Join the Jeep Talk Show’s Round Table episode as Greg Henderson from Unofficial Use Only shares his epic 2,400-mile moped journey from Michigan to SEMA in Las Vegas! Tony and the Zoom listeners dive into Greg’s adventure with questions and commentary on this historic trip. Don’t miss exclusive insights and surprises every Wednesday, only on the Jeep Talk Show!

In this week’s Round Table episode, recorded on election night, the Jeep Talk Show brings the laughs with zero politics and 100% Jeep talk! While everyone else is caught up in election coverage, we’re talking about what really matters to Jeepers—keeping trails open, preserving our hard-earned money, and sharing our love for off-roading. Featuring listener discussions, laughs, and new ideas, we bring Jeep enthusiasts together every Tuesday at 7:30 pm CT. Find out how to join the Zoom meeting and be part of the conversation at jeeptalkshow.com/contact.

Check out this exciting Jeep Talk Show Round Table episode featuring updates on Greg’s epic 2,400-mile moped journey to SEMA with Unofficial Use Only. From a Honda Ruckus equipped with a winch, power tank, and TYRI lights to the latest Honda upgrades, the episode captures the adventurous spirit of Jeepers everywhere. Special guests like SteerSmarts Jay and Tony join the Zoom chat, adding their own insights to this wild ride. Watch the episode for the latest, and don’t miss out on the action and incredible mods!

In this special Round Table episode of the Jeep Talk Show, it’s all about Thunderdome—no questions, no rules, just pure Jeep chaos! Greg from Unofficial Use Only shares the wild story of his Michigan to SEMA moped run, while Jay from SteerSmarts joins to answer questions about steering and SteerSmarts products. The regular “Zoom people” chat about everything from Jeep mods to random fun facts, with topics ranging far and wide (and sometimes behind the barn!). It’s unpredictable, 100% Jeep, and 89% on-topic—a fun-filled episode you won’t want to miss!

Check out this big SEMA announcement from Greg Henderson of Unofficial Use Only on the latest Jeep Talk Show Round Table episode — it’s amazeballs! We kick things off with a lighthearted “palate cleansing” question: “As an overlander, how do you cut your sandwich?” The Round Table is where we connect with you, the listeners, through a Zoom meeting, offering real, funny, and sometimes downright strange conversations. Don’t miss out on the latest insights and laughs. Watch this episode now!

 

 

In the wildly popular Jeep Talk Show Round Table episode, we discuss essential gear for self-recovery and assisting others beyond just having a winch and tow points. Greg Henderson, with his extensive Jeep experience, joins the conversation to share his insights. Ever wonder what’s in Greg’s recovery bag? Tune in to find out all the must-have items for off-road adventures! Don’t miss this informative and fun episode, packed with practical advice for every Jeeper.

hi I’m Tony and this is the Jeep talk show roundtable episode and we’ll see if Rick is still surprised we get started so fast hello zoom people oh good troop 889 is here tonight it’s it’s good to have you here is we’ll try to keep it clean for you kids all right you can be part of our weekly zoom meeting and I would not bring the kids around just go to Jeep talk show comm slash contact I found out how to join how you guys doing tonight everything going well do we have anybody in Florida are you evacuating as we speak I’ve equated right when I got home I feel much better so so you guys know what I’m talking about with the hurricane Milton category 5 I actually saw some people it was tick-tock people they weren’t real people or people that know about weather but they were talking about could this be the first category 6 hurricane oh god I know how scary can Milton be that’s what I keep wondering well I saw the funniest one said that Milton heard that Florida stole a stigler some glasses with tape in the middle yeah exactly it’s actually going for my vacation spot so the same place my family goes every year I figured that was the case didn’t they just rebuild that about two years ago or a year or so they’re still rebuilding several of the places weren’t even open yet and and they got the cause we have pretty quick but the several restaurants were down there was a one restaurant during in called the monkey duck that that started selling t-shirts saying the lucky duck after Ian because the storm was so powerful from the wind that it pushed sand all up against the front of the restaurant which then diverted the storm surge around it so it didn’t flood oh no but there’s a queen the lean didn’t have strong enough winds to do that so the lean ended up flooding it so it ran out a lot but now they just had a lean go through there and destroy a lot of stuff and now right behind it you’ve got Milton coming in and that’s it looks like it’s doing right for him basically the same path if you look at the Ian path where it was rejected to hit Tampa and then kind of came down into the four miners area looks like a stew and this one’s taking a similar target so I think it was hurricane Rita actually the the hurricane that convinced me to start building the XJ so I could actually evacuate if I needed to hurricane Rita right after Katrina I was a category 5 and it wasn’t until after Rita had gone away that I found out that hurricane category 5 have a tendency to tear themselves apart and so this hurricane I think they’re predicting Milton to be a three or maybe a four when it makes landfall unless something’s changed recently but it has it’s a it’s a major hurricane it’s done a lot of quickly rapid intensification and hearts and prayers go out to everybody in Florida I know that there’s a lot of people on the road evacuating I think I saw on one of the social media things today there was a 30-plus mile traffic backup with everybody leaving the Tampa area plenty of time to listen to a Jeep talk show about thinking that I love that it’s a great idea there you go the funny thing you mentioned about the tearing itself apart so Milton actually made it all the way up to five and was like setting kind of some pretty crazy records with its pressure it actually went through a eye eye wall rebuild or whatever rebirth or whatever it tore itself apart on the eye and then reformed did you see that video of that you can actually see it it kind of goes into the middle of the eye and then shapes back up again weather is just amazing and it’s just so damn huge it’s it’s really really cool I mean it’s it’s very dangerous and everything but it’s it’s just amazing it’s it’s just really the guys that the guys that fly into it got balls Oh big ones oh yeah see what and that’s a C-130 aircraft they fly into it for the most part I think p3 is well but I know most of the storm changers chasers run the old C 130 prop planes and they fly that sucker right into the middle of it that’s that’s impressive minds all right well let’s let’s get started so m Johnson and I’m guessing this is Matt would like to know what the minimum kit you need for a winch and tow points so I think this is I think Matt he didn’t specify but I’m sure this means not only for self recovery but for recovery using the winch for somebody else so what do you guys think that the minimum kit you should have to for your winch and tow points let’s go let’s go with Steve since he’s got a mouthful

 

you bastard

 

first the first choking death on the show that was that that’s this good podcasting I think the minimum is four in my opinion one off each corner of the vehicle I have I haven’t put anything in front bumper yet so the factory come bumper steel bumper but I do have the two tow points on the back of the body armor bumper that I have running out the back that are closed and I think what he’s talking about here is you know you can how you can get a bag of stuff like tree saver oh yeah I forget what it’s called the thing that allows you to double up the strength or a quadriple that’s black yeah snatch block or snatch block I think that’s what he had in mind is this that thing you got in your shop there Greg is those the simulate boobs because that looks like some nice boobs on the on the floor over there oh that’s a creeper oh I know it’s just Tony it’s just Tony he’s like Greg’s like boobs really where where I want to touch him exactly so any ideas what you put into a kit or what you’d get for your for your kid’s sake I’m sorry Kerry snatch block I have a winch dampener which I don’t really need from the synthetic rope but just to get someone else you do I have it more cuz I’m worried about the guys steel out there some soft shackles one thing I do caution is I watched an incredible video by a guy out in Ohio you do not use a snatch block with the soft shackle

 

because it will cut through that soft shackle and that a snatch walking come flying back at you right past your head which happened to him so yeah I’ve got a toe strap that I’ve had since my exj but I still carry with me I haven’t gotten into the kinetic ropes yet I haven’t seen them I haven’t been in a situation where I’ve needed it or seen anyone else use them so I’m not sure I want to drop the cash on that right now I need to do some reading on that because I know that there’s certain things you use the tow strap for probably towing and the certain things you use the kinetic ropes for I love the idea of the kinetic rope just simply from the standpoint of it doesn’t shock you your vehicle or the vehicle you’re pulling out of something yeah culminates into a pull a rubber band if you will so I love you I’ve got a yank um kinetic rope I think I went with the 20 foot one yeah I mean I’ve self recovered before with my winch I know three four times some of the heavy mud out here but that kinetic rope would have been interesting to see it at the time it’s good to make sure you tell the guy that that’s not a kinetic rope that’s a toe strap so don’t take off and yeah exactly oh god well Larry what do you have in your kit I assuming you have a kit for your your Jeep and your winch yeah just a couple soft shackles the toe strap and snatch block that’s pretty much about it that’s you know that’s what we use to to get that that gladiator off the trail down there in Hidden Falls couple years ago very nice so it’s worked out very well how about you John Lee what do you got um so originally I started off buying the worn kit so had the warm epic shackles and snatch block all that kind of stuff and you know ultimately that’s that’s all really really heavy so the last few times I’ve switched out to a soft shackle setup and I run a still run a worn shackle to connect my my winch line to just to kind of store on the on the front and as a recovery point on my Jeep but those those soft shackles are amazing so I have gloves I have a yanker rope which we got to use on Bob just a couple weeks ago to get him out of the mud and then I’m Bob or I’m Bob’s Jeep

 

Bob’s Jeep of course I got to use the same thing on Bob and Moab too I could see Bob requesting that just for the experience Bob will let you make sure you have all of your recovery gear correct so we winched and yanked them out at the mud hole anyway so I think I think the biggest thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet is gloves so you know gloves are kind of important you know more important I think on the metal steel line winches from the splinters and stuff but just because it’s synthetic you know they’re still useful that being said I don’t think I wore gloves when we recovered Bob. Well the other thing too that if you’re running like soft shackle gear is if you have a bumper that’s designed for like a traditional shackle you need a traditional shackle you don’t want to put a soft shackle through that because if it again like Steve pointed out if it’s got sharp edges it’s gonna cut into that rope so even when we were in Colorado we had to use a regular shackle to you know get a good mounting point on the bumper so then we could you know connect the winch with a soft shackle so you got to make sure you got the right gear and then also you know they make snatch blocks you know specifically for synthetic line right so like Steve always saying use a traditional snatch block it’s gonna cut into the rope right but you know they make ones specifically for synthetic line right so you just gotta make sure you have the right gear and having enough soft shackles too right because you’re trying to put this puzzle together you don’t know what attachment points things that you’re gonna be running into tree saver too that’s that’s another one right so if you need a point to anchor to you don’t want to you know you want to use that tree saver so you’re not you know doing damage to it if you know if that’s something you end up having to ultimately do.

 

What was the question I’m just curious I came into this late sorry it was stomp Roger what question can we ask Roger when he comes back? Yeah well I’m assuming it has to do a recovery gear and what you probably have right what do you what kit do you have or what what would you put in a recovery kit if you you know you get the winch you get the tow points but what do you need to carry along with that because that’s not enough so I would I would add on to what Bill was saying and when it comes to those snatch blocks don’t just carry one of them I carry I’d carry a minimum of four of them and you might say why would I ever use four but with the right amount of snatch blocks if you’re by yourself and then you got a you got a point in front of you and behind you that you can hook to you can actually pull yourself backwards with a front winch mounted on the front of the vehicle and in some cases pulling backwards might be a better better option than pulling forwards so with the right amount of snatch blocks you can actually run lines back and forth in a manner I mean look it up you look at something and look it up on there if they want but you can you can run them in a manner that it’ll pull you backwards you need five you got a tree close enough most enough because you got to have enough cable to be able to do that well I carry an extension winch or extension line too also so you know I don’t just have just the winch line I have a second line that you need five

