Jeep models ever built. I went, son of a bitch. That is perfect for the flagship episode. Isn’t it?

I knew I was just thinking about that today, huh?

So this is according to CarBuzz. And so I don’t know that this is accurate, how they came up with these numbers, but you can go over there and read their article and maybe they tell you that. We’re just gonna go through the list of models here. So not surprisingly to me, because I am a Jeep Cherokee owner, I have it in the garage. One of these days I’m gonna back it out and drive it again. But the Jeep, number one– One of these days. Jeep Cherokee XJ. XJ. They built 2.7 million of them. Everybody says 3 million, but it was 2.7 million, at least according to the old internet, the old Google.

And that was number one. So number two, I was a little surprised about. Are you surprised at this one, Natalie?

I mean, yes, because of the price point, honestly. But– And it’s so new. It’s so new. And just so everybody’s wondering, what do you all think it is? Oh, it’s that beautiful Rubicon 392 Wrangler,

which I dream about every day. But I cannot believe that that’s number two in reality. Yeah, I mean, it’s a nice build. I’m fortunate enough to know, we talked about Jeep Talk Show, a team member built earlier. I’m fortunate enough to know somebody that has one. And he actually started it up for me one day. Oh.

(Engine Revving)

It’s the best.

Your EV will never sound like that unless it has a soundtrack.

There you go.

(Laughing) I was so glad you got the buttons right.

(Laughing) All right, so number three is the, and let’s switch these, going back and forth, Natalie. I didn’t think about that before. So I’ll do the odd ones, which makes sense. And then you’ll do the eager ones. All right, so the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk. If I was gonna buy a Grand Cherokee, and the Grand Cherokees are absolutely beautiful. They are? I just don’t look at it as an off-road vehicle. And if I’m buying a Jeep, I’m buying an off-road Jeep. Yeah. But these things are screamers.

And it would be fun to kick ass on everything except Tesla. Exactly. With the Trackhawk. Oh my gosh.

(Laughing) And then next on the list, guys, we have the Jeep CJ2A. I mean, I can see it. Definitely in the top five. Yep, absolutely. And then the Jeep Wagoneer. Now, not the new one, but the one from like the late 60s, the early 70s, I believe, the SJ. It may have gone into the 80s, I don’t recall. It’s like Abercrombie loved using them in their ads. Oh, the cool looking vehicles. Absolutely. The cool kids. Yeah.

And what we got for number six? The Jeep Grand Wagoneer L. So that’s the new one? That is the new one. I’m not really a fan. Have you seen those things? Yeah, we rented one on one of our trips as like our get-around vehicle. And it was just okay. I hate to say it. My brother’s gonna Tahoe at that point. But I mean, they’re huge and they carry a lot of people. And Jeep has not had that. I mean, if you wanted to do something like that, you got a mini van, a full-size van, or a Suburban. I mean, I always thought, I was driving through Texas, Central Texas, small towns, and we drove by a Suburban on 44-inch tires. And this would have been back in the 80s.

It was the baddest ass Suburban you’ve ever seen. Come on, Grandma, we’re going my hops.

Lots of size jokes right now. You know what I mean? That’s right.

(Laughing) Well, some of us don’t laugh at those jokes. I’ll just let you know. It’s a bit of PTSD.

(Laughing)

Next on the list, Tony. Yes, the Jeep Gladiator. Now this is the original, I don’t think there was one before this, the Jeep Gladiator, the SJ. So also in that timeframe, 60, 70, 80s, I don’t know exactly what.

So those are really cool. And I think that Jeep should have put a Gladiator nose on the new generation gladiators. That would have been cool. Just so it would look different from the Wrangler. As I always say, you’re driving a Gladiator and you get a Jeep wave. You do. And then when they get alongside you, they go, oh, that’s a damn Gladiator. That’s not a Wrangler. That’s not a real Jeep. And you can’t retract that wave. You cannot bring it back.

Next on the list, we have the Jeep Gladiator Mojave X. Now what’s the X? Which one’s that?

Was this one of the original Mojave’s? I don’t know because on the TJs, the Wrangler TJX models was the low end model. And I can’t imagine that this one is the low end model. So I don’t know. I don’t know what that is. I wonder if that’s expert extreme. Maybe if someone could write in on the discord, let me know. Teach me something guys. And girls. Discord, go over to jeeptalkshow.com slash contact and find out a bunch of ways to contact us. All of them actually. Oh, there it is. There it is. Oh my, oh, it made the list, didn’t it? Jeep Wrangler 4xe. Oh boy. So it’s actually done very, very well. We have a Jeep Talk Show listener that’s routinely on the Discord server and on the Zoom meetings on our round table. He loves it. He loves his 4xe. Okay. Yeah.

And what gym is it?

That’s my local 4xe guy. It’s Matt. You remember the guy that came up and spoke with you that recognized your voice? Yes. Oh my God. Oh, yes. That’s Matt. That’s Matt’s, Matt’s Jeep. His wife’s Matt gets to drive it and work on it. Hi Mrs. Matt.

I would like the 4xe a lot better if the motor was a V6. Was the 3.6 liter, not that two liter thing.

And I understand they’re trying to do what they’re trying to do, but I’d like the idea where I have the battery option, but I can still drive it with the full power of the 3.6. Absolutely. But that’s not the way it worked. No, or a 392 power. Let’s just go there. You can run that generator and sound good at the same time. Right. And then last but not least in the top 10 is, drum roll please. Can you find a button? Maybe.

Sure. The Jeep Willys MV. Not to be confused with Michael Bailey.

Oh, that’s close to it. That’s close to it. There it is.

Yeah. So I believe this is the original Jeep. The one that won the war or helped win the war. I mean, the soldiers driving it were probably the more, more, more, doing more of the winning than the Jeep was, but I needed to get to the fight and get from point A to point B. So of course it’s got to make the list. I don’t know that it should be number 10 though.

You think it should have been more on the short list? I think yeah. I think it should have been up towards the top. It could have been number one. I mean, really like. Because of all it did. I mean, we’d be, I mean, I don’t know about you, but I can’t speak German. So I would not like being speaking German right now. No.

All right. So Overland Expo Mountain West, 2024. Off-road trends you need to know about. Colorado is a perfect backdrop for epic sights and sounds of Overland Expo Mountain West. Oh, you know, the group from the Jeep talk show recently went to Colorado, did a Colorado trip and beautiful, beautiful sights. And I mean, I’ve only driven through a part of Colorado, this little corner going to Moab and it was gorgeous. So peeling through row after row of this country’s best off-road camping and Overland adventure vendors shows what the love of the outdoors and the centennial state is stronger than ever. From brand new vehicle manufacturers in the industry, Stalwarts to the Star Wars, no, Stalwarts.

