The air flow thing is exactly what people say makes it cooler. Honestly the new hard tops are so thin how could they be any cooler-especially stock without headliners? Maybe a white hard top would reflect some heat outward, but regular black can't be any better than a soft top.
Exactly why I ended up buying the soft top after the fact. It is so much faster- can do the sunrider position from the drivers seat at a red light. I was constantly leaving home in the morning in rain with the hard top and disappointed later when the sun came out and I could only open the freedom panels.
Eh, I own both of those tops and it’s clearly louder. A lot.
Another option I have considered is get the hardtop, and replace the freedom panels with the Bestop Sunrider for Hardtop - maybe best of both worlds? Only issue may be that only the front seat gets open to the sky.
Not a bad option, but the drawback is that it complicates removing the entire hard top when you want to. I believe the sunrider has to be uninstalled before removing the rest. Also from a cost perspective the sunrider plus hardtop is not that much less than a dual top group from factory.
Summertime in Florida is sweltering hot with high humidity. IMO, not ideal for any convertible weather. Agree with you that if you have a soft top and you plan on going topless in the summer in Florida, at least you can throw your top back on quickly when one of those many summertime storms roll in with little to no warning. Again, after living here for the past 20 years, it's too damn hot in the summer for me to wanna have the sun, when it's out, baking me to a crisp.
Takes me 10" to remove both side rails and the sunrider top from my Jeep.
No the heat was before the hotheads. Not as noticeable after, but I now go soft top from about april to november. Only reason I even put the hardtop back on for winter is that I have it and figure I’ll save the soft top from the salt in NY.
When shopping, I started out wanting the premium soft top. After driving both hard and soft top on the highway, I decided on the hard top, and I am glad I did. No doubt the soft top is more convenient to open and close or remove, but anyone who says the noise level is the same or even close just hasn’t driven both over 50 mph or in any wind. The color-matched hard top with headliner is extremely quiet, to the point that there is almost no reminder that you’re driving any type of Jeep—only the faintest noise of air combining off the rear corners of the roof (very faint, indeed). The soft top is quieter than the one on my old TJ, but it certainly is not by any measure quiet on the highway or in any wind. I could live with it driving in the city or town or wheeling; highway driving for any longer than 20 minutes or so would get annoying.
Well said - I never had a Jeep and came from a Frontier, so the hard top AND soft top were both louder than I was used to. And maybe the soft top is technically louder, but is not annoying at all since I can't wait to put the soft top back on for a lot of long trips to the lake...all with a smile on my face.
Thank you! Right now I am leaning towards body-color hard top with Bestop Sunrider in place of the freedom panels (which can still be reinstalled at any time). That will allow me to flip the top open anytime, without even getting out of the vehicle.