 

snatch blocks to pull yourself in reverse with a front mounted winch you can get away with four Greg you you can but it’s safety first but yes you can get away with four but five makes it pretty easy and most most people can figure out the math on that because when you’re doubling up a line it’s it’s twice as slow so if you if you double up four times you have one single then you pull yourself relatively quickly you put a V the standard length of a synthetic or steel cable because I’m thinking with five five of those snatch blocks you could run out of cable or yeah but it depends yeah it depends on where you’re going 85 to 90 well most when so most of your 8500 or 9500 pound winches have close to 100 feet the synthetic ones can hold more which is 125 to 150 feet and then you can have I have 50 foot extensions and hundred foot extensions and 150 foot extensions so it’s interesting yeah now and a winch line extension is exactly that it shouldn’t be used for pulling it shouldn’t be used it should just be used for the winch line and you can get him in synthetic and you can get him in steel and you can also wait until the data comes that you break your synthetic your synthetic winch line on your vehicle and now you have two two extensions yeah yeah I would like to point out that mitten Tony has had his mitten up for a long time hey I’m just doing my part doing what we were asked I appreciate that and he was waiting his turn Rick I was just pointing that out hey go ahead Tony I mean since since we’ve since Rick brought this to a halt anyway to jump in there I personally I carry a lot of the same stuff I carry a recovery strap a lot of people don’t know the difference between a recovery strap and a tow strap the tow straps got zero give typically has a hook on it a recovery strap has like I think it’s like eight to twelve percent elasticity to it so it does have give not as much as a kinetic rope obviously but enough to actually not cause damage to the vehicles other than that I really like actually I think I have my ear right here I carry high-vis coveralls for getting in the mud and I like high visibility gloves that way anybody around and see exactly where your hands are and they can see hand signals really easy also makes it whenever to find the finger after the the winch lines popped one off exactly whenever I’m doing hand signals with gloves on I always do it backwards because typically the insides dark leather that way people can actually see what exactly you’re doing stop come back everything like that getting closer I think I think gloves are a good idea whether it doesn’t matter if you have a steel winch line or a synthetic it’s just good good idea to predict the hands and probably the most dangerous thing I carry is a I think it’s like a 40 ton logging chain it’s like six and a half seven feet long has the huge loop on it and the only thing I really use that for is pulling people out of a ditch as they have no sort of toe point that makes a really nice extension to get on there like little cars and stuff like that or people that are really very it’s never ever gonna break so let me ask you the whole group about this because I don’t know I just have this this feeling based on what I’ve seen and the decision I made a long time ago I would and I’m not picking on you Tony but I would absolutely never use a chain what do you guys think anybody I use the chain don’t use some underrated chain yeah you don’t want to you don’t want an underrated chain I I keep a chain just for the safety sake of having it in case you need to really anchor something down I also keep one of the five-in-one tools that you see on tow trucks that allows you to key into all the slots on a frame because if somebody’s rolled over in a precarious situation sometimes there’s not a very safe spot to put a D ring and there’s usually not a soft a safe spot to put a soft shackle so I carry one of the five-in-one tools that tow trucks carry just to key into somebody’s frame I have to look at the five-in-one so I’m glad you mentioned the recovery this is again a question for the group is there a situation if maybe it was a serious rollover or one that required more than one winch line more than the number of infinite number of snatch blocks that you could use and you have to have multiple people pulling on the the vehicle that they’re that’s having the issue is it an issue if some are using steel cable and some are using synthetic I mean because you have no I have to have two different kinds of stuff to do that right now you it doesn’t matter what they have as long as everybody knows that one person is in charge of everything so you know you know in any safe recovery situation one person should be in charge so that they are giving the hand signals to the operators of the winches they also should explain what the hand signals mean because some people don’t follow the standard rules so you want everybody to know what’s going on so just like any other emergency situation you know think EMT or anything else one person takes charge one person has to alpha up and make sure that everybody else either shuts the fuck up or that the people who are in control of things listen to just that one person because otherwise you get

 

15 Chiefs trying to tell three Indians what to do and things get all messed up right and I could imagine it could be quite difficult to obtain don’t dominance sometimes in that being the one that’s talking yeah you just you just have to take charge right if somebody’s like that though another thing you do want to really pay attention to is the different speeds and different strengths of the lunches being used that way you aren’t losing sight that oh you have an 8,000 pound lunch pulling from this side with synthetic cable that pulls it’s a it’s a Harbor Freight lunch that pulls extremely slow but this guy has a pro series 12,000 that is race speed that way when you tell somebody to winch in a little bit it’s actually just a little bit yeah and that’s why that’s why the hand signals are so important to explain you know a fast twirl of the finger means that with your finger pointed up means to power in the winch and if you’re pinching your fingers it’s the same as like a crane so if you do the the finger pinch like this it means just barely you know so so you can tell two people two different things by using two hands so and that’s why taking charge is the most important thing and sometimes the smartest thing to do is to let somebody else take charge right if even if you know everything is right if if somebody else is is freaking out or having some kind of a strange moment or just won’t listen you know sometimes relinquishing the control to even somebody without the same knowledge as you is worth it to keep the peace right so I’m not saying take charge like always be the asshole on the alpha but sometimes taking charge even means relinquishing the control to somebody else so but on the same note if you’re not the one in charge don’t be afraid to say something if you see something yeah we’ve we’ve been on the trail you know where rollovers happened and even though we’re qualified and certified for recovery you know we’ve left it up to them because they either wouldn’t listen or they wouldn’t do something and you know people were in harm’s way and eventually you can say as much as you want but eventually you just have to walk away and sometimes that’s the hardest thing to do when there’s a possibility of somebody getting hurt but sometimes people are just overly aggressive and you don’t want a recovery to turn into a fight too right so so you so you have to learn and you have to judge the situation you know like an adult we we had a similar situation out at Hollyoaks when it first opened there was a lot of drop-offs from the watch outs before the trails were fully developed and there was a gentleman with a relatively new jk at the time was going to roll off one of them flips and we had three recovery trainers on site that had been doing it 40 plus years and he insisted on only trusting his buddy that owned an off-road shop that i mean he was a very young guy he didn’t have the experience but that was the only guy he’d trust i mean so his vehicle we all we all yeah we all just sat back and watched and i mean he almost lost it he did get it down but he almost lost it because they weren’t doing it right and we just had to sit back and watch it and keep everybody clear yep so great you mentioned the uh the five-in-one tool was there anything uh else that you carry in your your winching or recovery kit that uh maybe my my because i’ve been involved in teaching recovery classes and um i got certified and did all your stuff my recovery kit is a little more obnoxious than most um so my recovery kit is eight d-rings like the actual steel d-rings and i use two different sizes so i keep four seven eights and because the seven eights is good for thirteen thousand pounds i also keep four five eights which is good for 6500 pounds because sometimes your attachment point is different um so that’s eight d-rings i also keep keep eight soft shackles i have two tree savers i have one recovery rope which is different than a kinetic rope i also have two kinetic ropes i have a 30 foot and a 20 foot um i keep three pairs of gloves just in case somebody else needs gloves i have five snatch blocks i have two winch extensions i have 150 foot and 100 foot that i bring i have two winch line weights so the actual lead weighted pouches that go over the winch lines right um i keep have one factor 55 splice tool so that i can re-splice yeah that makes synthetic lines i have one 10 foot chain so it’s not a very long chain but it is a 10 foot chain and it’s rated for i’d have to look again but i think it’s 32 000 pounds so it’s a fairly large chain and then i have the tow truck frame tool um which you can order off of i mean you can order them anywhere but they’re so convenient because sometimes you know vehicles don’t always just tip on their side and they don’t always slip into a precarious situation so it’s really convenient to be able to key into a frame with a secure anchor point

 

so and then there’s two bags involved with that and sometimes i throw extra stuff in i also keep

 

and they don’t sell them anymore which bums me out but super winch used to have this recovery bandana and it listed all of the different line pulls or not all most of them different line pulls some safety information the instructions for proper winch hand signals fully knowledge working load limit for chains rigging check and walk through so it had all of this information in fact i’ve got one right here well it’s great because in those situations it’s nice to be able to take a quick glance to make sure you’re doing the right thing yeah so this is it and i’m actually thinking of producing some of these and selling them on the website or just giving them away right but because nobody makes it anymore and i’ve got oh you said bandana it is literally a bandana okay it’s literally a bandana um that’s neat and and super winch when i was teaching the classes um they gave me thousands of these so now i i think i’m only down to a few hundred because i give them away all the time but i think it would behoove me i was almost gonna i was thinking about doing it in my apparel line because we’re just getting ready to launch it i was going to do my favorite winching shirt and then put all the information on the shirt um but but yeah it’s recovery is a it’s a tricky thing it’s a tricky thing to deal with because every situation is different every everywhere you’re at you know every type of wheeling is different every terrain is different and then the operators of the

 

is an endless rope. It is coming very handy for attaching to vehicles and being in the form and cut off.

 

What was it again?

 

Sorry, an endless rope. Endless rope. Oh wow, that sounds very unique, an infinite rope.

 

Yeah, I’ve heard him call that too.

 

I have no idea what that is.

 

I don’t know, I’ve got one out in the garage. Can’t get out there right now. No problem, I can always look it up. I’ve just never heard of an infinite rope. It sounds like a joke. Yeah, Google will probably pull up a bunch of water down it, perhaps.

 

All right, well good, thank you for sharing that. And Rick, I see you got your hand up. What do you have for us? Just a quick comment.

 

I’ve got a TJ, but I’ve got a 12-5 winch on there. That’s too much winch, you need to get ready. I know John Lee and folks who joked about that, why I got such a big winch on there, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve winched gladiators and all kinds of other stuff up waterfalls and whatnot. How do you keep the TJ from being drugged towards the vehicle? You park your tires behind a big rock or something.

 

I mean, you anchor to another vehicle. I’ve had to do that before too. Yeah, sure. Crown King. Yeah, Crown King, I pulled up two gladiators up a waterfall and you know. How did you, what did you use to connect the back end of your TJ?

 

And does it help the stretching that you’re planning on doing to it?

 

I think it did stretch it about an inch, but no, I didn’t know. Actually at Crown King, I just, there was a rock, just happened to be, and I was actually kind of pointed downhill, but there was a big enough rock I was able to put my driver side wheel behind.

 

So I kind of used that as a, you know, to kind of anchor my Jeep.

 

And even then it was still pulling my Jeep down a little bit, but we got them up.

 

All right, let me jump over to Jacob. Jacob, if you’ve got a winch and tow points, do you have a kit? What’s in your kit? Is it kind of what we’ve already talked about?

 

A little bit, yeah. I’ve whittled mine down over the years, just based on the groups that I wheel with, because we each have a little bit of everything. I keep a couple of hard shackles. I’ve got a couple of soft shackles. My YJ runs a winch front and a winch on the rear. And then. I’m glad you brought that up. I think that’s a neat thing. Yeah, and then my Willys, I’ll run a winch on the rear of that, a portable winch. And then I’ve got the winch on the front.

 

Recently I’ve picked up one of them for all our off-road, what they call it, the Versa Shackle. And it’s like a six foot long soft shackle. So it can replace your tree saver and it’s a lot easier to pack.

 

That’s already been handy. I’ve used it twice already.

 

But I’ve really whittled it down because I used to carry a strap. I used to carry a bubble rope. Now I just carry the bubble rope.

 

I had to start cutting weight. My YJ was like 5,500 pounds at one point.

 

So I really started cutting weight and on some of it was a recovery gear based on– You just have to weight it most of the JKs on the channel. Yeah, I know.

 

(Laughing) But based on what my buddies carried, I mean, we would all put it together and have what we need. So I started leaving the high lift at home. I haven’t carried the high lift in 15 years.

 

So things like that that just add a ton of weight and rarely used. This is a tough job as a monthly buy lift.

 

(Laughing) All right. Hey, that reminded me something. When you said the rear winch, Greg, I know you put a rear winch on the JTE that you built for SEMA Quadratec. Is that, was that a gimmick or is that something that you’ve done to other vehicles, maybe one of your own, Frankenbrute or the Mahindra?

 

I actually have a front and rear winch on both Frankenbrute and the Mahindra.

 

And surprisingly, even the boys at Quadratec, they will tell you if you talk to anyone about the JTE because it did do 50 state trail cleanups, they use the rear winch more than they use the front winch.

 

the winch dampener, a heavy jacket, a weighted jacket, the weighted bags like I have, all they do is they redirect the force.

 

So it’s still coming. It’s still coming at you. It’s still coming fast, but they tend to redirect the force so that it hits the earth, which takes away a large amount of the kinetic force before it comes towards you. So when they snap, it’s still a dangerous thing, but it’s much less dangerous if you have something with some weight on it, which helps direct that force towards the earth first. And you guys correct me on this if I’m wrong, but I think the thing here is, so people, especially the new folks that are going, “Well, holy hell, this is being pulled off the side or one tire moving away from going over the edge and I need to be tied to our winch.” So it kind of sounds scary. These are very conservative ideas that we’re expressing that the, I’m not saying you- That happened every day when off-roading. Yeah. It’s not like this is, this is not really a concern. It’s just that you have to be safe because everybody wants to go out, have a blast and get back in one piece. And that’s all we’re, we’re just being very conservative about the safety aspect, which I think you have to be. So don’t get overwhelmed by this is just so super dangerous. It isn’t for everybody and it’s not going to be, there is an aspect of danger to it, but it’s like riding a roller coaster to a degree, it’s fun to be scared and it’s an accomplishment whenever you get over that fear and you see how easy it was, are challenging and you met the challenge.

 

I raised my hand. Can I input one last thing? No.

 

Go right ahead. Something I was told by the guys over at Factor 55 one time that I never realized until they were told, man, I might’ve brought this up a long time ago. It’s not really a tool, but it’s a technique and when you’re hooking up a winch line, it’s got a hook on the end of it. Always hook up, never hook down. Yeah, that’s- Because if the hook breaks and it’s hooked from the bottom up, it’s going to hit the ground. It’s hooked from the top down, it’s going to go flying in the air.

 

Yeah. Yeah, that’s the other thing I don’t like is tow straps with hooks on them. And again, I haven’t done a lot of stuff, so I may be wrong, but chains and straps with the hooks on them, I would much rather it have a loop that I can attach a D-ring to or something. I think it’s actually Factor 55 that always mentions it’s not closed loop winching. It’s like closed loop towing, recovery, whatever it is that they say. Everything is closed, so there’s no open, like a hook has an opening. Yeah, well even there, there’s a little locking pin on their ultra hook for the clasp that opens up, but even on, right on the hook itself, it says hook up.

 

Yeah, that’s a good tip.

 

Because down makes sense to me, but yeah, if it comes off there, I can see how it could

 

change its trajectory. All right, so let’s go to this next question. I think this is a pretty cool question. It’s kind of just a generic what would you do type thing. So if you rolled your Jeep, and I know it just depends before Greg starts in on this. If you rolled your Jeep, would you keep it or not? And let’s go to Keith Teeth. Keith been through several Jeeps, not rolled Jeeps, but Keith, you just got a Jeep with a Hemi in it, right? So if you roll that one, what are you doing with it? I’m keeping what I came out of it. That’s damn sure.