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And thank you realtruck.com for being a repeat sponsor here for the Jeep Talk Show. As a Jeep Talk Show listener, go to realtruck.com and check them out. Absolutely. For sure. They’re wonderful people, guys. Got to finally meet them in person. That’s right. At Smoky Mountain. It was so exciting. I fangirled. I really did. I was like, “Oh my God, realtruck.” You grabbed one, put them in a headlock and they were happy to speak with you.

Just in case you guys didn’t know, we are on YouTube as well and this is all being recorded. So definitely a lot of action going on on the camera. I can’t stop moving. Tony’s favorite. Oh, you have to watch the YouTube thing. I’m everywhere. So I just did a headlock. It’s great. And I’ve been drinking coffee this whole time with my Zion mug. That poor cat. I just can’t believe you put a headlock on your cat. I did. That’s the scroll. Definitely check us out on YouTube. That’s a PETA offense right there.

From the mind of Nikki G.

Hey, this is Nikki G and I just caught the episode, “The Cowboy in a Kill,”

which I still think sounds like a 70s cop show. And if the network picks it up, I would like to play the role of Huggy Bear, please.

Chuck, you talked about how you change your springs and the ride of your Jeep is not what it used to be.

I invite you to borrow this clap out XJ for a week. You drive it for a week,

then you’ll appreciate how smooth your Jeep really drives. Heck, you’ll appreciate how smooth your lawnmower handles at highway speeds after driving this thing for a week. That’s not why I’m calling.

Call him a test. That’s not why I’m calling. Damn it, I almost did it one take.

That’s not why I’m calling. I’m calling to ask, is butt cheeks spelled one word or do you have to spread it out?

Can’t go wrong with a potty joke. All right, boys and girls, I’m Chad Shulay. You have a good one, bye. (Upbeat Music) That’s the one you wanna tell when you’re in the public restroom and there’s people on either side of the stall, but between you. I wasn’t expecting that. Like it caught me off guard. Cause I was like, where’s he headed with this? Oh. Yeah, that’s the best joke. Where you can’t see it coming. Yeah.

You know it’s gonna go, it’s gonna be, oh, but you just don’t know how or why. It’s just gonna be one of those. It’s one of those. All right, so coming up on our next interview episode, Mark Berman with thetopbrilla.com. You gotta check this thing out. Go over there, the top brilla and have a look. And the idea here is, I didn’t get it at first until I did the interview.

I was, I didn’t understand how you can install this thing in three minutes and this covers the back of the Jeep. Well, the JL, the JLU, you can ride around with the windows, the back window, I mean the side windows and the back window off and then you still have the top. But it’s almost a guarantee you’re gonna run into a rainstorm. Yeah.

I just checked it out. This is really cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he says it only takes about three minutes to grab it and get that thing on there. And it’s gonna save you so much time cleaning afterwards from the water that’s gonna build up in your Jeep. So it’s not a complete cover for the Jeep. It’s just like for the back part where the windows and the back glass is. And it also means you don’t have to take that stuff with you and don’t have to worry about it getting stolen or blown out of the Jeep, so on and so forth. Yeah, oh, I’ve had that happen. Lost a window on the highway, didn’t know it.

They don’t recommend that everybody. Make sure your windows are on. Okay, so we threatened a nice talking point that you had that you wanted to share with our listeners.

And it’s like size matters. Size does matter. It doesn’t matter. I’m from Texas, so everything’s bigger in Texas. It is bigger in Texas. And it doesn’t matter how much you say.

It’s important. No, it’s not important. Okay, okay, that’s fine. Exactly, yeah, it’s fine, it’s fine. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so I almost feel like this is like, what does Natalie learn this week type of segment? I know we have newbie nuggets with Wendy. It says, what does Natalie learn this week? And this week I learned about the importance of the width that you get for either your all-terrain or your off-road tire. So in my case, I just did a new build, a rebuild on mine. And so I went up to 37s with what I thought was a 13.5 or a 13.50. So I get it, I’m all excited, we’re at Smokey, I’m having a great time and go to another event. I’m teaching a class and talking about tire size and start really looking and I was like, huh, that says 12.50 on that tire. But I thought nothing of it at first. Well, it really does make a difference. So I brought up to Mike and he was like, oh no, only time I’ve ever messed up right now. So we did actually– Only time somebody can prove it is what he’s saying.

Right away, we did another order and those big Maxis 37 Razors came in. I’m so excited, so they came in and the guy sent me some photos, well, with the Jeep on the rack and they were putting the new ones on. And I could not believe the difference when you put them side by side of really that inch really does matter.

Insert every joke, if you all are listening here, I get it. I see what you did there when you said insert the joke. I walked into that, oh my gosh. Well, it really is big then. So it’s like a speed bump. Oh, here we go. So you were teaching a class. Now, I don’t know, I mean, I think that the wider tires look better. They certainly are gonna be better in mud or sand because it’s wider, but how does a wider tire help you in general? Because I would think 12 and a half is just fine. Might look a little funny. Yeah, I mean, I ran a 12 and a half on my all-terrain, my 35 all-terrains for years and I felt fine. I was doing mostly everything that my big brothers were doing, but it’s gonna cover more surface area. The tread is wider as well.

So I am looking forward to feeling the difference. God, it’s getting worse.

But I mean, so just seeing them side by side really did show me the difference. We’re doing a shake down next week. We’re heading to Slade. So Slade Kentucky and Red River Gorge. So there’s gonna be lots of mud. We are getting the tropical storm remnants coming up here, see how it does in the mud. But we will have, I’m gonna send a picture of Tony, guys. You guys will see a picture of him side by side. I saw this interesting little deal that the width really does make a difference. And yes, it does look better. I think that wider, I got to take it last night for the first time. I can see that you’re gonna get more traction. I mean, I already mentioned, like if you’re in mud, it gives you more flotation, so you’re not getting down into the mud as far. Of course, it depends on how much skinny pedal you’re using. And the sand, I can imagine that would make a big difference, especially if you air down because then that 13 and a half just gives you that much more surface area. It does. And we all know that you have to air down when you’re going off road, especially in sand. Oh yeah. And I think that’s true. I think that’s right. That’s what you want to say. Yeah, you do. I’ll go down to about eight PSI. When we were in San Hollow, everybody was running around eight PSI because it was such a mix of the rock and the really deep sand. And there were always times like we’d be going up into these dunes and people would bury because they wouldn’t either keep momentum or they just weren’t aired down enough. So, airing down really is important. It’s so important to find that sweet spot. And I’ll just mention, I’ll remind people, the 22 inch wheels with the rubber band tires may look nice to you or you think they look cool and modern and everything, but you can’t air one of those things down enough to make a difference in your traction. So if you have a Jeep and you’re not running a tire and a wheel that has a lot of sidewall to it, people that go off road know that it’s not going to be a good vehicle for off road. It’s not meant to go off road. So no matter how much crap you hang off of it. You might get through one or two times. Yeah.

