If you were in Jeep Management, what changes would you make to the Gladiator?

[Jrgunn5150]

J.R., I appreciate your insight. I'm a senior manager in aerospace which I'm assuming is very different from the higher volume auto industry.

Given your history and knowledge base with the Jeep brand and operations, "what changes would you make to the Gladiator?"

That's a great question, that I can answer freely. Very insightful of you

If I ran the show, I would consider two options.

Option 1

• Move the JT to the Rampage platform and badge engineer it. Rampage/Gladiator. I.E. Chevy/GMC. Have a Maverick/Santa Cruz competitor in the sub 30k space with the full range of ICE, BEV, and EREV choices available.
• 
  
• Move the Wrangler into the halo vehicle space, keep it low volume, high pricing, Rubicons, Hurricanes, etc.

Option 2

• Move the Wrangler, Gladiator, and Dakota onto the same platform, again, badge engineering and having flexibility on powertrains and options, can let the Ram be budget, let the Jeep be more "premium"

Either way, you can move units, and the school of thought is shifting away from trying to make a ton on each unit, and more to trying to move more units, like the Chinese do.

Currently, they're locked into a bunch of contracts and prices and volumes, but the next gen isn't set in stone yet.

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[Sweetums]

5cyl engines are much harder to balance in all three axis due to the uneven number of cylinders, depending on firing order, an inline 4 is balanced because you always have the outer two pistons hitting top dead center the same time the bottom two are hitting bottom dead center. Depending on your firing order, you can get some rocking vibration, but that's fixed with a crank change and firing order - make #1 and #4 fire at the same time and #2 and #3 fire at the same time - essentially turning a 4 cyl into a twin for power delivery but with the balance of an I4. This is basically what Ducati did when they were forced to give up the 90 degree twin configuration for MotoGP, they made a 4 cyl that fired like a big twin.

The balance of an inline 4 is why they are the engine of choice for sport bikes with very high redlines. Weight is a major issue on a motorcycle, so eliminating counterbalance shafts reduces the overall weight of the bike; keeping the engine balanced allows you to hit 12,000 or even 17,000 RPM redlines without damaging the engine.

 

[Sweetums]

That's a great question, that I can answer freely. Very insightful of you

If I ran the show, I would consider two options.

Option 1

• Move the JT to the Rampage platform and badge engineer it. Rampage/Gladiator. I.E. Chevy/GMC. Have a Maverick/Santa Cruz competitor in the sub 30k space with the full range of ICE, BEV, and EREV choices available.
• 
  
• Move the Wrangler into the halo vehicle space, keep it low volume, high pricing, Rubicons, Hurricanes, etc.

Option 2

• Move the Wrangler, Gladiator, and Dakota onto the same platform, again, badge engineering and having flexibility on powertrains and options, can let the Ram be budget, let the Jeep be more "premium"

Either way, you can move units, and the school of thought is shifting away from trying to make a ton on each unit, and more to trying to move more units, like the Chinese do.

Currently, they're locked into a bunch of contracts and prices and volumes, but the next gen isn't set in stone yet.

Jeep tried Option 1 and it's not working. The Wrangler is a live-axle vehicle that doesn't have the refinement people want for that price. The margins are great, but we are seeing the blowback from that mentality, especially with more pressure coming from Toyota with the 4Runner and Land Cruiser Prado 250 platform and Ford with the Bronco. The days of the $60,000 decently-equipped Wrangler are at an end. There may still be room for those at the top of the market when you throw the entire catalog of options at a new purchase, but Jeep is losing touch with their roots of being the Everyman Offroader. The Gladiator and Wrangler should be accessible to a guy working a blue collar construction job or in a factory, not just the wealthy.

 

[darkhorse13]

10 pages and 139 posts later I'll continue to bring sand to this beach...

1) more powerful engine, i prefer V8 if you're asking
2) realistic price tag with said V8

 

[Jrgunn5150]

Jeep tried Option 1 and it's not working.

I'll set a reminder to check back with you in 24 months.

 

[Sweetums]

I'll set a reminder to check back with you in 24 months.

We don't need to wait, we can see the results now with Jeeps and Rams piling up on the lots, the dealers are in open revolt, and the automotive press has been publishing about Jeep's poor sales and inflated prices for months.

 

[Jrgunn5150]

We don't need to wait, we can see the results now with Jeeps and Rams piling up on the lots, the dealers are in open revolt, and the automotive press has been publishing about Jeep's poor sales and inflated prices for months.

What does the poor sales of the current model have to do with what they'll do to fix it with the next model?

 

[montechie]

Flip down bed sides option, like a Kei truck has.

Oh man, a factory Aussie style flatbed on a factory JTR would have my money and be very unique in the market. Flip down sides, underbed storage boxes and sometimes a better departure angle. Way wider bed platform too.

 

[montechie]

Bring back carburetors and points ignitions. Gimme pushrods and rocker arms. Get out and manually lock those hubs. 4-spd manuals. Mechanical clutch. No backsets. Two doors. Manual window cranks. No AC, no radio. Tachometer only...do the fucking math if you wanna know your speed. No gas gauge, you gotta dip your finger into the tank that's actually where the backseat woulda been. Speaking of seats, fuck that, we get one seat - driver's. Manual steering, hydraulics are for pussies. Four wheel drum brakes. And bluetooth.