 

Would it be a situation where maybe you cut away the pieces and put a cage on it and keep going?

 

Um, that’s hard to say, you know. Yeah, it depends on the damage, isn’t it? Yeah, it depends on the damage. It’s just the tub and body and the engine, the frame are good. I’m keeping the engine in the frame and I’ll find a tub.

 

Otherwise, that’s a situational thing. Hard for me to say. Is it a concern of yours whenever you take your Jeep off road, especially this one that you just got recently?

 

Mm, rollovers, not really. I got my pucker factor. It’s a little bit better than John Lee’s, but still.

 

Yeah, I’m not worried about rollovers too much right now. Very good, very good. Yeah, and that’s who I was going to go to next is John Lee. What are you doing with yours? Because you’re in love with that JKU. I can’t imagine you getting rid of it no matter what happens to it. I think the, uh, you said it depends on the damage. I think a flop, I’m definitely going to be keeping it. But if we’re, if it’s a flop enough for insurance to total it, but it’s just cosmetic body damage, whatever, that’s one thing. Now, if it rolls off the top of Black Bear Pass and catches several ledges on the way down, there may not be a lot of salvaging possible, you know, when it, when it gets down there. So it would, it would really depend on the, on the damage. But short of something like catastrophic, yeah, I’d probably, I would definitely fix it. Like I would be the amount of mods and everything else I’ve already got into it. It doesn’t make sense. And, and to start over with anything that would be different would be maybe going to a three ninety two if I had that launch it off a Black Bear kind of situation. So I don’t know if you saw the, uh, the video, there’s a video in MERS, which is the adventure park in Amarillo, Texas that goes out into the paladoro canyon. They had a four by E that was left in gear when they were set up at a camp shop. And it’s similar to that campsite y’all had at EJS, where it was right there on the edge of the cliff for the campsite. It was same scenario and it rolled straight off. And by the time they got down to where it was, like there, there was nothing straight about it. That frame definitely wasn’t straight. Like, I mean, there, there was no salvaging something like that. So even if you got in a wreck, maybe it wasn’t a rollover. If the, if the frame was bent, would you go through the process of having the frame straightened or maybe an off body replacement of the frame? I mean, how far would you go to keep your G? I think, I think if it’s, if the majority of the parts of those frames, I’d probably go with like something like the gen right or the moto belt already made frames that are already set up for like a coil over kit and stuff like that. So the typical cheaper answer, I would take the opportunity to upgrade. Right. It’s an opportunity. Let me get a bigger and better set up. So, yeah.

 

All right, Roger. I see you have your hand up. What would you do?

 

He would go into an area where he doesn’t have service. So he can’t talk to us. No, sorry. I was muted. I said I would turn it into a trailer Queen. There you go. I mean, if, you know, if it’s long as a, if the frame, the little framed, the little bent, well, it doesn’t need to be straight for the, for the off road. You know, it only needs to be straight for the highway. So just turn it into a trailer Queen and buy another Jeep. That’s interesting. I never thought about that. I guess it really doesn’t have to be straight. Does it? I mean, there are limits to that. Well, you know, they say, you know, it’s already bent. I’ll just rename it a pretzel and take it off road. If it’s already bent, what’s the worst that can happen? Are you going to bend it tomorrow? If you’re driving around with a permanent Jeep wave, you know, one wheel something here.

 

Yeah. If you don’t need, if you don’t need to, but the one door off so you can see where you’re going, then you may have a bit of a problem. All right. So let’s go over to Jacob, but Jacob, what would you do if you had a rollover? Would you, I guess, and of course it depends. Let’s just say that it’s, it’s, it’s fixable. It’s not horribly gone wrong. It’s not mutilated. Would you keep the Jeep or would you let the, the insurance or the, the record driver take it away? Well, it depends on which of the five it is. If it’s my YJ, I’ve had 25 years. I’m going to cry. And when I’m done crying, I’m going to assess the damage and try to rebuild if it’s possible. If it’s the JK, it’s just a minivan dumpster fire, let the insurance have it and maybe buy it back and buy what parts off might be worth it. Well, it is tough too. I mean, I know a lot of you guys really enjoy working on your Jeep, but for me, it would be really tough if I put the time and the effort into the modifications and then to be in the situation where I couldn’t, I mean, all those modifications, all that work that I did is going away. I think several of you guys would look at it as an opportunity to be like, oh, I get to do that again. That’s fine.

 

That would be the opportunity with the Willys because that one was built up literally out of the scrapyard once. So it would be the opportunity to throw the 3800 supercharged and I got sitting here.

 

All right, Rick, what you got? All righty. So, you know, I’ve said several times, knowing what I know now, I could pretty much build a whole Jeep from scratch from all aftermarket parts or TJ at least. Yeah. So, I mean, you can get a full throttle frame, which is like quarter inch. I mean, beef frame. You can there’s a company, Aqua Aqua Lehrer or something like that out of Canada that that makes a whole aluminum tub. I mean, you can completely build the whole Jeep out of the whole little one out of business. Oh, really?

 

All right. Well, I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do it. Now you’re helpless. Now you’re. Yeah, my problem. My whole plan is ruined. But anyway, I definitely I would definitely. I mean, if it was a complete just nothing, you know, picking up pieces all the way down the side of the mountain. I mean, that’s one thing. But, you know, if I could, I mean, obviously after after I drowned it, I mean, I put the thing all back together, you know, so that’s what I’d be doing.

 

Greg, have you ever thought about building a Jeep from the ground up? I mean, the amount of detail that you go into, you kind of do that already. But I mean, literally something that is a Jeep but doesn’t have anything, any OEM parts on it.

 

I picked the wrong time for. And he’s got the kill. He’s got the kill to the back door. No, no, nothing up the back door. No, so I I’m actually and Jacob knows because he’s been here, but I’m essentially kind of slowly but surely in the process of building something from the ground up.

 

And because it’s a personal project, it tends to it’s more of the back burner. But but yeah, I’ve got a I’ve got a Jeep that I have a frame. I have part of a body. I have I just bought another Jeep, which comes with the powertrain and the dashboard.

 

So yes, I’m going to be building one from the ground up starting with.

 

Essentially just big piles of parts. So but I mean, you literally could build you could build a Jeep with absolutely no OEM parts. You could. Yeah, you could just build it the way you wanted to do it. And it would have never been from Toledo or any other Jeep plant.

 

Yeah, and anybody can do that, right? You can you can buy every single part and build a Jeep right out of a catalog without hand fabricating it. Or if you really wanted to. Yeah, you could fabricate most everything.

 

The body, the body is relatively simple.

 

The frames are real simple. The suspension simple. So yeah, you could build one from scratch if you wanted. But I mean, you you have the knowledge because you’ve gone through this many times. You know, the angles, you know, the distances, you know, the thicknesses of the metal that need to be need to be done. I don’t think anybody could do it. I think that with another research, they probably could. But I think it’d be easier for someone like yourself that has been through this and has to fix a lot of things. I mean, the knowledge that you have on the the frame, for example, you were telling us about the frame you have in the image right now, but things that you were doing to it to to make it actually better than what it came from the factory. So, you know, it could be wrong, but I think that you have to have some knowledge to easily do something or not being in a situation that once you get done with it, there’s a major problem with it. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, maybe I’ve learned it wrong. I believe that anybody’s possible because because today we do we’ve got such a wonderful resource of information. Right. But for me, yes, it would probably be a little bit easier because I essentially do it all day anyway. Oh, what better way to learn than hands on. Right. Right. Yeah. So so if anybody wants to do it, they’re more than welcome to come hang out for three or four months, learn just an obnoxious amount of shit while I get free labor for it. And then they can go do it on their own. I love the last part. That was very understated while I get free labor for it.

 

Yeah, I just like the idea. You know, it concerns me with the way the direction and stuff that Jeep is going with their stuff. And I like the idea of still being able to be in the situation, whether it’s used stuff or maybe if I want to have something that’s new, having the ability to actually have a real Jeep and not something that some crap that Jeep has come up with. And I don’t I don’t know that for sure. I mean, I think that the Jeep is still Jeepy here in in twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five. But there’s there’s things that are scary that that they’re doing. And I think being owned by a European company is one of those things. I mean, if they ever stick IFS on the Wrangler or a Gladiator, I think that would be a really, really. So in the funny part is, as they’ve done it, when JK, some of the first prototype meals of the JK that were driving around had IFS.

 

Well, the funny part is, is JL did not. But yeah, when they were coming out with JK, they actually IFS some and there was there was a bunch of them driving around Michigan.

 

And they felt so smooth to drive. It was like the upcoming Bronco that was going to be coming out years later.

 

All right. Let’s go back to Bill. Bill there in and around Austin, Texas, not living under a bridge, no matter what you heard. So, Bill, if you if you rolled your Jeep and you can pick which Jeep it is, would you keep it or would you just get another one? So what masochist came up with this question? I’m not I’m not answering that. Doesn’t that seem like a Rick Rick question? I think that’s a Rick question. I don’t know. I’m getting pleasure out of this or whatever. So I’m I’m going to take a pass. I’m not going to answer. That’s fine. You can always do that. I can either confirm or deny that it was me.

 

Thanks. I was going to go look up. I was curious. I know I said a big less. I can’t believe I got blamed for it.

 

Horrible question. I can. Oh, man.

 

OK, let’s see if let’s see if Steve has his mouth full again. I didn’t come out right. No, it did not come out right.

 

What would you do, Steve, if you rolled your Jeep and I guess it doesn’t have to be off road. You could roll it going back and forth to work, right? I mean, you got hit from the side and stuff. The first thing probably Jacob’s reaction. I’d be crying. I love my Jeep. Yeah, but a lot of time. Love effort labor into it. Yeah, it depends on the damage, obviously. And my obvious expertise level, I don’t have a garage. I don’t have a place to work on it.

 

So if it’s, you know, frame damage, I’m done.

 

It all depends. You know, is it running? Is it not running?

 

It’s paid off at this point, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re being paid off here fairly recently. I think you had said that you paid it off. So would that. 392.

 

Would that dovetail into whether you kept it or not? I mean, would would you like to have an off road only rig?

 

Oh, yes, my wife wouldn’t, but I would.

 

Well, I don’t have a tow rig. I don’t have the trailer, a place to keep the trailer. So that’s not likely an option for me. Yeah, I know. I’m in the same situation with the current situation. So yeah, it’s all dependent. You know, just praying to God never happens. Although with Roger spotting me, I almost thought it was going to happen.

 

But yeah, how about you, Rich? Rich, I can see you keeping anything and maybe collecting dead stuff along the road and bringing it back to life. Would you if you if you rolled your Jeep, would you would you keep it or not?

 

Depends on how bad it is.

 

I would chances are if if it’s not too bad, I’d probably chop off the worst parts of it and turn it into more of a rock crawler buggy type of thing.

 

Well, if it’s too bad, I would I don’t know. I don’t know where I go with it.

 

Parts? I did. I did get permission to build a buggy for my wife. So that would probably be the next build. Was she drinking?

 

Maybe.

 

Yeah. So I would imagine you’ve pretty much rebuilt that XJ a couple of times over, haven’t you?

 

Yeah. And it’s it’s going to go at least one more time.

 

Very nice. All right. Well, I’m having too much fun tonight. I just glanced up and I see we’re over one hour here on the episode.

 

So I call on Travis. Yeah, you better call on Travis. I didn’t. I didn’t see Travis was there. I wish he would put his name as Travis and not T. I always see that T and I want to see a G after it. He Travis, if you had an 89 YJ and you rolled it, would you keep it or would you kept it? I’ve rolled it and I’ve kept it. That’s that’s the thing. When you’re talking about rolling a vehicle, I’ve rolled the YJ.

 

He had some body damage, but the Jeep was fine. And when I say I rolled it, it’s been on its side. I’ve not completely flipped it over. When when a lot of us are off road, I think the majority of us would put them on their side, pick them back up and keep going. It’s not going to slow down or it truly doesn’t slow down the Jeep. I pulled mine back over and, you know, was back out on the road that that moment.

 

If you’re flipping it or you’re going through Moab and you’ve got it rolling tumbling down a hill, I think that’s that’s the question that needs to be asked because then you’re totally because you put a Jeep on its side. It has a solid frame. It’s going to be a good vehicle. You’re going to pull it back over and you’re good to go.

 

So that’s me. No, I’ve rolled it on its side. I’ve not flipped it over.

 

And zero issues. I had some body damage. You know, I’ve upgraded all my fenders. I’ve done everything since. You can’t tell. No one will ever know that that’s happened. Right. If I’m, you know, flipping it over and tumbling down, you know, a Moab trail. Yeah. Then we’re going to talk because then you will get into frame damage. But 90 percent, I think, of what everyone’s going to be willing or doing. They’re going to flip it on its side. They’re going to be fine. It’s going to be scary as hell. And then you’re back and you’re you’re you’re good to go. Well, your engine. Yeah. And the aftermarket society’s situation is there’s so many parts out there. So it’s like you said, you could put fenders on there, replace that it up. It’s an opportunity to upgrade.

 

You know, John Lee always talks about how he hates off camber. I’ve got one final question for you, John. John, if you and I don’t you can you correct me on this. If you’ve already done this, I don’t think you’ve ever laid your Jeep over on its side. That would be the ultimate off camber moment. Do you think you would leave jeeping if you if you literally flipped it on its side? Would that be too much for you?