Or how many lights you put on it. Right, no, well you just gone too far there. Lights are cool.

So– I want more lights on mine. I just told Mike that today. I was like, we need more lights on it. So have you, you’ve driven it with the new tires, right? I have last night and today. Did you notice any difference in driving it on the street?

I don’t know if it was in my head. Like I felt bigger to be honest. I don’t know why. Maybe I think also it’s just, it has the 500 miles on it now. I’m almost at 600.

So it’s just getting more broken in too. So it is feeling good. So did you do the diff, the diff fluid change at 500? They did, yeah, it was great. So the guys did it and Tom, thank you, Tom, for doing that and did the tires yesterday. No wine from the gears, the new gears and the axles? Not really.

The only thing I know, the only thing I’ve noticed is shifting is a little bit different now because the new 513s, I’m not used to that.

I bet you it’s very snappy.

It can be, yeah, but then there’s times I feel like I’m just like stuck in third because I do a lot of highway, community from Kentucky up to Ohio. And so I’m on the highway a lot. So I’m going around 65, 70, and this thing is just not, she doesn’t want to. So Mike gave me a good tidbit today. He told me to start doing manual shifting and that really likes it. The JKs like that on the highway. Oh, I’m thinking about the eight speed automatic and the JL and the JT. So I was really surprised by that because I wouldn’t think you would have any kind of issues on the highway with 37s and 513s is what you said? I feel heavy, yeah, I feel heavy. But maybe, and that’s just me getting used to it. And I do have the MBRP exhaust and she’s loud. Oh my gosh, I’m sorry to my neighbors, especially early in the morning, I’m leaving for work, but everyone knows I’m coming.

It’s fun, but yeah, the tire width guys, it’s a great thing to really educate yourself and learn about and there really is a difference. There is a difference. And a customer called me out on it too. Actually John Sabo from There Goes Action Sports, we’ve talked about them before with their Bobbed Gladiator, Hilah Field, of course. And he was like, no, it’s just so weird. You did the 12 and a half and not a 13 and a half. And I was like, oh yeah, I mean, yeah, that’s what I wanted. Now these are Maxis tires, right? The 12 and a half are Maxis tires. Where the hell was Rosie? Checking to make sure you get the right tires. We were at Forefest freezing together. We didn’t even notice.

She’s Baja’ed right now. Very, very cool. Well, I mean, you got the right size tires on there. Oh, what are you gonna do with the set that was on there? I’m sure somebody would like to have those. I mean, they’ve got less than 500 miles on them, right? Oh yeah, they only had 425 and it was all highway. Like it’s like they were clean actually. And it was your grandmother that was driving the Jeep. It was.

They are available at Hilah Fafaro guys. Check it out.

Scratch and Dentsail. Oh, they even signed them for ya. How about that? Is it a scratch and dent, a potential scratch and dent sale there at the Hilah? Maybe. You never know. Mike’s always, Mike’s easy to talk to you guys. Wheeling and dealing. Wheeling and dealing.

Or if you’re enslaved on the fifth, we’ll be down there. You’ll see red down there. So come pay us a visit. So Natalie, are you a coffee drinker or a tea or? Duh. If you’re on YouTube, you can see it.

So I must have stuff for your Jeep. Yes, you need the ability to make coffee from your Jeep. Yes, absolutely. How many times have you been, you’re driving down the highway, you go, I need me some coffee and you look up and you see that Bucky sign, 795 miles to the next Bucky’s. Oh gosh.

They really do have some out there. I think the one I’ve seen far enough, the farthest one I’ve ever seen is like 80 miles or something. And I’m like, holy shit.

I think they do that because you go, well, I’m not gonna stop at that McDonald’s because I only have another 50 miles to go for Bucky’s. Yes, and I’ve done it. We have one here. It’s an hour and 45 minutes away from my house. And honestly, people still just go from here to go get the jerky, go get a coffee. Why not?

Pickled garlic, the actual garlic cloves, pickled. Oh boy. Try that sometimes. Okay, is that Bucky’s? Yes, absolutely. You guys are the birthplace of Bucky’s. So you would know. Oh yeah, we have one that’s about, well, I live in Cady. This is where Studio A is in Southeast Texas. And Cady got a Bucky’s about maybe three, four years ago. So there’s a very large Bucky’s about, I guess it’s about five miles from here. And sometimes I’ll go over there just to get a barbecue sandwich. It’s not the best barbecue, but it is good barbecue. Certainly good barbecue for a gas station. At the end of the day, it’s still a gas station. Yes, I mean, let’s be real. I don’t like that. How many pumps? Oh God. How many pumps does that one have? Oh God, I don’t know. The Gullenberg one was 126, I think. It might be that many. Oh my God. It’s very wide. And also too, you go in there and I’m like, what the hell? It’s not any kind of special day. It’s so busy. Why? Why is it so busy? It’s like Black Friday every day. So somebody sold their soul to the devil. I mean, buckies is neat. I like it. But it doesn’t seem to be that impressive. Anyway, so let’s say you don’t want to wait that 127 miles before getting to buckies. You have to have some coffee now. Well, Makita has a coffee maker that’s battery powered. No, it’s not 27 D size batteries. You actually take one of your Makita tool batteries, like a five amp hour battery. You slap it on this Makita coffee maker. And this is kind of the depressing thing. You can make three five ounce cups of coffee. It takes about five minutes for each cup off of a single five amp hour battery, LXT battery. And this does not come with the battery or the charger. But if you already have Makita tools, this is, you’d want to buy this. But you already have it. Yeah, yeah. You already got the batteries. So I just thought this would be so cool to have. Now there are other 12 volt coffee makers, but this one is kind of rugged. It is rugged. You know, set up and it’s not, some of the other ones kind of look like they ought to be on the kitchen counter, but they’re still 12 volt.

So there’s alternatives to this, but this has a cool aspect to it. Yeah, you weren’t aware of this before the seeing it in the show notes, right? I wasn’t. It looks like a ammo can, you know, like the metal. It looks like that. It’s cool. I don’t know what this motion really means, but that’s okay. It’s a tactical coffee maker. Tactical, yes. Thank you, there it is.

So it is a bit pricey. It’s $144 and that does not come with a battery. Batteries are not included. Let’s stress that, not included, no.

But hopefully you already have the Makita tools. And now I did look to see if there were any DeWalt coffee makers because that’s the tools that I go with. I mean, there’s no sense in buying a cornucopia of different manufacturers, all having their own separate batteries. So, but I did not see anything from DeWalt. And in fact, when I was looking at a YouTube. I’m surprised. Yeah, I was looking at a YouTube video for this Makita and they were like, you know, it’s a coffee maker for Makita. Why?