I mean Ford brought back a pushrod design for the 7.3 and the new 6.8 in their Superduty, never know, it could happen

 

[montechie]

I like most of the pie in the sky and realistic ideas here.

The minimal items that would get me to buy a new/2nd JT would be a diesel with select trac and a DEF system at least as reliable as the Duramax system. A more proactive Stellantis on reliability issues in general. People like to poke at Toyota's new engine foibles, but they've been hopping on fixes/recalls without getting sued first.

My pie-in-the-sky would be a payload package like Ford used to do on the F150, or Toyota had on the Taco in the 90s. A JT with somewhere north of 1700lbs would be fine and still fit where I like to drive, basically a FJ Troopy truck. 2nd to that a new J10 with real payload would also probably make it into my driveway.

 

[grein46087]

But what would Mojave owners do if their tow hooks don't contrast the body color???

Well I suppose we would look to paint them Mojave orange

 

[Sweetums]

What does the poor sales of the current model have to do with what they'll do to fix it with the next model?

I was talking about the pricing and aiming the Wrangler and Gladiator at the "halo car" level of the market. They have the Grand Wagoneer for that price point. Inflating the price of the Wrangler and Gladiator resulted in high profits per vehicle at a time of scarcity (COVID) but was not sustainable when supply returned to normal.

 

[sunrise089]

I was talking about the pricing and aiming the Wrangler and Gladiator at the "halo car" level of the market. They have the Grand Wagoneer for that price point. Inflating the price of the Wrangler and Gladiator resulted in high profits per vehicle at a time of scarcity (COVID) but was not sustainable when supply returned to normal.

I don't understand the halo idea at all. The Wrangler moves 150k-200k units. It's sold by Stellantis, which fights Kia and Mitsubishi for it's place in the vehicle brand equity hierarchy. The idea that it can suddenly be priced next to a Range Rover and a G-Class and sell in anything like sufficient volumes to be self-sustaining is lunacy. It's barely working, if working at all, for Wagoneer, and that benefits from tons of parts sharing with the 1500. The luxury off-roader segment requires either outside corporate sponsorship (Land Rover), internal corporate sponsorship (Mercedes and Lexus, at miniscule volumes), or an immediate race to shift volume to the next segment down (Porsche).

20 years ago there was a private jet company called Eclipse. Their idea was to sell a $750k jet, and they had all these orders lined up. They didn't really have a plan to hit their price target though, and so inevitably the price kept rising. To their shock and amazement many customers that were in for the $750k jet were out for the $1.5M jet. Unfortunately their cost projections were based on the higher volume, so now they had to raise prices again. Ultimately they ended up with a $3M jet with zero customers, because the jets that targeted that price were far superior.

I recount this story because Jaguar is trying to do the same thing in the car space, but voluntarily. Unable to sell product at $75k, they plan to aim for a $150-$300k(!!) price point. Left unsaid is exactly why customers that were choosing Mercedes and Porsches over them, will now be picking them instead of Ferraris and Lamborghinis. The reason Ferrari can sell $300k vehicles is because they make the best cars in the world. The reason Lamborghini can is because they make the second-best cars in the world and at enough of a discount relative to the Ferreri to fund a rather excellent mistress. If you try to sell the fourth-best car in the world at $300k, much less the 20th-best, it doesn't matter what your current brand name is, because you new name is "corporate takeover victim."

Jeep, don't be Jaguar in this story.

 

[sunrise089]

Just skimmed the first page. Some of these ideas are vanishingly unlikely (5.7l + manual), impossible (diesel returns), or are in "two potential buyers actually care" category (power steering pump).

If my goal is to move product and make money I'd do, in order:

1) Lower pricing, enough with the 20% off blue-light specials. It's fine to price-segment your market a little bit, but things have become ridiculous.

2) Stop withholding content currently sitting on the factory floor and restricting it to Wrangler. Unless it physically cannot fit/work (2.0 engine I'm told) it needs to be available across the models. Under this principle announce a 4xe on-sale date day 1. Add the extreme recon package. Add the gear ratios. Quit removing the half door option, the dozen of us who care really care. It's ridiculous that these revenue-generating options are somehow not available already.

3) Ford seems to have reached a decent equilibrium on Lightning sales. The design of "just hang some cells between the frame rails" ended up being way quicker and way cheaper to implement than the dedicated truck EV platforms. Quit teasing small, expensive, far-away EVs and offer an EV in the current platform.

4) Agree on unbundling options. It was clever in 2021 during shortages. Enough.

5) Stop having a production line which is a top-20 combined seller restricted to eight colors, five of them shades of gray. It doesn't drive sales that by the time someone sees a color order banks are closed and the next availability date is two presidential administrations away.

6) 35" tire option. It took a while but 35s have gone somewhat mainstream as upgrade choices. Having an extended-warranty compatible life + tire combo would be nice for high mileage drivers like myself.

 

[Jeeper44mag]

I was in Jeep management, and I can only reiterate so many times, they don't care about any pie in the sky BS.

They don't care about anything but moving more units.

No V8's (they don't have one anyway), no long travel, no bigger sizes... All the changes coming are literally the opposite of everything people are posting here lol.

Your third paragraph disproves the second paragraph.

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