 

Can’t believe you went there.

 

He’d be setting up the psychiatrist appointment before he left. I feel like answering that would bring bad juju on. So I’m just I think I might have to go bills way. And just for the record, this is Tony mittens question, right? So there we go. Blame him for that. That negative vibe. But I think the positive of it is that there’s you don’t just because something happens to your Jeep doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the Jeep or the end of you being out there having fun with that Jeep. So it’s just an opportunity to overcome once again. So and Tony, one of the thought if you do flop your Jeep or roll it over, if you’re on your roll cage at all, that roll cage is a one time use.

 

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

 

 

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and I have power tanks and other air supplies. And I’ve even used shoelaces to stitch a sidewall back together and get me back on the road.

 

But as far as when should you change it? The factory specifically designed these, like the tailgate and we can go all the way back to YJ. So YJ, TJ, JK and JL, the factory specifically designed the tailgate to hold the factory tire and the factory tire only.

 

As soon as you change tire size and certain vehicles are more susceptible to it, like TJ, YJ, TJ or early JKs, but the spot welds that hold the tailgate together aren’t designed for the load of a larger tire. So if you drive with one for too long, and I heard somebody else mention, I think it was Keith, it’ll start popping and making noise. Well, that’s when the internal spot welds of that tailgate are snapping. And that’s usually when it starts to make noise.

 

On a YJ, a TJ and an early JK, there wasn’t enough structural support in the side of the tub to hold that extra weight either. So not only would you start to tear the spot welds of the tailgate and start to damage the passenger side where that tailgate hinges on.

 

So it’s always a good idea to upgrade

 

if you have a YJ, a TJ or an early JK. Now, when we talk later, JK and JL, Jeep actually reinforced the hinge location of that tailgate because they knew that they would be running up to a 35 inch tire from the factory. And they knew that before they ever launched the JL. So a JL’s structure is much stronger on the body side, but it’s still only designed for the weight of like the factory 35. Once you go larger than that, you can still cause damage. The difference with the JL is the tailgate is aluminum

 

skimmed over magnesium. So it’s very light and it has a very strong hinge. So you might not notice it until a little bit later, but you still can cause damage. So I recommend as soon as you upgrade your tire size, you should upgrade the tire carrier

 

to either one that’s more structural or one that takes all of that weight off and puts it on the bumper.

 

A couple of people mentioned the tire carriers that still just use the factory door as a hinge and or as a lock.

 

Hanson was the first company to develop that and they developed that in 2007. AEV was the second one to do it. AEV started doing that in 2008 when they unveiled their tire carrier.

 

The Hanson one and most of the tire carriers out there just use a trailer spindle as the guide where AEV actually built this huge chromoly base plate that attaches right to the frame.

 

So pay attention to the tire carrier mounting as well cause the ones that just use a trailer spindle, they are susceptible to braking. I’ve been on trails where a spare tire with its carrier came bouncing down the trail towards us when it broke.

 

So definitely pay attention to those. But as soon as you change tire sizes, you really should look at how to mount that spare if you’re gonna carry a spare.

 

Because if you don’t and you carry a factory size spare and you’re running a 35 or a 37,

 

you can cook your axle. So sometimes not spending $300 on another tire can cost you several thousand dollars when you destroy an axle driving 30 miles.

 

So that’s mine, sorry it took so long.

No, it’s fine. It’s a good thought, I appreciate it. All right, so I see Matt has his hand up Matt, go ahead.

 

So I’ve had a couple of, one definitely full size spare if you’re traveling anywhere outside of your home area. So I’ve had, I’ve torn two sidewalls on trails probably more than 500 miles from home. And one, it’s always good to have the spare to put on there for just completing that wheeling trip.

But you also have to get a little at home.

(Laughing)

 

Drive better.

 

So I did run, so I’ve got about a hundred pound combo wheel and tire, 37s on a jail. And I ran the factory set up in the rear. I’ve got a Rubicon so it’s a little higher for the actual carrier piece itself.

 

Ran that for about 50,000 miles, about two and a half years. And I ended up getting sag on the tailgate. So the tailgate would come off the latch and drag the bumper. And so I did finally get it to sag. So I went with the Teraflex’s Alpha HD set up, which replaces the hinge out and has the adjustment necessary, but I’ve been really happy with that since.

 

I’m not sure, you know, unfortunately I can’t tell exactly when the issue is, but I will say that your tailgate will fail with 37s at some point, no matter what. And probably most heavy 35s.

Yeah, I’d never heard that before. I mean, what Greg says makes sense. The factory designs the tire carrier for the tire that they come with a vehicle. And when you change the size of that tire and wheel, you need to get a better tire carrier, something that’s engineered for the larger tire and wheel weight combination. So that’s a good idea. All right, Rick, I see you got your hands up. Go ahead.

Right, I just recently upgraded mine.

I’m child lover.

(Laughing)

I just recently upgraded mine, literally within the last four to five weeks.

 

Previous owner had one of the swing out tire carriers on there. It was okay for the 30 inch. It rattled a lot more with the 33 inch and I tried everything. I stuffed stuff in there and tied it. And then it just became a big pain in the keister every time I had to get into the Jeep. So when I went to the 35, it was driving me crazy because of all the rattling. So I actually went with the Moride system and it’s heavier hinges. It’s got a bracket that ties into the roll bar in the back. So that it strengthens that passenger side corner. And then it’s got a big metal plate that goes on the actual tailgate itself.

 

And then you pass and all that. So far, I’ve been really happy with it. It lowered it down a little bit. It pulled it in closer. I don’t have all that rattling. I pulled the latch on the door and it opens. So far it’s been working great for me and I’ve been really happy with it.

Very good, very good. All right, Tony Mitten, your hands raised, go ahead.

 

Yeah, I do carry a full size pair with my XJ most of the time.

 

I just don’t wanna deal with the hassle of slowing everybody down like a trail repair when I have the tire and I can just, I have the rear seat deleted in my XJ too. So I literally just throw it back there.

 

I learned the spare carrier in the XJ will actually fit a 31 inch tire for the longest. That’s what I was running, but bigger tires gotta match.

Right. Well, it’s nice to have it centered, to have that weight centered as well in the XJ.

 

Oh yeah, yeah. I wanna really strap in it now. But one point I did wanna make with the Wranglers as far as this spare tire carrier.

 

A big thing you wanna pay attention to if you are running a bigger tire,

 

isn’t as much to do with, sorry, the cat came in to attack the dog.

 

It isn’t as much to do with the height of the tire because that just adds more sheer force to the hardware that’s holding it up. It’s the added width when you go with a larger tire. When you go to like a 12.5 compared to like a 285.70 where it’s a tall narrow tire. You’re gonna be able to get away with that more because it’s not putting that weight way outside. Same with once you switch to an aftermarket wheel with a big offset to it.

 

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

 

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and navigating obstacles was, then just slamming into mud holes and downy holes and stuff like that all the time. It was a lot more enjoyable for me rather than the old mud stuff. So yeah,

 

I was kind of surprised by that.

 

Yeah, it’s a big difference. I remember when I got my first four-wheel drive, which was an 83 Chevy pickup. And that’s what off-roading was to me, was getting into mud, especially in Southeast Texas. And it was fun. I think mud is a lot of fun, but oh my God, the cleanup.

 

Well, the cleanup, and then you think that breaking parts is only a rock crawler thing, but man, the amount of shit you break when you start blasting through mud, it’s just, it’s phantom shit starts going wrong. So instead of like something obvious, like a broken patrol arm mount, it’s a wiring problem because you got so much crap bumped up in there. Waterproof’s something just right. So just mud seems to be a lot more damaging than just the trail riding I’m doing now.

 

Hey, Bill, what did you learn on your very first Jeep? What was it something that you didn’t know and you learned it when you got through your very first Jeep, your very first off-road Jeep?

 

So I had wheeled like other vehicles, but they were IFS. And so I guess one of the things I noticed is just with the solid axles, just the stability when you’re starting getting off the number or getting into weird situations. And when I would go back and forth between the Jeep and say my last side by side, like I would get much more tippy in spots, right? So just having, it just gave me like extra additional confidence with that solid axle and just realizing the wheels are connected and just using that to my advantage wheeling.

 

Well, I think everybody knows this. I think I know this. The IFS is really good for going fast in unstable or unlevel environments. Whereas the axle is kind of better for the go slow and up and over obstacles type thing.

 

Would you agree with that?

 

Yeah, I mean, just like I said, when you get situations where you start to kind of get off camper, you’re dropping into a hole, it behaves a lot differently, right? Whereas it feels like on IFS, you get much more tippy, much more easily, it starts to get light wheels coming up off the ground, much quicker, much easier than say in the Jeep where it’ll plant the tire and kind of transfer some of that to the other wheel for the stability. So it just feels more planted when you kind of get in those weird off camper type situations. And I just have what I have to tell myself that when I would go back and forth because I would start doing things that I would feel comfortable with in my Jeep and I’d start to get a little tippy and it’s like, okay, yeah, that’s right. Remember what vehicle you’re in.

So I don’t remember how long you had the side by side after you had linked up with the Jeep talk show, but did you ever get John Lee out there and let him feel the off camper of the side by side?

 

I think so. I know I went wheeling out there with him and I would troll him with the side by side on some things, but I don’t know if John, did we ever ride together in that thing?

We did, but we did the fast trail stuff. We didn’t really do the off camper. Yeah. I was on that Polaris with that dynamic suspension, blah, blah, blah stuff. So, but you know what’s interesting? Cause that rig, it didn’t really show off camper and it really soaked it up well with that. And I think, you know, kind of what you and Tony were just saying there, I wonder how much of a price point that goes up to to be accurate. Cause if you look at like, say King of the Hammers and the top 10 finishers and like the hardest rock crawling race there is, they’re all IFS rears.

Yeah.

So I think if you could throw $300,000 out of it, I think this, you could overcome those.

Oh, I’m sure.

Yeah, I’m sure, but.

I think the stolen axle is great cause you can modify it much more cost effectively.

Well, a lot of the King of the Hammers is fast though, right? Fast off road.

The last one was about, it was majority rock.

Interesting.

 

broke off a piston skirt and I’m trying to figure out if I should stroke it or just leave it stopped was

it a high mileage 4.0 because that you can get that piston slap and those skirts will break sometimes when you get

upwards that’s exactly what’s going on right now

 

you’re down in Texas I’m in Connecticut and a lot of the Jeepsters around here are all right and my Jeep bag I searched far and wide for the thing and it’s got zero rot I think I’m just gonna fix it and keep it for a long time you know I mean

I can’t remember there’s a company in Florida I don’t know I haven’t bought anything from them in a number of years but they were really good with pistons and rings and gasket kits and the whole nine yards is it Titan? Titan motors does that sound familiar to you guys? That was a really good source for pistons and things I won from my friend Matt and I rebuilt the the 4.0 I’ve got in my XJ now it was all from from Titan I think that’s right I believe it’s Titan so but I’ve had really good luck with them I mean this motor that is in there now gosh I probably got over a hundred thousand miles after the rebuild so

I’ve got two 4.0 long blocks at my shop right now and I think honestly I’m just gonna put new gaskets in one of them and just put it in it’s got under a hundred thousand miles around it oh okay and I’m just gonna basically rebuild it you know I mean and just wheel it yeah

absolutely well if it’s not a daily driver yeah if it’s not a daily driver it’s it’s less less concerning about the internals all right so let’s let’s move along I mentioned that it was gonna mention talk about the fourfestevents.com coming up this weekend September 6th and 7th at Tally Oaks off-road park so you can see Chris and Natalie there Chris from Jeep talk show and Natalie from high left off-road she’s also helping out with chick-chat and some of the flagship episodes that she’s just doing a great job her and Janet both are just doing a great job and the other Chris the G tops Chris is gonna be there in his brand new 2024 JLU with G tops front and rear if you don’t know about the rear G tops I recommend you go for the G tops.com have a look it’s really cool the whole idea but those tops on the Jeep is I think it’s just fascinating gives you the ability to go off-road drive with the top off that still have it on so to speak I know some of you people call that blasphemy but it’s neat especially when your your wife has trouble taking the tops off by herself and she can just get in there and enjoy it though like a what seems like an open air air environment so fourfestevents.com if you’re in the Michigan area I believe it’s Michigan see about going out there and having a good time with Tom Zielinski he always has a bunch of vendors out there and this year Chris from G tops is gonna be there. Alright so this is a great question for Greg who I don’t think is with us tonight but Greg always says there’s there’s no reason to go with long arms but what about what do you guys think do you have short I mean are you do everybody has short arms do you have long arms in your future and as I understand it’s a little less likely for JKs and JLs and especially the JTs but maybe more important for TJs and XJs. Bill let’s let’s start with you you got any plans for long arms on your 392 or your 2024 JL you are sure JL

no not at all I mean maybe if I was gonna go bombing through the desert or something like that but not for what I do I mean but yeah kind of the stock mid arms are fine

mm-hmm

 

let’s see who’s in here Oh Chuck Chuck now on the older Jeeps because you’re a lot of your Jeeps are like 81 and older are long arms important for those older Jeeps?