(Laughing) And I kind of agree. Like why? Yeah, but it is really cool. I can see somebody out on the job site going up. That’s what I was thinking, yeah. Going up and fixing a cup of coffee. Hey, when would you get that cup of coffee? Oh, I’m glad you asked that. Here you go, look at this.

And by the end of the day, it’s stolen. Do you think it comes with the mug that’s in the photo? I feel like it has to come with the mug, right? Well, let’s see. Brews five ounce cup of coffee in five minutes. It’s powered by an 18 volt LXT battery. Battery sold separately. Brews up to three five ounce cups of coffee on a single five amp battery. No paper filters needed. Permanent drip filter allows grounds to pour directly into the coffee maker. That’s nice. You say single serve packs or ground coffee. I like that too. So it does not say, but it’s certainly in the picture. I don’t think it does. Yeah, that would be horrible. I know, but I bet it doesn’t. Let’s be honest. That would be horrible. Now you could probably go to Bucky’s and get a cup that would fit this. They do have all sizes. It was all about the size this episode, wasn’t it? It always is. I know.

So we have the link to Amazon so you can buy one of these things. If you do buy one, we want to hear from you because I think this would be a cool item. If I had infinite funds, I’d definitely buy one. Yeah. And 27 batteries just so I could keep making coffee. Right, thank you. Appreciate it. Cheers everyone.

All right, well, it’s always a little sad when we hit the end of the trail. And real quick, I had a couple of people not initially complain, but make comment. Oh, the episode was a little shorter than usual. And I said, yeah, I told, it was an episode I recorded with Wendy. I think it was last Tuesday’s episode or this, yeah, last Tuesday’s episode. And I said, yeah, I told Wendy it might be a little short. We only had about, I think we only had the one news story. And I told her, don’t worry about it. We’ll just have fun. We’ll see how long it goes. And I think we did about 35 minutes or something. So this one’s a little short too, but it’s not 30 minutes. We’re looking at about 42 minutes right now. And that’s what you get here. Sometimes it goes over an hour. Sometimes it’s right at an hour. Sometimes it’s less than an hour. But there’s a lot of episodes that you gotta listen to. There is. Thank you guys, sir. Make sure you check out Chick Chat on Mondays,

our lady listeners and men in all our videos. Oh, you got a lot of men that are listening to that too. Really enjoying the new format and listening to you guys chat about stuff. Oh, I’m glad.

So as I was saying, it’s always a little sad when we hit the end of the show or the end of the trail, but there’s always another trail ride down the road, just like there’s another show down the road. Jeep Talk Show has five episodes a week. Monday through Friday, Chick Chat is on Mondays, every Monday, subscribe and never miss an episode. Hey, speaking of subscribing, consider keeping the Jeep Talk Show on the air by subscribing to the show via Patreon. The place to go for all the information on how to subscribe and how to contact us is at jeeptalkshow.com slash contact.

You were mentioning where you’re gonna be. Is there a place people can go and see you? Do you still have the Jeep Talk Show stickers? I think you only had two. I do. I do and I’ll be at Hollerwood Park on October the 5th, doing my shakedown run of Big Red. So come out and see us guys. We’ll be there starting around 9 a.m. hitting the trails. Is there a place they can go to get more information about that? Is it just your distilling? No, honestly guys, this is just us going. It’s myself and Matt Moss, our lead and my– Okay, so it’s not like an event. It is not. You guys welcome to show up. Let’s get Natalie back on the trail. It’s been almost a year, not in my own Jeep. So here we are. So it’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be a show. So come on out. It makes a big difference when it’s your Jeep, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s fun driving any Jeep, when it’s your Jeep, it makes a big difference. Absolutely, but I will say October the 12th, the following weekend we are back at Hollerwood for the Ohio River Four Wheelers Jeep Club and Kentucky Crawlers Jeep Club, cleanup ride and meet and greet preparation. The meet and greet’s coming up at the end of October, first of November, so here we are. We’ll talk about that coming up, but that is open to everyone. That one’s on a secret ride.

So– Not a secret anymore, is it? I just told everybody everything. So here we are. So– Where’s those NDAs? Is there anything going on with a high lift off road that you wanted to mention real quick? I mean, if not, that’s fine.

We’re just doing just those couple rides and then we have the meet and greet and then Mike and I are off to SEMA. So if you’re at SEMA, I’ll be seeing Julie Ann, really excited. That’s right, in November, in SEMA. Yeah. That’s right, I forgot about that. It’s coming. That’s soon, very soon. It is. And then Black Friday will be here before we know it and High Lift always has the best deals on Black Friday. So stay tuned for more information on that. highliftoffroad.com and you don’t have to have a Black Friday to check it out. Check it out now. You don’t.

You’re my friend, you’re my new friend.

In the latest Jeep Talk Show Round Table episode, Tony joins the Zoom audience for a lively discussion. Recorded every Tuesday at 7:30pm CT, you can be part of the fun by visiting jeeptalkshow.com/contact to join. Tony asks up to four questions to random Jeepers, starting with: “A Jeep crawler is going on a multi-day overlanding expedition—what should they take?” Tune in for engaging conversations and tips from fellow Jeep enthusiasts!

rely on a cooler to keep your stuff that like cold or cool for like food and drinks and stuff like that ice is I mean you’re constantly on the move sometimes if you’re off on the trail you’re going to be there for a day or two like that and got waterlogged food so you got to wrap it up and like it’s just it’s a pain so if you can get even one of the smaller and they’re making a lot of a lot of them more cost effective now you don’t just have the big boys like arb and the other ones there’s bodega there’s several of them out there but just getting a fridge that can run off of like one of the jacory or blue yeti or whatever battery packs man that’s that you will absolutely love that because you don’t have to constantly fight for ice that’s I mean I’m sure everybody’s got a bunch of recommendations but that would definitely be mine and when you get off camber all your ice water spills out of your cooler hey well you’re driving down the trail when it’s bound so you don’t hear it sloshing inside so does uh do you would you recommend like a separate battery uh for the for the uh for the the cooler or yeah there’s um uh gills got a great system and and it’s it’s definitely the one that I would recommend but he’s got like a there’s different brands all over the place right but there’s a gold zero there’s the blue yeti there’s the jacory there’s a bunch of different these battery packs that can have inverters but they also have dc power so you can actually connect them up to the cigarette lighter in your jeep and charge them while you’re driving and then once there’s no power to them depending on the size you can get you can go a couple of days powering that refrigerator uh without charging the battery so um they’re not that expensive and I would remind everybody that prime day is coming up on amazon and that’s when I bought my blue yeti that I have uh from prime day it was like 55 to 60 off and so I know jacory’s already injured they’re gonna have some big sales and and who yeti always has seen some pretty good sales going on on amazon so um they’re not that expensive and you can go completely off grids I always go when I go out but bring mine when we go long trips because I can put in the passenger seat charge phones I got my ipad up on on the uh mountain of the dash so I can plug that in my uh garment in reach is plugged into it um so I’ve always got a way to charge even without you know using the jeep do uh john do you do anything uh for uh jump starting the the main battery or batteries depending if you have a jk or a jl I know you have a jk but uh whatever you’re over landing like that and you maybe don’t do battery management properly um do you have any concerns about uh getting the jeep started again no I mean I got the one of those lithium ion you know jump starter packs there also fairly cheap again on about October 8th 9th is prime day and that’s when all these deals come it’s amazing what you can get on this kind of stuff I think I bought mine on on prime day I’ve actually bought one for each vehicle that I have for my daughter’s vehicles wife’s vehicle or whatever and they were normally like 160 a piece of thing I got them for 70 bucks pop so they were they were really discounted through prime day I think so I like prime yeah if I can interject a little there uh roger I see you have your hands raised go right ahead so with the blue eddy the one thing I would suggest to anybody that’s going to get one of those battery packs is make sure you get one that’s passive so like some of them um you can charge it or you can use it whereas like the blue eddy like john was talking about it’s a passive one so you can actually plug it in and charge it while you’re driving and plug your cooler into it well so it’ll run the cooler and charge the yeti at the same time so it doesn’t take away from the yeti as long plugged into the vehicle and as far as like jump starting a vehicle I have to I use the genesis I have the dual battery setup by genesis so once my voltage gets down to a certain point it disconnects the two batteries then if in the morning my battery was dead I just gotta hit the button and it jump starts itself very nice does that make your jeep run better backwards yep it worked great forward the other day all right let’s get over to tony mitten that also has his hand up tony what uh what can you uh tell this uh uh new new person the new