 

No because they don’t have coil springs so we we run you know your leaf spring and some of my vehicles have you know leaf over the axle some of them have leaf under the axle which is a big change for them the only one that I have with with coil springs would be the gladiator and I have no no desire to do a long-arm kit you know I like like Bill was saying like I’d I’m not gonna go bombing through the desert anytime soon I like it just the way it is

mm-hmm do you think long arms are dead for modern modern Jeeps?

 

No my buddy Matt who’s a big guy in the Jeepers jamboree just did a long-arm kit on his gladiator but he’s doing it because he’s getting more into the desert scene I mean he’s been doing the Rubicon for 30 years and he does it a dozen times a year and I think it’s getting old for him so he just put a long-arm kit on his and I mean it’s amazing what it can do but he’s getting more into the desert race and then all that kind of stuff for his Jeep so I can understand why he did it.

So staying with the same length control arms that you have have you thought about going with adjustable control arms?

 

You know I just put the three-inch AEV lift on it I have it other than going to the cabin and doing some you know wheel and going to the cabin I haven’t really done anything yet so I know I’m doing a trip here pretty soon up north so I guess we’ll just see how it rides and and you know I’m a firm believer and you know make a modification change your stuff and then wheel it for you know six months to a year and see.

Yeah it’s a good idea because you never know what what that’s got how that’s gonna affect things.

Right you don’t even I don’t even know if these these springs to really the route that I wanted to go you know and at right now I can tell you I do not like them but I’m not gonna change them until I wheel it for you know a bunch of different times with different scenarios and different people and and then I’ll make the decision and you know next year sometime to hey do I change the ride height do I change the stiffness of the spring and you know move on.

Alright John Lee I know you have a JK you’ve done a lot of modifications to your JK where is long arms in its future?

 

Possibly I’m not not ruling it out I think you kind of got to be careful when you do long arms on the longer wheelbase rigs like that because those long arms I saw when Andrew had his LJ out of hidden falls you know they hang pretty low and they kind of either way some of your ground clings there so you’re gonna be dragging them on rocks and so by that so if you’re if you’re trail riding a lot then you really got to ask yourself you know am I gonna be I’m gonna be rolling 40s and you know all kinds of other stuff so I’m actually more interested in trying to later that rear setup to remove the rear track bar but I am a long arm though so I do want to play around with the arms but I don’t know if necessarily the traditional long arm is what I’m looking for but I’m open to it there’s beyond just the the high speed and everything else just the the way it reacts to ledges and everything else there’s some good videos out there showing you the geometry the math behind kind of the advantages but I don’t think that you see those advantages and 90% of the rigs out there because they’re not you know huge tires or not big you like it you have to have a well-built rig before you even look at long arms so like if you’re if you just went out and bought a Wrangler and you know you’re looking at what any of the off-the-shelf lifts are probably gonna be a better start than you’re going straight to that massive money of a long arm I think I don’t think I would count it out though so it may be in my future but not immediate I think I got steering issues, Hemi, all kinds of other stuff to work I just now got the axles on it so

mm-hmm well interesting and yeah I mean it’s always good to have a plan it’s nice to know where the where the long arms are on your plan it doesn’t seem to be a critical critical thing so you don’t see a major advantage of getting them on there so that you can do things that you’re not currently able to do. Alright let’s go to Rick. Rick since you have a TJ I don’t think you have long arms on there now oh you were planning on doing something that Greg suggested I think correct me on that what are you going to do are you going to stick with the short arms or do you have something other than short arms on your TJ?

Yeah currently I’ve got pretty much stock geometry under mine absolutely going to be going to long arms eventually with the double triangulated rear and then a three link in the front but in the interim on the way there Greg had talked about doing using the control arms off of like a JL or even a gladiator and basically making mid arms for TJ and I know I’m thinking I might want to just try that just just I just want to see what it’ll do with with the understanding that eventually I’ll be going to full long arms but just just kind of in on interim and because I like I just like I like doing I like tinkering with stuff like that like I like doing fab work and so that’s that’s kind of kind of what I’m looking at so but eventually yeah I’ll be a full long arm but that’s going to be after I do the TJ to LJ stretch and in stretching oh

yeah you definitely want to do that or you start messing with long arms and stuff yeah that makes sense so what did you think about Andrew’s JL build our LJ build out there at this this year’s Jeep talk show off-road event

oh yeah I like the way it looked I like the way I mean the way it way it looked like it handled and it seemed pretty planted and you know I’m uh you know I think he’s got the Teraflex long arm system on there he’s got the metal cloak that’s right medical I’m sorry

radius arm so yeah it’s not our upper control

okay so yeah he’s got the medical system on there and and and you guys know I’m a Genrite fanboy so I’m probably gonna do the Genrite system owner

well Tony certainly appreciates being a Genrite fanboy I can promise you so Matt has raised his hand here in the the zoom meeting Matt go ahead

so you know there’s a third kind of in between that we actually touched on all that it didn’t come up so they a V kit and there’s several others out there like for Chuck’s gladiator includes what they call geometry correction brackets but what they really are are lower front control arm mounts and there’s there’s there’s rear versions too from like metal cloak but they get you know your your mid arms that you would call it a JLJ T back down to where they would meet the frame a long arm setup and so you get some of the benefits from long arms without the negatives of long arms it’s kind of an in the middle option

mm-hmm yeah I actually went with a control arm drop on my XJ whenever I lifted it up to six and a half inches and those those short front arms were you know not not pointing down but more probably more down than up and dropping the putting that to drop in there made a made a nice difference keeping them a little more level of course I’m on long arms now so it’s not an issue but yeah so there there are things out there that you can put on your your vehicle to help correct the geometry of the the short control arms usually makes the the ride a little better because with the with the the control arms more of an angle when you hit a bump or anything on the road it’s more of a vertical thrust into the the body of the the Jeep whereas if you have a more level control arm it more has more of a float and less of a harsh ride and and beyond just being a comfortable ride it would have a tendency not to wear the parts out as quickly than those those hard jolts that you get

 

all right so is there anybody here that would like to chime in that there’s

 

last hardly at all. Um, and I’ve heard from a few other people that with like, when they got put on larger trucks, they would do that. But I mean, I’m talking 10,000 miles and they’re out.

 

And say it again, cause I think I think I talked over you whenever you said that who it was,

uh, BFG migraines.

Okay. And was it the KMS, KMS, uh, twos or KM threes or?

I want to say it was the KM twos. It’s been interesting. I don’t remember.

I know that the original KMS, I know the original KMS cupped really bad on my XJ, but I think that was the, uh, the shocks that I had on there. Not, not initially the tires. Uh, but, uh, boy, they were a very aggressive looking tire.

 

I think BFG changed something at their compounds because I used to get them and they would last forever and they performed very, very well. And I recently got two sets of their alter aims and where I used to get 80,000 miles out of a set, I’m getting like 50,000 miles out of a set.

 

And it’s not a big weight difference in vehicle. It’s not anything like that. My JK four door out there. I think I’ve got 35, 40,000 miles on those tires and I used to routinely get 80,000 plus.

Right.

 

Yeah. I like getting that kind of mileage out of a tire, especially for how God awful expensive they are.

 

All right. Well, let’s go over to, uh, let’s see who I want to go to. Let’s go to Keith. Keith, uh, what is the, the worst tire? Uh, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be off road, but what is your worst off road tire you have ever owned? You’re never going to go back. Uh, you, if you could do it legally, you’d set the company on fire.

 

I don’t think I’d set the company on fire. Um, let’s see. I had some Mickey Thompson’s I didn’t like. I don’t remember what model they were. And they were two’s I didn’t like. Um, now I’m not blaming the company. They were just not for what I was using them for.

 

All right.

So some people like BFG and Mickey Thompson and you know, more power to them. I’m sure those Mickey Thompson’s stiggy’s for, you know, just for off roading are great. But for what I do, I need something. Yeah. It’s my daily driver. I need something that can do some decent mileage on the road and get rid of the mud and unload real fast.

Yep. So I see John Lee has raised his hand and I kind of started laughing a little bit because I think I know this story, John Lee, uh, off-road tire problems. Uh, what, uh, well, what company have you had problems with?

Well, I mean, I think I have nothing bad to say about the tires out right on the Jeep. I’ve, my toyos did great. I’ve loved the middle so much about a second set. Um, they, uh, the first set did twice as many miles on a FedEx truck as they do it on the Jeep itself, but, um, no, the, the, the off-road tire had the worst. So this is, this might be a little controversial, at least on this, this particular show, but it was a Nexen. So I actually lost a, lost a lot. Now this was on a heavy duty, three quarter ton pickup that they were on there and it was, it was cupping. It was bad performance in the wet. It was just like all around had a lot of issues with it. When I originally thought it was just maybe like you said shocks or whatever. So when I got another truck, the price was hard to beat. I tried to go back to them with a 3500 and had very similar experience from a brand new brand new set. So I think Nexen is the ones, the other ones that I’ll have problems with with a hand cook, Dynapros.

 

Um, they were great on the heavy duty, but they, they didn’t do a very well on, uh, like a half ton truck. Both of those brands, the ones I had to completely stay away from.

 

All right. Uh, Jacob, how about you?

 

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

 

Join the Jeep Talk Show Round Table episode, where we talk directly to you, the listener! We ask a series of Jeep-related questions, and attendees share their thoughts. Expect to go down some fun and interesting rabbit trails along the way! Join us live on Tuesday nights at 7:30 PM CT, or catch the recorded episode every Wednesday. Don’t miss out on the lively discussions and Jeep community camaraderie!

Hi, I’m Tony. I’m your host for tonight’s round table episode. We have four questions to ask you tonight and I’ll be calling on you by name. So have that clicker ready to unmute. And when I say clicker, I mean, it could be your mouse pointer. I mean, it could be your finger if you’re on a phone. I don’t know what you guys are using. Just the thing you use to click the unmute button. So you know who you are. And maybe we should have people check in whenever they’re going to the bathroom because I’ll call on people and they’re not there. Of course, they just could be nervous. You know, you can submit your questions for the round table. Just go to JeepTalkShow.com slash contact to find out how. All right, here we go. Hello, Zoom people.

 

Good evening. Hello. Hello.

Good evening. Hello, hello, hello. How are you doing?

Count Chacula. What up? Count Chacula. One, two, three. I, two, three. Speaking of one, let’s start off with this first question. Oh, I forgot to send Greg a text message to remind him to get on. Somebody send Greg a message. Send Chuck a message too.

Oh, we need Greg on.

Oh yeah.

We really need him on right now.

Oh, I know. I heard.

 

(Laughing)

Door pocket update.

 

All right, so this was the one I was gonna use last week, but we didn’t get to get to it. And of course we’ve got four questions, but who knows if we’ll actually get to the four questions. We do pretty good to get to just two of them, which is not a bad thing. This means that you guys are very interactive and do a lot of talking, which is the fun. That’s the reason why the listeners are here to listen to you guys. All right, so the first question, Toyota has announced no more ICE vehicles. And I’ll remind everybody that’s internal combustion engine, all hybrid electric.

 

And my question, this is a statement. This is my question. If Jeep follows in their footsteps, are you sticking with Jeep? Are you gonna buy a hybrid or an EV in the future if Jeep goes the same direction as Toyota? And what do you think about Toyota doing this? So let’s start with, let me see, Steve-O was complaining I didn’t call on him. Let’s start with Steve-O.

(Steve Laughs)

I don’t know where that came from, but anyway.

It came from the chat earlier.

 

Oh, anyway.

 

So if this is the first I’m hearing about, I guess I’ve had my head in the sand recently, but I wouldn’t be hard pressed to go

 

without a question at this point. I think that might not be a choice, unfortunately.

Yeah.

But then I would start looking shopping around, going out in Arizona, buying some old Jeeps.

Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.

You gotta imagine the price is gonna go through the roof.

 

Well, it certainly should go up. I mean, you’re talking about two drive systems at that point. And I think we already know that the four by ease are kind of pricey now.

So-

 

Well, I mean in the fact that it can, at a combustion engine, trying to find one.

Oh, I missed it. Yeah, of course. Yeah, if you’re going to get a used vehicle with the, without having to do the hybrid thing, you’re right that the prices are gonna go up on that.

 

That would start hoarding us.

So I gotta ask Matt. Matt, what do you think about hybrids? Would you stick with Jeep if the only thing they had to sell was a hybrid?

 

How much of it is the government paying for?

(Steve Laughs)

 

Government and quotations.

Well, it depends on who gets elected this next time because Trump has said he’s gonna do away with the tax credits for electric vehicles.

Yeah, I mean, we wouldn’t have gotten the four by way we have if the $7,500 off didn’t exist.

 

Wasn’t a non four by E cheaper even after the $7,500 credit?

So when we got ours in 21,

 

it was pretty much neck and neck, two liter and a four by E after the $7,500 tax credit were about the same price.

 

And I picked on you on this because I know that you really like your four by E. You really haven’t had any issues where you don’t care for it. I mean, you don’t drive it in straight EV mode very far, but it helps on your gas mileage

and so on and so forth. For very far in straight EV. Exactly.

 

15 miles.

 

You can get 25 if you milk it.

 

Plug in your USB charger.

 

I just can’t steer very well if it’s being milked. Hey Greg, we’re gonna put a stop to the show here. I wanna get you and a door pockets customer together.

 

Oh no. Bill. Well, hold on, hold on like

30 minutes.