Hey, let’s set a base camp, unload here, then go do the crazy trail. And otherwise if you’re, you know, you’re, you’re not doing the crawling stuff anymore, right? Like, so if you’re going 20 miles to your next destination, you don’t have to be prepared to do a full, you know, you’re not doing pritch it, you know, for 20 miles, right? So you’ll, you’ll be okay. You know, you’ll fill up with what you need to do to do it.

So Chris, I don’t think you do a, do overlanding much or, well, he took his headset off, so he may not be able to hear me. How about you, Bob? If you Bob, what overlanding advice would you give a crawler?

So for crawler, minimalist, you don’t need a lot. So I go out of my TJ and I’ve started camping out of that again. I started pulling back out some of my old stuff I used to use for backpacking. Um, earlier this year, I just bought two, I got great deals on a couple of really nice backpacking tents. They’re five pounds and seven pounds. They’re the big one is probably seven, eight inches around by 14 inches long.

Uh, I got a, my old mummy bag I pulled out. Actually I’ve got a compact camping blanket, super warm.

Uh, but I started looking at supplementing, getting rid of my bigger tent, my, uh, gazelle, uh, I still have it, but for going with the TJ, that doesn’t work. So I got a backpacking tent. I got backpacking cookware, all this stuff and it’s small. It fits in with the recovery gear. So the only bulky item I still have is I have a really nice sleeping pad. Oh yeah. I think that’s really important. Something that makes it comfortable. If you’re laying on the ground or like, like me and the bed of the gladiator, you really need something that’s, uh, uh, doesn’t feel like the bed of the vehicle. At least I do. Some of you guys, it doesn’t bother, but I can sleep through pretty much anything. All right, Jacob, I see how to raise my hand on this damn thing. So I’ve just, you don’t get to, you don’t get to talk to, you figure it out. Chip, I want to, I want to talk to Jacob real quick and then I’ll come back to you. Chip Jacob, I see you got your hand raised. Uh, what do you, what, what advice can you give this crawler? Want to do multi-day overlanding event? So my wife and I started off with an expedition trailer. Um, we used to use it behind our H three and we’ve since moved on to a truck camper that we, we boondock with.

And the big one is no matter what you do, you, you got it, Bob mentioned, you got to, you really got to watch your weight and what you actually need and be realistic about what you’re, you’re going to use. Because no matter, I don’t know, it’s the Boy Scout or the jeeper, you’re always reaching for that next tool you think you might need and I can’t count how much extra weight I’ve been hauling around, especially in the truck camper, because I’m taking my tools and I’m taking, you know, oh, we might need this extra blanket or we might need this. And it didn’t matter if the, as the expo trailer of the camper, we’re, we’re always getting too much weight. And then, um, getting back to like the refrigerators, I’ve got three of those 12 volt refrigerators. I got a bougie RV and I got two Dometics and it doesn’t matter the size. And it seems to be like they all use about the same amount of power. And it’s not like, it’s not like, it’s not like, it’s not like, it’s not and I use roughly 600 watt hours per day per refrigerator. So, um, you need to have a solar panel, which adds more weight if you’re going to be out more than two or three days, because they a hundred amp hour. I got 200 amp hours on my, uh, my camper and without solar, without sun, without a generator, I’m only getting two to three days out of that 200 amp hours for those refrigerators.

you guys found a compact stove that’s not going to take up a lot of room, not add a lot of weight that could be used if you want to have more meals.

I use a back at backpacking stove. Oops. A jet boil works great. Jet boil flash for the jet bowl Genesis. Hembo Tusk.

Classic Coleman camping stove.

Really? Yeah, that’s the one we always we always use the Boy Scouts. But somebody had that that little suitcase looking thing. Well, they have a and one of those other companies from folding stove as well. That’s a two burner folding stove that’s the size of a large pot.

Yeah, that’s that. You’re talking about the Genesis jet boil.

I don’t know the name of it. I just know they had it. It’s orange and it folds in half. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s that’s that’s a Genesis jet boil or the jet boil Genesis. All right. I’m I’m going to skip in line here a little bit because I can. Greg, do you have any advice for I don’t know that you do any overlanding. I don’t know that you initially call it overlanding if you do do stuff like that. But we have a guy that used to crawling doing rock crawling and whatnot. But he’s going to be doing a multi land overland, a multi day overland trip. Do you have any suggestions of what he should take with him? Well, my first question would be, what is he driving? Did you ask for the orders because that’s the most important part. He did not provide the information. Yeah, that’s all the things you know. The Jeep.

Well, I know, but there’s lots of Jeeps. So if if he’s in a two door or if he’s in a YJ or if he’s in a speed day or if he’s in an XJ or if he’s in a JL, that all matters on. So I would go with the answer be similar for a JK and a JL. Right. A JK and a JL Wrangler, a two door or four door. I mean, a two door, four door room, but two door and four door to completely different animals. So, so that would be my first question is what are you driving? And how crawler is it? Because there’s crawlers that are. Bobbed in the front and Bobbed in the rear and dove tailed and, you know, our boat tailed and then there’s crawlers that are, they just have a slinky suspension, but it’s still a full body vehicle. So to answer the question, you really need to know, or to answer the question very well, you need to know the whole setup. Okay. I went back, I went back and looked at the message and quite often people, and you guys should know this, I don’t read the entire message.