 

I’ll listen, but I’m walking into a party store. So you guys can

hear me buy cigarettes. What kind of party store?

 

The one on the corner from my house.

 

(Laughing)

Oh, we can- Is it a other party store?

It can be quick, right? Do you wanna wait or you wanna just let it know now?

Let’s wait.

All right, we’ll wait for you, Greg. You’ll probably need your smokes for this one.

Oh, wait.

 

(Laughing)

I’m so excited. I got the titty box. We started shipping last week and I’ve

had five problems so far, five. Thanks.

 

(Laughing)

 

And I’ll tell you what, trying to put out those fires, because one, I feel bad. And a couple of the issues were 100% due to shipping.

 

We used the wrong tape, so it literally lost hardware facts.

 

All that fun stuff.

Well, that’s part of the fun.

Another guy, he ordered two front sets and we only shipped them one front set. So that’s another, you know, it’s all the little things. Hold on, I’m walking into the store here.

Hey, honey.

How are you doing today?

Good, how are you?

Good. Give me all your money.

 

(Laughing)

Luckily, you’re only in my ear and they can’t hear you. How are you doing?

This will be used in the trial.

 

(Laughing)

 

I don’t know what you’re all giggling about, but it’s not funny.

 

(Laughing)

It is us.

Oh man. Anything else, honey?

That’s it.

 

Go ahead.

Did you get a phone number?

 

No.

Greg, if you’re gonna keep putting up with all these guys, you might as well grab some beer while you’re in there.

(Laughing)

Yeah, I’m not a beer drinker though, so. Thank you so much.

You can start tonight.

 

No, no, thank you.

(Laughing)

 

All right, well, we’re gonna be talking to Greg here in a few minutes, so I’m gonna move over to, Matt, were you done? Were you done with the four by E? I guess you could live with a four by E Jeep in the future, depending on the tax credit, I think, is what I got from you.

Well, I mean, I think that’s the determination on the purchase. I mean, we didn’t really do it just for the fuel mileage or anything, and realistically, out of the 55,000 miles we have on it, probably maybe 10% electric or less.

 

So, I mean, there’s definitely some, we’ve done a lot of long trips and it is not the, it’s not the preferred vehicle for either long trips or towing, it fails on both those fronts, though.

 

Now, I had some really good luck doing a couple of long trips with the JTE.

 

I would put it in E save, which still uses the electric motor, just barely uses it. And as long as I went like below 65 miles an hour, it got amazing range.

 

But you gotta drive like, you know, a fancy at below 65 miles an hour. Mm-hmm, no. Been on the trailer?

 

(Laughing)

No, that was driving it. Like I went from, you know, we did,

 

posted it Vegas to Moab and made it almost clean, almost the entire trip without stopping for fuel once.

I’m helping them to sell them.

 

Well, we were going, I mean, we were going slow.

So, We were going slow. That’s the difference. I mean, it’s going slow. You know, I just, I just drove, and Matt just drove, both of us, just went to the Smoky Mountain Deep invasion and back. And, you know, one tank of gas, I didn’t get there from Charlotte to, you know, three and a half or four and a half hours away. One tank of gas did not make it.

 

You know, it, but I wasn’t driving slow.

There we go, I was just gonna ask.

I was gonna be 75.

Yeah.

 

Well, Travis, you’re a good one to ask because you currently have a four by E. If a hybrid was your only choice for a future Jeep, would you stick with Jeep or would you go with a used Jeep? Or maybe you would look for somebody else, maybe somebody else that was still selling vehicles with internal combustion engines.

 

Well, it’s got an internal, it’s got a nice engine. So I like that, but I’ve got two Jeeps. I’ll never get rid of the old one. It’s back home. I’m gonna always have ice. I like a lot of the features and a lot of, I like a lot about this technology. I like it.

 

I like, you know, a V8. I like, you know,

 

the 392 better.

 

There is a lot of like more, but it was that tax credit. It was that buying purchase point that sold me on it. I’m getting a lot of power for a reduced price. And that was it. I didn’t buy it for a gas saving vehicle. I didn’t buy it for, you know, yeah, it’s convenient. I can go to the grocery store and back and it’s free. I say free, it’s, you know, 20 cents of electric range or electric charge to me. You know, it’s great for short little runs and different things, but the reality of people buying it or the company selling it as a convenient vehicle, it’s truly, it’s not.

 

There’s a lot of pop perks and plositives to it, but for how they market it, I disagree with a lot of points. I was selling them. I realized that and I drove one for two weeks. And then I was like, yup, nope, I’ll do it. I understood what it was. And it’s also a Jeep. I didn’t buy a Jeep for gas saving. I didn’t buy it for the powered Scott, but I was just like, damn it. I can’t turn this down. It’s impressive.

I think Jeep did a good job.

What happens when you have to replace the $15,000 battery?

 

It turns into an ice. Yeah, it turns into an ice. But you know, if that happens before the 10 years or the nine years, it’s got,

 

that’ll be fun. And I hope it goes out before the nine years.

I hope it goes out at eight years and four months so that you get a freebie.

Yeah, correct. You and I both.

Until they go, oh wait, you’ve got bigger tires and you’ve got this. So now your warranty is employed.

And then you just say Magnus and Mossack. I’m not gonna avoid it for that. Then your lawyers.

I know. Yeah, I’ve got my warranty. Well, I’m warranty through Jeep knows I have all this equipment on it. And they’re, yep, it’s covered, it’s good.

 

I think what I would look at it, so if you had to pay, call it 10 grand extra or something a little more than that, I would, I personally would rather have, get a three six and put a blower on it as long as they don’t have the same experience that Roger had.

 

What’s the savings? I mean, what’s the average battery last, 10 years you say? So in 10 years, would you save enough in 10 years on a fuel to buy another battery?

They don’t know if the battery is gonna last 10 years cause they couldn’t test them that long. I look at the Tesla’s and stuff, they’re getting three to five years on a battery and they’ve got a really nice one. So they don’t know.

Five years gonna save you enough.

Yeah, but luckily they offered that warranty, right? So with that 10 year warranty, it’s a win-win. And honestly, if you’re allowed to plug in at work, it’s a win-win because it’s not spinning your electric meter at home.

 

And honestly, the power to rate ratio, the things are amazing to drive, they really are. So I’m not gonna knock them that much, but I’m on pins and needles,

 

throw it back to Bill and figure out what’s wrong.

 

(Laughing)

All right, so we’re gonna switch back to the door pocket woes

 

and Bill was complaining before you got joined in here, Greg. Bill, take it away.

 

No, so first I’ll say like the quality of the door pockets is awesome. Oh, they’re gorgeous. Like better than expected, like the texture, everything, you got it just right. So I was pretty excited. I kind of got the, you know, 730, I opened the box. I’m like, I’m gonna install these when I’m listening to the show. And then I’m missing my hardware and my instructions. So maybe mine was one of those where it slipped out of the box or something and shipping, but anyway.

 

Text me your info.

Yeah.

 

And I will priority overnight use some instructions and some hardware and a big fat apology.

 

No, like I said.

 

So we learned and I have, so now this is six. But we’ve had three with no hardware. We had one box that was opened and delivered empty. Wow. They delivered the box empty.

That was nice of them.

Yeah. Here’s what you didn’t get.

 

Right?

 

So we’re learning, like I’m looking at tape right now, switching from, so right off rip, like today, they were double taping. So they were wrapping it all the way around twice.

 

I’m looking at the, like that cardboard tape that has the– Yeah,

it’s got like the strings and stuff in there.

Yeah, and the downfall with that is

 

that’s gonna cost another 40 cents a box.

 

Wow. To use that tape, because it’s expensive.

I would just take the hit on the five or six that does don’t make it.

 

Is there a happy medium between the extreme super tape and the–

Obviously mine got here just fine.

I don’t, and that’s the problem is I don’t know, right? So I’ve just been basing my experience on the eight dozen packages that show up here in my shop every week. And looking at all of them, like since Monday, I’ve had, I don’t know, 20 boxes show up. And out of those 20 boxes, only one of them didn’t have that cardboard tape. So I think, I mean, even Amazon has their own made with their own label on it, right? And the reason that companies use it is because it works better. So maybe the paying extra for it and the machine is expensive, right? So you buy this little machine and when you pull the tape through, it wets it. So the bottom of it has,

 

you fill it with water and when you pull the tape through, it wets the bottom of it, which activates the glue.

 

But yeah, it works out to be, it was like 35 to 40 cents a box.

 

But if it prevents, we shipped out 170 packages and we know of at least six issues. Well, when I priority overnight hardware, that’s gonna cost me almost more than shipping the box in the first place. So if you do that six out of every hundred boxes,

 

it’s cheaper to buy the 35 cent tape.

Yeah.

So you just got to carry some Greg.

 

I’ve hauled boxes before and I’m sure whatever you got, they didn’t make them for you. There’s a lot of times, like there’s a lot of dust on the boxes, even in between the layers of boxes. Is it possible that you just got some dirty, some dusty boxes? Cause that’ll make the tape not stick. I mean, so maybe it doesn’t make a microfiber cloth and just, after you close the disc, run a microfiber cloth across it.

Well, and the other one I’m thinking of is, when they loaded those on the FedEx truck, right?

 

FedEx truck backed up, opened his door and 60 identical boxes were all hand loaded. And then, when he got to the depot, 60 boxes were unloaded and then sorted and then put in other things and then shipped and then put in other trucks. So there’s a lot of handling. Oh yeah.

And FedEx can be pretty rough too. Some of the stuff I’ve gotten from FedEx has been.

 

So how do you, Roger, do you just back up and hit the loading dock at like 20 miles per hour with the door open? Yeah.

I was really surprised how, I’ll just mention to anybody that’s thinking about getting the door pockets. And what we’re talking about here is, Greg’s been working on these door pockets that are OEM plus quality. They replaced the saggy door nets or hopefully like mine, mine aren’t sagging yet. So I’ll be replacing them before they get saggy.

And for anybody that’s too shy to buy them right off my website, which is unofficiallyuseonly.com, within a week or two, you’ll be able to buy them from Northridge 4×4.

Oh, that’s awesome. Oh yeah.

 

We’re gonna ship out two or three pallets of them to Northridge first of the week.

 

So anyway, their door pockets, front and rear doors, I think you can buy them separately now if you just want the fronts for like a two door.

 

But it replaces the nets and several people here and the team members and listeners have ordered the door pockets and installed them.

 

So everybody’s loving them. I called Greg today when I received, actually yesterday when I received mine. Because you can see pictures of the stuff, but whenever you actually look at it and see the quality of it, it’s like what you were saying, Bill. They’re fantastic. I mean, they are gorgeous. I mean, it looks like somebody made these things with a $140 stamp, $140,000 stamp, which– They did.

They didn’t make it with $140,000 stamp.

Of course, that’s how it was made.

 

Also– I know where your hardware is. Also for new Jeep owners and new listeners,

 

they do work with the 2024 with the electric seats. So it’s the only door pocket

 

or the only net replacement available on the market that works with the 2024 electric seats.

And how much they cost?

 

For a complete set of four is 150 bucks. So half the cost of my competition.

Damn cheap. And I think you said the shipping’s like 20 bucks or something.

 

Yeah, right now we, because we’re learning the website woes, which is not a fun thing for a guy who doesn’t computer.

 

Right now, shipping is a flat 20 bucks anywhere in the country, but we will change that basically. Once we have shipments to every state, we can go in the website and tell it that it’s this much for this state or this much for that state.

 

And you’re only shipping to the 48 states, the mainland of the United States, right? You’re not doing Alaska– No, we’ll actually ship.

 

Yeah, well, no, we’ll ship anywhere, but there is, it’s not 20 bucks if you want it to Alaska or it’s not 20 bucks if you want it to Hawaii. Okay, good.

 

Case in point, we have a couple of customers in Australia, one of who listens to this show, but I still haven’t called him because every time I look, it’s like three in the morning there.

 

But to ship one box to him is $200 a box.

 

Oh my God.

You can use the good tape.

 

Right, yeah. And I definitely want the good tape.

 

And we had a couple orders in China, which we actually refunded their money because when we Google Earth did it, it was a plastics building. So it was a manufacturing facility that ordered them.

 

So we just refunded their money.

 

But yeah, so and we’ve got a guy in Calgary and it was, I think $80 to ship to him.

So– It’s just amazing. I’ve had this situation when people, and I’m just so honored when people, and I’m sure you are too, Greg, when somebody wants to buy your stuff, I mean, they just want a Jeep talk show sticker, England. And I think it was gonna be like 40 bucks to send a sticker. And I said, hey, I’d love for you to have it, get a picture there in the jolly old state of England. Yeah, I say state.

So for those are the people on the show who got them, what did you, did you like the sticker? Because I put some extra effort into that sticker.

 

I didn’t get that either.

 

(Laughing)

It’s a nice sticker.

 

Oh, that’s great.

 

So that– Funny of all you would have got was just the hardware, Bill, that would have been funny.

Like normally, you know, dealing with the aftermarket and dealing with all these things, you know, like I get faces of stickers.