So I get the gist of it and I quit reading because I don’t like reading. So in the request, he says, assume this person has a JLU or a gladiator is what he’s asking the question for. Okay. So JLU or gladiator, two completely different animals, but if you’ve got a JLU or a gladiator, the next is how crawler is it, right? Is it, is it a ramp champ? What does it do? Because that’s going to dictate the type of stuff you carry and where you put it. However, I’m going to say, um, you want your basics. If you’re over landing, you need somewhere to sleep. You need some form of some, some way to keep your food cold or have non perishable food with you. So, you know, you have to think of those two things first, um, sleeping and eating. Other than that, everything else is up to you. You can go as simplistic as humanly possible and bring a sleeping bag and sleep under the stars or, you know, a bed, cotton, sleep under the stars all the way to JLs and jail and gladiators. You know, you can do rooftop tents, you can do the other stuff. None of it is necessary, right? Over landing is just traveling a long distance while living off grid.

So you don’t need all the whiz bang stuff and you don’t need all the crazy

things to buy. Um, but if you choose to buy them, go for it. So prepare, if, if you think you’re going to go out for five days, prepare for eight,

you know, with your food and your water, if you, if you’re going to go out for a week, prepare for a week and a half, right? Always have a contingency plan. That’s good. And if you don’t have, if you don’t have enough material space to store a week and a half worth of food, well, you better be prepared, bring some fishing gear, bring some hunting gear, learn how to self survive. Because if you’re off grid for an extended period of time, you might not always be bringing the amount of supplies you need. So prepare for the worst, because if something bad happens, you might be stuck out there a little bit longer than you think. Yeah. I think being self sufficient like that is a great idea just for any situation that you might get in. There’s natural disasters all the time. Um, sometimes there’s government disasters and it’s a, it’s a good way to be able to take care of yourself and your family, being able to hunt and fish and set traps and so on and so forth. So. Yep. Um, also in today’s world, um, I would say it’s, it’s not very expensive to get a radio beacon, to get an emergency beacon that, you know, I mean, backpackers and hikers carry them. Why wouldn’t you throw one in your glove box? Right? And then if you pull that pin, emergency and rescue workers can locate you, whether it’s via satellite or via a helicopter or, you know, overlending to you, because even if you’re with a group, something bad happens. Those little emergency beacons could save your life or somebody else. It’s like a winch. Yeah. The, quite often you don’t use the winch for yourself. You use it for somebody else. So yeah, absolutely. It’s the same thing as the pistol I carry, right? I never want to use it, but I have it just in case. So, um, you know, just be prepared, right? Overlending is no different than rock crawling because when you’re overlending, you might find a pile of rocks you need to crawl over. You know, um, another one that I would say with, with true overlending is take it easy on your rig. Oh, that’s good. I fear. If you get to an obstacle that you know you can go over, but it’s a little challenging, take the bypass or stack some rocks and make it easier on your rig because snapping an axle shaft three day drive from the nearest road is an issue.

Um, bring some cash so that if somebody has to go to get parts for you, you can give them cash. An extra ball.

Yeah.

Um, we got to take it easier on your rig. When you’re overlending, don’t just do all the hard things because you know, you normally can do it, especially in a crawler, right? Guys in in purpose built crawlers tend to always take the gnarlier line. If you’re overlending, I would recommend that you don’t do that because you have a better chance of getting it back in the event of a problem. And that’s even if you have a group of people with you that can help winch you out or work on your rig, it may not be something you want to do. You may not have the right thing, but we, we, we could get into the off-road welders and all kinds of stuff that you could take. And then pretty soon you need a, a chase vehicle that’s carrying all of it. Um, and that’s, that’s me is that I always want to take too much stuff, uh, the go and do things. So, all right. So I see Chris has his hand up. Chris, what are you, what can you tell this, uh, would be overlander.

You’re muted, Chris.

All right. Let’s move on to Bill. I think Bill is still here. Bill, do you have, I mean, you’ve got quite a few things set up in your 392, uh, that I would say make it overland capable. Uh, do you, uh, you have any suggestions for, uh, for this gentleman, uh, Ed C as to what to carry for overlanding, overlanding instead of crawling?

Looks like Bill is not available.

Just a quick note, Tony. Sure. Just to, just to jump off of what, um, uh, Greg said is no matter what, do not delete your spare tire. You need a spare tire if you’re going to be anywhere away from civil duty. Yeah, I agree. Or what is it that you take, Greg? You have a bunch of plugs and stuff that you take with you. And yeah, I bring a bunch of cars and a power tank and some other goods. Um, I have literally used boot laces to stitch it higher back together. That’s what I was trying to remember. All right. Uh, let’s, uh, let’s see if Keith is there. Uh, Keith, do you have any, uh, any ideas for this crawler would be overlander?

Yeah. All I’ve ever learned was take a sandwich. That’s all you need. That’s right.

If you go in some place and you take a sandwich, then you’re overlanding. That’s right.

Pretty much what everybody’s been saying is, you know, take what you need. Try not to excess on it.

and he’s not one to really take it off road at that time. We’ve kind of turned him into an actual off-roader there a little bit. Bill and I have been working on it for a while with the guy. But anyway, it was really cool. And so I was like, I want to get one, but I need a four door. So I went up and custom ordered mine with a manual and all that. It’s a JK Rubicon.

Even got the window sticker with my name on it, right? When the custom order to come that way. So first time out didn’t even get off the park roads and all that. So I say a jeeper because that’s when I bought my first jeep. But I definitely I definitely took to it pretty quickly because it was it was just a lot of fun. And then, you know, a lot of it is not just about kind of hitting the big obstacles or whatever it is, but just the friends I’ve made along the way and the trips. Absolutely.

Yeah. We just got back from a trip to Colorado and it wasn’t even a big group. It was a small group, which is actually sometimes more more fun in that way. But Bob was there, Bill came. Dutch was there for a little while. So it was it was a blast. And then, you know, we’ve done Arizona to call her twice. We’ve got the events that it involves. And it’s just you meet a lot of people in the hell. We’re on a swim room now with like 20 freaking people. And all of that is because, you know, I custom ordered a jeep back in 2017. Technically, I ordered it in 16, but I didn’t get it. And you’re here every week unless there’s something major going on with your family, even when you’re on vacation to Florida, you’re here in the Zoom room with us. And I really appreciate that. And then you’re right. It’s it’s more than just a jeep. It’s the it’s the Jeep family.

Yeah, unless dance gets away, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you got to you got to dance. Yeah. When you got to dance, you got to dance. All right. So let’s see if let’s see if Tom P is is listening. I know he’s here in the on the Zoom room. Tom, how long have you been a jeeper?

Probably my first Jeep was a CJ five.

Back in a three.

And I currently unlike Chris, I currently have four Jeeps in my driver.

And the latest, the latest one’s a 23 gladiator that I’ve been kind of absorbed with. Nice. How do you like it? How does that compare to the other jeeps you’ve had in the past? Well, I mean, I like I like the ones we currently have. I’ve liked them all for different reasons.

But the gladiator, the more I drive it, the more I love it.

It’s a it’s a really, really nice Jeep. I’ve really enjoyed mine. I only the only thing I have to compare it to is the wife’s T.J. And our ex J. You notice I said I was going to say my but I corrected that really quick.

So I’ve been I’ve been very, very pleased with it so much so that the I haven’t driven the ex J. Since I brought the gladiator home, it was really cool finding out that I could do so many things off road with a gladiator with

just it was just really nice. I mean, I need to get back to the the ex J. And I will. But I got to clean up the damn garage first. All right. So let’s get over. I think I see. Is that Pat, is that you that I see right now? Pat, how about you? What do you how long you been a jeeper? Well, early on, I when I was just in my teens, I wanted to Jeep, but my my parents wouldn’t let me get one because that was back in the all they all roll over. Right. I and my dad was a 60 minutes guy. So right. Bastards. I didn’t get the option option there. And then as I kind of moved through things when I was in my late or my early 20s, I got in the car business and I I didn’t sell Jeep. So I didn’t have the option for it was really I had to drive what what was business oriented. Right. As I got deeper into it,

it I when I left the car business, finally, I bought my first F-150 because I thought I needed one of those because I always wanted one. Sure. I created it for my first JK and I and it had one hundred and five thousand miles on at the time. I drove it for quite a long time.

So if it’s just fine, it’s fun. It’s mixing it up with, with all the jeepers and not all of them are going to think the same way as you and that’s an opportunity to learn something.

So until next time, keep those Jeep running strong, hit those trails with confidence and remember, it’s not just a vehicle. It’s a way of life. And I think that one’s going to be a little bit bigger. So, um, so Tony actually, so this has been Tony hosting the Jeep talk show round table episode and we’ll catch you on the next round. Ron Cass Dixon’s 20 10.

I sent him with that and he’s going to go through

You’re my friend, you’re my new friend.

Women Jeepers talking about Jeeps! What tires to buy, what winch bumpers, mud or rocks, and the dreaded clean up after the mud fun.

When you were new

Go back in time to when you were new to Jeeps, or really any 4-wheel drive.  What didn’t you know and how did you find out?

I started 4×4 with a 1983 Chevy SWB truck.  I bought it new and I still don’t remember how I found out that when you lock the front hubs and put the transfer case in 4-wheel drive you couldn’t drive around on pavement (sidewalks included).  You could damage the drivetrain.

It wasn’t until I purchased my second 4×4, the Jeep Cherokee, that it wasn’t a 4-wheel drive, it was a one-wheel or two-wheel drive. One on the rear axle and one on the front.

Thanks to the Internet I have learned so much more since then.

I was always a very “hands-on person” with my vehicles.  I needed to have a good understanding of how it was put together.  With the new Cherokee, I just drove it.  I didn’t investigate the details of it until I started modifying it about 2005.

I’m in a similar situation with the 2021 Jeep Talk Show Gladiator, however, it is similar to the XJ, and TJs we have.

Not a Jeep

If you’ve been watching the world you can easily see that the Jeeps we know today will probably not be available in the future.  You’ve seen the insane push for electric vehicles, and frankly, that really doesn’t work for an off-road Jeep.  We need a lot of power and torque to go short distances.  Battery technology might be acceptable for highways, with no headwind, driving, drops significantly off-road.  What is the Wrangler 4xe, EV mode 50 miles, but 3 miles off-road?

What are you going to do in 10 or 15 years?  Will you just stop owning a Jeep?  Stop going off-road?  Just use the highway and paved surfaces and only go as far as you feel comfortable finding a charger?

Will you just give up on your self-sufficient, go-anywhere off-road hobby? 

What will it take for you to abandon your off-road hobby?

I believe that in the future we’ll have to build our own off-road vehicles.  Internal combustion engines will be around (used and rebuildable) for 20+ years.  Assuming the government doesn’t outlaw them, or have some program that destroys them. “Cash for Clunkers”

Much of this is in our control.  It’s important who we vote for and even then it’s not a guarantee that those people will do what we want.

Hmmm, maybe we need to make sure the people running for office are Jeepers and think that the land should be used for off-road not just people sitting in their homes feeling good about keeping people off the land they never intend on visiting.

I spoke with Dan of Motobilt at EJS this year.  I told him my thoughts on how we may have to build our own Jeeps and they were well on their way to making this a possibility with their build El Efe.  Beautiful Jeep that has Jeep skins on it.  Kind of like a NASCAR, it may look like a car you recognize, but that’s just a fiberglass shell.

Newbie Nuggets with Wendy

Picking a Line

 In my last few Newbie Nugget episodes I talked about using a spotter and being a good spotter. I’m adding to this segment by sharing how to pick your line. Picking your line can be summed up as “How will you get through the obstacle and which line (or way) is best for you, your ability, and your Jeep setup?”

 When we work with new drivers:

1)    I get them out of their jeep and let them “see” the line by showing them options for that particular obstacle.

2)   When you first approach an obstacle a few things will stick out on the rocks. Like is there any shiny material left behind from other Jeepers? This means someone didn’t pick a good line and got stuck, or scraped their tie rod, control arm, or differential. If you see oil remnants or other fluid, chances are they backed off the rock and peeled their factory differential cover just enough to create a slow leak of gear oil. If you do, you may be facing a really tough obstacle LOL. You almost always want to plan to place your tires on the shiny parts of the rocks where others have scraped because it will give you greater ground clearance so that you’re not the one leaving part of your Jeep behind.

I say it all the time, but it’s crucial you get out of your jeep and inspect the obstacle.

1)   Look at it from both the driver’s perspective and also look at the obstacle from the opposite view – looking back at your parked jeep. This should give you a clear visual of just where those tires are going to contact the rocks.  

2)   Walking past the obstacle or taking a look back at the line from another angle really helps to see where the tire placement could or should go (both front & rear). The art of picking a line is to get your jeep over and through the obstacle with little to no damage. Jeepers who have been wheeling for a while love this challenge on the most difficult lines out there.

Now a there few things to keep in mind;

1)   Rear tires do not track the same as the fronts when making turns. This is something to consider when you are lining yourself up to an obstacle. It’s important to “line up” to the obstacle as straight as possible. You may need to roll your front tires a little farther left or right than they need to, to ensure your rear tires track where you want them to. This is one of the biggest mistakes we see from new drivers and spotters. They focus solely on the front and forget about the rear tires. And to be honest, I have seen “experienced” drivers wheel and not realize this as well.