 

And traditionally I was looking at all the different stickers once somebody on the Jeep talk show mentioned that I needed stickers. And that was just a few weeks ago. I looked at the normal stickers and I could make

 

kind of like the stickers we gave away at SEMA. I could make those stickers and they would have cost me about eight cents a piece, which is your standard everyday sticker that everybody gives out. And I didn’t want to do that. I wanted something a little higher class. Now those stickers are UV stable. So they are designed to go on the outside of a vehicle, but you can see they’ve got that resin topping. So it’s kind of like a bubble. And I know Chuck hates them, but it’s a TV stable. It’s supposed to last on the outside of the car for the life of the car. They’re supposed to be really high end. And those things cost me like a buck. I think they were a buck 18 a piece instead of six or seven cents that I would have spent on a normal sticker. So I really want your guys’ feedback because you guys are the ones that told me to put a sticker in the box. So if you dig it, I’ll keep running that sticker. If you don’t dig it, I’ll go to a cheaper version or something different.

 

I like the sticker.

 

Man, I almost seemed to get buck 18 just to get one of the stickers.

I was looking at the door pockets. I mean, I kind of saw the sticker on there and I did notice that it wasn’t just a standard die cut sticker,

 

but yeah. I mean, either one would have been fine. I just wanted something with the logo on it. Fortunately, Bill had sent me one to go on the board behind me that you guys can’t see tonight. All right, well, let’s get off of this for right now. I’d like to welcome Gina. I think it’s Gina’s first time here.

 

And as always, they’re probably the last time, but we appreciate you being here this time, Gina.

(Laughs)

Not yet, not as scared me yet.

 

(Laughs)

So. Yes, you wait.

So, as I was asking everybody, the Toyota has announced no more ICE vehicles, all hybrid electric. If Jeep goes to all hybrid electric vehicles, are you done with Jeeps, buying Jeeps in the future?

 

Help me? Yes. Uh, I don’t, probably.

How do you, what do you think about EVs? I mean, do you mind the EVs? You think they’re a good idea?

I have no experience with any of them. Of course, you know, for the environment and stuff, I can see the pros and cons of it, or the pros of it, but I myself, I never even considered

 

doing the electric vehicles. My dad was a mechanic, so I always grew up being able to work on my own. So the internal combustion was one thing that I just, I know it, so I’m gonna stick with whatever I want, or whatever I know I can work on if I get broke down in the middle of nowhere, and then I can fix it and still get home.

Mm-hmm.

 

Very good. Again, welcome to us here. We hope we see you here every week.

Tony asked me. Tony asked me.

 

(Both Laughing)

 

So I get this feeling, Greg. I’m like Travis. Greg would like to answer the question about the Toyota, no more ICE vehicles.

 

Yeah, so there’s one, I was pretty certain that Toyota was working on a hydrogen platform, but maybe not. So I know a lot of the other companies are working on a hydrogen platform, which is still an ICE vehicle, but if Jeep went pure electric or pure hybrid,

 

I apologize profusely. I would just keep buying. I love Jeep. I love the brand. I love everything about it, but I would just buy old used ones. Yeah. I don’t want an electric one for two reasons.

 

One, if I needed to drive across the country, I don’t, I’m always in a hurry. You know, I’m a small business owner and I’m always in a hurry. So I can’t stop, you know, like I’m going from here to Moab, I can’t stop and wait six hours for my battery to charge or three hours or two hours or whatever.

I’ll drive 60 miles an hour to get there on a tank of gas and go take twice as long.

Right, I don’t want to take twice as long. I want to break every law. I want to do 85 to 90 across the interstate. And I want to fill up in four minutes. I don’t want to plug in and wait for two hours for it to charge. So that’s step one. Step two, when I built the JTE for Quadratec and we took that death battery out of the four by E

 

and we affectionately nicknamed it the death battery because we had to orden off 10 feet around the vehicle when we disconnected the battery because it can discharge that range. So if somebody was within 10 feet, it could kill them with the discharge because it’s a hundred percent discharge in less than a minute when it’s not plugged in.

 

And that’s a lot of amps running through your body. So that’s the second one. And the third one is, and I hate to say it because Gina just said it, but if you do any research, you will see that the manufacturing process for the current batteries is so much worse

 

on the environment than a gas engine.

 

The manufacturing process for those batteries,

 

I think you could drive 60 or 70,000 miles in your car before you’re even close to net zero.

 

So they really are worse for the environment than your average commuter car.

Yeah, smoke and mirrors.

 

Yeah, it’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. And that’s the hard part is you have to look to find that information.

 

The lithium ion mines are just absolutely destructive and disgusting and they’re using so much diesel and then the manufacturing process is even worse. So look at Chuck, right? Chuck keeps walking around and making noise. If you look in his garage, he’s got the CJ6, he’s got a couple old Jeeps. Those things are so much greener than any modern car because they’re still driving. They’re still on the road. They’re still in service 15, 16, 70 years later. Once you put all the computers in them– Not the scrambler.

Not the scrambler.

Well, yeah, not currently.

 

(Laughing)

But once you put all the computers in them, the lifespan of the vehicle is so much shorter, right? People are kind of used to buying a vehicle in two or three or four years later, they get another one.

 

Where old cars, if you maintain them, stay alive for a really long time.

 

And you’re not mining the metal, you’re not mining all the other stuff to make a new car. That one’s already been there. So the longer it

lasts, the cleaner it is.

 

Yeah, the longer it lasts, the cleaner it is. I mean, on this show, I got rid of my 1936 Studebaker that was still running and driving after almost 100 years. So,

 

I mean, that’s a very long answer, but it touches each individual point. I love Jeep and I will not stop owning and loving Jeeps until the day I die, but I would not buy an electric Jeep. I just wouldn’t do it.

Well, I guess also too, there’s always a possibility of dropping in a nice engine in a hybrid electric vehicle. I mean, you can always get a crate engine and do it the way you want to do it, as long as the government allows us to do those things, which I know that this part of what SEMA is trying to call attention to is the ability for us to work on our vehicles.

Yeah, did you watch the video?

I did not see it. Chris, he said something about it today, but I was busy working on stuff, but I didn’t know it was out.

Yeah, so I filmed a video for SEMA and it talks about the Biden-Harris EV mandate.

 

I mean, people need to actually download the EV mandate and read the entire thing so that they understand versus just watching a one minute video. But no, the video has been posted for a couple of days. I posted it on my own personal wall on Facebook

 

and Driving Force on Facebook actually posted it. That’s SEMA’s thing.

 

But just like normal things, Zuckerberg is already limiting the reach of these videos.

 

So they’re doing paid sponsorship. They’re sending it all over Michigan. It’s even on the radio stations, but on Facebook, they’re already limiting the reach. So I shared it. Normally when I share something,

 

I get a lot of views because I get a lot of people to follow my stuff and nobody’s seen it. There’s only been like four or five comments on the video in two days. So yeah, it’s a pretty good video. I dig it, but I actually did the research. When they asked me to do it and they told me they wanted me to talk about the EV mandate,

 

I gave them a hesitant, I need to look into it. And I did, I read that entire EV mandate and it took me hours because it’s a lot of pages.

 

And it’s pretty disgusting. Like they really wanna force the EV mandate

 

and they wanna completely ban the auto manufacturers from making stuff, but also hidden inside that EV mandate are things that really affect my business. And hidden inside of it, it says that as of a certain year, you’re not allowed to make aftermarket modifications to your personal vehicle, even if you own it outright. They’re trying to make it illegal for us to modify our vehicles.

 

Well, I’m gonna look for that video. I’m just kind of scanning your Facebook page right now.

Yeah, it’s like almost the last thing I posted on Facebook. You have to go to my personal Greg Henderson one and

you should be able to find it. I was on a future use only. All right.

Now I say that I’m the owner of unofficial use only, but I have not shared it to unofficial use only yet because I’m honestly hesitant for the blowback. Oh yeah.

 

I’m hesitant for the people that, because I don’t say vote for Trump. I don’t say any of that. I say vote against the EV mandate.

 

As if you actually read it, you know why I would wanna vote against it. Oh yeah. But I’m hesitant to post it on unofficial use only because there are already people saying, you’re gonna hurt your business by doing this. And on one regard, I don’t really care, but on the other regard, I do a little bit. This is my business and my livelihood.

You gotta be a smart businessman. We all can’t live like Chuck does. Speaking of Chuck, Chuck, I don’t see you, I mean, it took you this long to get a new Jeep. If they go hybrid electric, are you gonna stop buying Jeeps in the future?

Yeah.

 

Yeah, anytime a government tells you that you have to do something, it’s not for your best interest. It’s for the government’s best interest. So I’m good not doing what they tell me to. That’s me.

 

Yeah, I mean, I think that the battery power thing, probably the future, right? I mean,

 

more than likely that’s what’s gonna happen in due time and I’m not against that. I love innovation. I love outside of the box thinking.

 

I mean, look at what Elon’s doing with space travel. I absolutely love it. But when it’s shoved down your throat, there’s a hidden agenda. I used to work for the government. So we used to do shit that you find out, like, yeah, that’s not for the betterment of the country. It’s a betterment of a politician, right? Yeah, that’s sad. I don’t do it. And to caveat off of what Greg was saying,

 

we buy new trucks every two years and all the diesels, they have diesel exhaust fluid, right? Which is a smog deal. Boy, they only run 70,000 miles before you have to do a complete death clean out, which is six, seven, $8,000 here.

 

Well, what are they doing? They’re just getting more money. Because you pay more money, you gotta have more taxes.

 

And it’s the same thing with this whole EV thing.

 

They’re just doing it to get more taxes. You’re just gonna have to buy more batteries, just like with the diesel. The government, the EPA has really screwed everything up and made it really hard for us to run them. I got old, my seven three, it’s a 1996 seven three, runs top notch,

 

way better than my 2023.

Chuck,

 

I’ve got a question. Because you do a lot of trucks. And I have very limited experience, but I used to get to drive a truck and it was a,

 

was it a 2006 Dodge Ram mega cab with the 32 valve coming.

 

And it was a stick shift. And that truck going to Boeing, Boeing two Jeeps got like 23 miles to the gallon.

 

Last year I went and I rented a brand new 2023 Dodge Ram to tow to Moab. And I got nine miles to the gallon.

 

And I had to put Def in it. You know, do most of the old trucks get way better fuel mileage than the new ones too, in your experience?

 

Yeah, because they’re tuned for power, right? Optimum power.

 

And optimum power means that you’re gonna burn all of the fuel that’s going through it, right? Because if you don’t have optimum power, that’s unused fuel and that’s just unused,

 

there’s a lot of oil things that go through the diesels.

 

And they just don’t run as nice. Once they started computerizing them, and really when the death system happened, like my Peter built a 2007, and that’s the last year of a non-def semi truck. And I run circles around everybody else and I use half the fuel now, Roger’s gonna be on here and he’s got a very beautiful

 

2010, 2011.

 

And you know, he’s got more horsepower than I do.

 

The older stuff just was engineered to run because fuel just that your fuel consumption is your big deal. So I’ve got three, 23s, maybe a 22 and a 24 in there. And I run anywhere between four and nine miles per gallon. And I’m running death.

 

And my 2018, we just did some work to it where the death system is no longer needed. We did not do a delete for any of the EPA guys that are listening.

 

And it’s running way cleaner, it runs faster, less fuel. You know, just everything about it is so much better than my big red truck. I mean, I don’t know how many, you know, Jeep trips I’ve done with you guys where, you know, I show up in my 23 and it’s a great, big, beautiful red truck, but it gets four miles to the gallon and it’s gutless. Well, it goes into the shop here in two weeks. And we’re also gonna, you know, potentially make it where it doesn’t run that kind of crap, which is highly illegal.

So Chuck, I understand what you’re saying here, but we don’t like logic and facts and results. We need everything done through emotion.

 

Well, how about this? Buy round headlights and drink Coors. Fuck yeah.

 

(Laughing)

Hey Chuck, thank you very much for solidifying that for us.

 

I mean, you have a lot more experience in that realm than I do. That’s why I asked you the question because my limited experience taught me one thing, but I wanted the clarification and thank you for the explanation. That was very nice of you.

I mean, ultimately, I really believe Greg, you know, you and I chat often and Tony and I do too. Ultimately, I think, you know, battery power is going to be the future, but let it naturally progress, right?

Yeah. Because right now the technology essentially is in the dark ages for the batteries. I mean, with Elon or some of those other guys make some changes and I’m sure in a few years, we’re going to have amazing batteries, but right now they suck.

Well, the infrastructure, right? They just, it blows.

Well, and I’ve said this before, what we need is something that generates power. Kind of like when you burn gasoline, you’re not charging your vehicle with gasoline, you’re filling it up with a fluid that can be burned. So we need something along the same lines, but it creates electricity or through its process, it creates electricity and hopefully it does something that gives us a lot more range. Hell, I’d like to have a gladiator that was like a nuclear aircraft carrier where you just refill it every five to 20 years.

Mr. Fusion.

That’s right.

 

Did you see the video where like in Indonesia or someplace like that, they actually have battery charging stations for their Vespas or their little battery powered scooters where you roll up to the side, you put your old batteries in there, you put some pin number, you pay for it, you grab new batteries, stick it in your deal and keep going.

Oh, that’s a good way. It’s awesome.

Hard to do. So they’re doing that. There was a car in Japan, they’re doing that that’s hydrogen fuel cell. So you go up, you put your old fuel cell in, you take the new one out and you put it in the car and within a minute you’re back on the road and those things have like 400 miles of range on a hydrogen fuel cell. That’s about this big by about this big.