2)   What is your Jeep wheelbase? – are you two-door, four-door, or in a JT which adds some extra length? This makes a difference in how your jeep will track over an obstacle.

3)    What is the width of your axles and tires? Are you a stock or did you put wheel spacers in to keep your tires from rubbing the frame when you make sharp turns? Did you put Dana 60s underneath? Know the outside parameters of your tires and Jeep. Most are standard but there will be exceptions. Understanding the width is very helpful when it comes to tire placement.

 You can test your width awareness with cones set up in a parking lot, or find a narrow trail with bushes on both sides. You are essentially threading a needle, so to speak, and learning just how wide your jeep is. Can you get through without touching either side? BTW We typically see more scratches on the passenger side because the driver was focused only on the driver side. Knowing your spatial boundaries will help keep the pin striping off your doors and also help you navigate obstacles.

4)   Knowing how your Jeep tires track is very important. When you turn your front tires the rear will track differently- they will not go in the same line as the fronts. They will track inside the path of the front wheels. It’s simple geometry. The length of your jeep will make a difference in how the rears track. With a short wheel base, the rear tires will track closer to the front. With longer wheelbases, the rear tires will track farther inside the path of the front. On a four-door JK or JL, if you turn full lock with the steering the rear tires will track a full ½ width of the Jeep to the inside. A JT will track farther inside still.   

5)   So how does this matter in picking a line? If you place your front tires on a rock, as an example, and think “I’m clear” and turn the front wheels, you will more than likely slip off the rock with the rear tires. Even the slightest adjustment can change the tracking of the rear tires.  You need to continue forward until the rear tires are over the rock or obstacle, or as close to straight as possible. The same applies to setting up the line you pick. Getting through an obstacle takes patience and understanding. It’s all a process of learning.

Getting out of your jeep and watching others go through an obstacle can be a great learning tool. Watch how the rear tires track on the line they picked – it’s amazing how a small change in the direction of the fronts really affects the rears. I have learned so much by just watching others pick lines.

The first thing to do when you approach an obstacle (besides getting out and looking)

1)   See where you want your front tires to go and be aware of where your rear tires are – for example, if you turned sharply to get to that obstacle you may need, or want, to back up once or twice to try to “line up” your rear tires so that you are in a straighter position to track correctly. If you are not lined up straight to that obstacle, you may have a difficult time tracking through the obstacle. You will get through; it just may not go as smooth as you had anticipated. But, that’s also how you learn.

2)   Sometimes obstacles may have an easy way or a more difficult way to get through. You can decide what you feel comfortable trying. By watching others, you may determine that taking the easier route this time is your choice. Just because others took a harder line, doesn’t mean you have to. There is no shame in picking the route you want – good or bad, you are learning about your jeep and how it tracks and what it’s capable of, so try it.

3)   Little or small increments in your steering movements are key to helping you stay on track. Using a spotter to help you through is another great way to learn and figure out what your jeep does. A good spotter can be your eyes and help you through by keeping your tires up on the rocks instead of slipping off.  Picking a line is part of the challenge of Jeeping. You want to see if the line you picked allowed you to get over the obstacle, or hindered you, or maybe you just wanted to see if you could do the harder line. The only way to figure this out is to try it! EXPERIENCE is the best teacher. 

(https://www.youtube.com/user/backcountrydriver) 

Trails 411: https://www.jeep4x4school.com/

Must-Have Stuff for Your Jeep!

Jeep JL Auto Shifter Knob $149.00

Color (you can match to your paint)

Logo (No logo to a wide variety of choices)

Logo color (No color, also a wide variety of colors)

Manual transmission knobs are also available.

JK, JL and JT

Yes they do offer a custom knob for the transfer case, $139.00

https://americanbrotherdesigns.com/jeep-jl-auto-shifter-knob/

Ask the Mechanic with Zach of Unlimited Offroad

Do you back into a parking spot?

What off-road map?

What mod have you not used?

What Does MOAB Mean to You?

If you were not lucky enough to grow up in an off-roading family you quickly learn about the special places around the US, and the world, that are the must-go destinations for Jeepers.

Easter Jeep Safari in Moab Utah has to be on the top of the list.

Josh, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve never been to Moab.  You have been to the Rubicon though.  What do Moab and Easter Jeep Safari mean to you

Leave no Jeeper Behind!

But what if they’re stupid?

We all like the unwritten rule of leaving no Jeeper behind.  I think it goes wider than this, leaving no off-roader behind.  But what if they’re stupid?

Speaking Of Stupid Jeepers

NORTH UNION TOWNSHIP, Pa — WJ driver vandalizes baseball field

Thousands in damage

Jeep Talk Show Gladiator Update

The 2021 Jeep Talk Show Gladiator is fresh back from EJS 2024.  As I mentioned, the Glad was used more for getting to meet people and interviewing people.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel so you’ll be notified when those videos are published.

One trail I did was with the Gone-GPN group.  From Gone-GPN, Greg Henderson, Rick Pewe, Chris Collard, Michael Harrington, Liam Lafferty.  Ria from Roaming Reckless, Chuck from the Jeep Talk Show, and more!

We went to an abandoned Uranium mine.  The trail was easy, but it was still a great adventure.  After visiting the mine, we traveled to our ultimate destination.  Denis Julien Inscription.

It was an interesting bit of history of Moab, and if you look up Denis Julien you’ll find that this wasn’t the only place that Denis “tagged” the environment.  Denis Julien defaced nature long before it was cool and illegal.

Our tail gunner was in a full-size Dodge RAM truck, they popped a tire due to sidewall damage.

Chuck took a chunk out of the driver’s side rear of his Dad’s CJ-5, don’t tell.  So even on a simple trail, you have to understand it may still have its charms!

Oh, and Nick from Murdicon was there in his 700 hp JLU that Greg Henderson had on display in his 2023 SEMA booth.  Beautiful rig and fast, even on the trails.

Must-Have Stuff for Your Jeep!

Motorcraft — Solution-Windshield Washer $3.11 and J-B Weld 8237 PlasticWeld Plastic Repair Epoxy Putty — 2 oz. $9.07

Good to have if you’re driving fast on the trail, and damage your windshield wiper fluid reservoir.  It’s a location joke, you had to be there.

Rob Frank from @expeditionteamoverland joins us to talk about building a new brand from scratch and creating content that helps the community and helps his family preserve their adventuring memories. Then we talk about the #kesselrun from last weekend with Casey.

Jimmy and Tyler from @snailtrail4x4 join us to talk about how they have built a following on YouTube and with their podcast by just being two genuine and funny guys trying to figure out to wrench on their rigs and get out on the trail. If you are not following them already, go to snailtrail4x4.com and check them out.