And they have something overseas where they actually,

 

the chassis was the battery. Do you literally just took the body off and put it on another chassis?

 

I don’t know what you’re talking about. That sounds stupid, Roger.

No, it was something that I saw on the top gear.

 

All right, we’ll think about that. We’ll do a little research on that while we go to John Lee. John Lee, what do you think? Hybrid electric for Rajeep? Is that, are you gonna try to keep yours for the rest of your life or maybe buy a new one in the future that’s hybrid electric?

 

No, I’ll probably keep mine.

 

I think the, I think the commuter side of the electric vehicles is actually probably a little better. And I would probably be a lot more open to that, especially for my daily commuting back and forth to work and stuff like that. But I’ll keep my Jeep for the long, long trips and when off-roading and just kind of keep it alive, I guess.

I guess you have to if you don’t wanna go with the new stuff. And at some point I kinda get the feeling that we’re old fogies. I’m not getting rid of my horse. My horse can get me home without me even telling it where to go, because she knows how to get there.

 

And I’m not against technology. I’m like Chuck and Greg. I think new technology is wonderful. But you can’t just say let’s do it. It has to be ready. I mean, I’ve made the analogy before about cell phones. Cell phones were great. They were dumb. You made phone calls on it. You might have texted on them. And then the smartphones came out. And nobody has a dumb phone anymore because the technology is just so wonderful. So that’s what we need to do with the automobiles is they need to come out with something that is just so wonderful that just doesn’t make any sense to stick with what we’re doing now.

All right, let’s– I’ll bet you within five years the batteries will have good technology. Just today they suck.

Yeah, well, and they’re a lot better than when I was a kid and even just 20 years ago. So there has been a lot of technological increases in the time, but it’s just like you say, it’s not time for it yet. All right, so let’s see. I went to Rich last year, last year, last week, it seems like last year, and he didn’t unmute. Let’s see if he’s gonna unmute this time. Rich, what do you think about hybrid electric? Is that XJ gonna be running for the next 20 years?

 

Hybrid electric, no, but I’ve considered doing an electric swap on it. If they can get the battery technology out there, I think it would be pretty cool.

Oh, it’d be a great off-road rig, wouldn’t it?

Yeah, as far as like everyday use,

 

I’m actually probably in a good spot for like a four by E, because my commute is a little under 30 miles

 

and we got a charging station right behind our shop there.

So I could

theoretically run it mostly on electric,

 

but other than that though, it’s not there yet. It’ll get there, but I’m more leaning towards the hydrogen side of things.

 

I’m more curious on where that’s gonna go.

Mm-hmm, so the people that are listening, I know that you’re, and I’m surprised Steve-O hasn’t said anything about it yet. We have dueling, and actually not even dueling, we’ve got a Quadrifonic Grasshopper Fest here. Greg has one, Chuck has one. I heard one at your place there, Rich. And I think there was one more person. Maybe it was just those three. But yeah, so if you’re hearing crickets, it’s not me playing a trick on you. The crickets at these locations were these gentlemen that have joined us tonight.

 

All right, was there anybody else that wanted to jump in on this question before we moved along?

 

Hey, this is Glenn from Louisiana. I got a couple questions. So the 4XC does not regenerate the battery? You have to plug it in when you get back home?

Yeah, it does not regenerate. Well, if you lived in the mountains and you were going downhill all day long, it does regenerate.

 

But for normal use, no, it doesn’t. The ice engine powers the vehicle just like the electric one does. So it doesn’t regenerate enough to keep it charged.

 

It does reserve about, it’s less than 1%. It’s got about 10% left in it. You can definitely juice it out, but it’s still kind of something similar to your stop-go on steroids. So it is region breaking every time you break anyways. The primary breaking system is that.

 

So you can maintain, like if you, you don’t put an e-save where it’s actually using as a generator,

 

your breaking system will bring you to a stop, shut it off, and then you’ll start out and go,

 

you have 200 yards and electric if you’re in a straight hybrid mode. So it does it to a point, but it’s not, if you have an e-save charge for long enough, you can charge the battery, but you’re talking hundreds of miles.

 

Okay, I’m both curious. I’m curious because I hate to admit it. I used to own a Prius.

 

That was a long time ago. That’s a long time ago. Like a true soldier, saving money.

 

Yeah, I used to drive 110 miles to one way to work every day. So I had to do some– 100% yeah.

 

But I will say I did lower the car, put bigger tires and other sway bars on it because I’m a racer at heart. But anyway, it’s a regenerative system, right? So when you slow down and while you’re slowing down, it would regenerate the battery and you could watch the battery go up and down. And that was all fine and dandy until that battery gave out on me and cost me $2,500 and left me on the side of the road.

Yeah.

 

Right. And then a couple of years later, I went through a second battery for another $1,800, $1,900.

 

And I was like, I saw somebody with a Prius at the fuel station. I said, get rid of it. Everything you’re saving right now in fuel economy, put all that money into another account, you’re gonna have to buy a battery.

No. No, they’re not cheap. Well, and so I drove a four by E through the pass. So through the Rockies.

 

And when I made it to the Eisenhower tunnel, so I went all the way up the hill from Grand Junction to the Eisenhower tunnel in E save. And when I got to the top, the battery was already, I think it was at like 7%.

 

And then I engaged the charge function and I went all the way downhill to Denver, only having to use the gas pedal, I think like three times.

 

And when I got all the way down to Denver, I had recharged the battery 19%.

 

So there’s not enough regenerative or regeneration to fully charge your battery.

 

Now you say that, and just me this past weekend, going over 441 from Bryson City Cherokee over to Smoky Mountain or to Pigeon Forge to the event. I left my house full charge, or my parents’ house full charge of battery. I get to Cherokee and all of a sudden Cherokee is 20 minutes away and I’m going slow. Again, this is 35 miles an hour, 45 miles an hour over the mountain.

 

I get there, I’m at zero charge. I go up the mountain in hybrid and then I come down the mountain. When I get down the mountain and I’m in Gatlinburg,

 

I had over 60% of battery from coming down the mountain. And on the way back, again, I did it and I had on my round trip, a little over 100 miles, over half of it was electrical only going downhill. I mean, no gas was used. It was, I mean, zero charge, it’s rebuilding and I’m driving down the mountain for free.

 

That’s the only time that ever happens. My daily commute, I’ll drive to work. I get 15 miles of electric range because I’m highway and back roads both.

 

And then I drive home, if I’m sitting in traffic, I may have two miles with that zero charge just from breaking and everything. I’m like, hey, I got home, I’m two miles of electric range. There are variations and do we- Yeah, there’s variations. Never push the save on.

Wait, how long does it take?

 

The biggest deal here, Greg is, Travis, you live with your parents?

No, my parents live in the mountains and I went to visit them this past weekend.

All right, just making sure, bro. Cause I thought, dude, if we need to go go fund me page for you, like we would do that.

Hey, I’ve got it. So the other one with the E save or not the E save, but the electric, because I was fortunate enough to play with one for a little bit. The one thing that bummed me out the most is the charger that they send with the car. When you buy the four by E, you get the normal wall plug. And if you drain that battery to zero, just for somebody out there who’s thinking of buying a four by E,

 

make sure you upgrade your charger because the charger that comes with the car, if you plug it in, it takes about 14 hours to go from zero to a hundred percent. So that means when you get home from work, you better plug it in so that in the morning you have a full charge again.

I got it. There’s also other unexpected expense of an electric vehicle is the cost of having a hundred amp service for a good charger installed in your home.

Yeah, if you’re not an electrician then you can do it for a hundred bucks. You’re paying three grand for an electrician to come out and do it for you.

 

When you go from the ice engine over to the electric and you’re going full electric, what do you call the gas pedal?

 

It’s still the gas pedal because if you put it all the way to the floor, the ice engine still fires up.

It’s a volume controller. It’s a volume controller.

 

It’s an accelerator pedal.

 

I want to know what all this electric talk is coming from.

I don’t have a gas pedal in any of our trucks.

It’s because not everybody has a Hemi like you Keith.

 

No, he wanted to drop that, didn’t he?

Go into bigger engines.

 

I was curious because it’s obviously not that big of a thing to, well obviously you don’t buy a Jeep or fuel economy.

 

So I didn’t know if it was like how that compared to like the diesel Jeep and fuel economy. But the other thing was you talked about the tax credit. One of the guys I work with over here, he bought a Tesla and this past year he had to pay like $2,000 to $3,500 in road taxes because he doesn’t buy fuel anymore.

What state are you in? They’re going to start doing that in all the states.

Glenn, what state are you in?

 

Louisiana. Louisiana, California just passed that deal because they pushed EV so hard. And then all Mr. Newsome just fucked everybody and said, “Oh yeah, we’re not getting fuel tax. So now you get a road tax.”

 

Yeah. Yeah.

 

How many- When he told me that I was like, damn.

 

How many tons of these used battery? I mean, because what I understand is you can’t recycle this crap.

So how many- No, they can recycle them. There’s a couple of new recycling facilities that have popped up and they can recycle them. It’s like 98% of the battery is recyclable. Okay. But it costs more than the cost of the battery to recycle it.

Yeah, shipping them to Indonesia and letting kids bury them is not recycling them, Greg.

No, there’s actually a US company that is building two giant recycling facilities and they did figure it out, but it’s so expensive. They’re just banking on the fact that the government’s going to start forcing you to recycle them, which is going to be another charge.

 

You can look at that. Wow.

There’s a lot of tons.

 

There’s the damage.

 

And the pollution of waste from the brakes and tires from the added weight, they use like 10 times more brakes and tires.

 

Well, the four by E is 800 pounds heavier than an identically equipped Rubicon. So if you take a four by E Rubicon and a regular Rubicon parked next to each other, the four by E is 800 pounds heavier. The battery is 400 pounds and then the motor and all the cooling system is the other 400. So it’s 800 pounds heavier, but it’s really down low. So it’s a…

 

Here’s something else to think about too, is that with all these heavier vehicles, I saw they were doing tests on the crash barriers on the interstates now. Oh yeah. These vehicles are just rolling through that stuff. So now you’re going to have the extra cost of upgrading all the crash safety barriers along the interstate. So where’s that money going to come from?

And the tires were faster as well because of the weight. Yeah.

Well,

 

that’s why Camilla wants to take your…

 

What the hell is it? What did they say?

 

Yeah, I screwed that one up because now I can’t even say it. Unrealized.

It’s your story, Greg.

Yeah, unrealized capital gains. Yep.

Oh God.

 

They want to tax unrealized capital gains.

Yeah, they want to tax you money you don’t have.

If your property value goes up from a hundred grand to 200 grand, even though you don’t sell it, they’re going to tax you 28% on the new value of your house. This is California. This is exactly why I left. No, she’s trying to push it. She’s trying to push it nationwide.

No, he’s saying things.

They already do it. This is the same shit that they did. Mom and dad bought their house.

Did you just say they already passed it nationwide?

 

No. Oh. No.

But it’s all assets, not just your home. It’s anything you own.

Stock included.

Yeah. Yeah. Anything. Even to…

 

So basically if you finish up your scrambler and you make it, you know, right now it’s worth 500 bucks. If you finish it and it’s now worth 20 grand, you have to pay…

 

Yeah, but once you finish it and it’s worth, you know, 30 grand, you’re going to have to pay tax on it because it went up in value while it was in your possession.

You don’t ever say that the scrambler’s only worth $500, Greg. That thing has got a nice winch on it.

 

All right, 675.

 

All right, well, the Zoom meeting continues on even after we stop recording. You should be here to enjoy it, not only during the recording of the show, not even after the recording of the show, but before the recording of the show because we start at the Zoom meeting about 7.30 p.m. Central time. You can get in here and introduce yourself or maybe get a conversation going. And then I will very rudely interrupt you at 8 p.m. Central time to record the show.

 

See, I think it was last week. There were two people left in the Zoom room when I walked through the office here, the studio, and it was one o’clock in the morning. And I think it was Bob and Mike. We’re still talking. One o’clock in the morning. There’s nothing wrong with that. You can stick, hang around the Zoom meeting as long as you like.

 

All right, so coming up on our next Jeep Talk Show interview show, Robbie Bryant of Overlanding, or not Overlanding, Overland of America.com. This is a big, big event happening September 13th through 15th in Jay, Oklahoma. It’s a great centrally located place in the United States. This is something, this is the first one that Robbie’s doing here at Jay, Oklahoma. And it just sounds huge. You’ll have to listen to this interview just to get a feel for what I’m talking about. And this isn’t Robbie’s first rodeo. This isn’t a rodeo, but you know what I’m saying.

 

And so he’s been involved in the industry for many, many years, and now he’s doing an event. So I think, I’m a believer, I think it’s gonna be a really good event, and I think it’s gonna be a great event straight out of the gate the very first time.

 

And that brings us to the end of this exhilarating Jeep Talk Show Round Table episode. I wanna express my deepest gratitude to our incredible panel of Jeep enthusiasts for sharing their valuable insights and experiences and expertise with us today. Your passion for Jeeps is truly inspiring, and we’re grateful for your contributions.

 

So until next time, keep those Jeeps running strong, hit those trails with confidence, and remember, it’s not just a vehicle, it’s a way of life. This has been Tony hosting the Jeep Talk Show Round Table episode, and we’ll catch ya on the next ride.

 

Broadcasting since 2010.

 

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