Ordering Trouble.

[Max Quordlepleen]

Hello everyone. I'm looking to see if someone can chime in and help me out.


My dad is finally looking into replacing his 2006 GMC truck and since we have several older Jeeps, I have talked him into looking at a new Gladiator. After having read this forum and the JL Wrangler forum quite a bit in the last year or so, I told him he should be able to just order exactly what he wants.

We have checked the order guides and spreadsheets and have spent quite a bit of time on this. So far so good. (Also a big thanks to everyone that helps put that stuff together.)

Now the problems. He just wants a pretty base Sport or Sport S. He wants the diesel, tow package, cold weather group, and black aluminum wheels. Basically that's it. We have visited several dealers in our area and they are building him $50,000+ Jeeps with dual top groups and popular equipment packages and a bunch of nonsense that he doesn't want. He's been told twice now that the popular equipment package is mandatory. That seems suspect itself and this process is getting rather fatiguing and demoralizing. We are just northwest of Pittsburgh and willing to travel to get what he wants, but so far this has been so stupidly painful.

I've heard that Criswell in Maryland has great prices and is easy to work with. I'll probably reach out to them soon to see. But I'm just trying to get some help first to know that I'm not crazy that it's possible to get a fairly low end Gladiator. It's like these dealers don't think they exist and build them to the moon.

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[NYC-4X4]

Hello everyone. I'm looking to see if someone can chime in and help me out.


My dad is finally looking into replacing his 2006 GMC truck and since we have several older Jeeps, I have talked him into looking at a new Gladiator. After having read this forum and the JL Wrangler forum quite a bit in the last year or so, I told him he should be able to just order exactly what he wants.

We have checked the order guides and spreadsheets and have spent quite a bit of time on this. So far so good. (Also a big thanks to everyone that helps put that stuff together.)

Now the problems. He just wants a pretty base Sport or Sport S. He wants the diesel, tow package, cold weather group, and black aluminum wheels. Basically that's it. We have visited several dealers in our area and they are building him $50,000+ Jeeps with dual top groups and popular equipment packages and a bunch of nonsense that he doesn't want. He's been told twice now that the popular equipment package is mandatory. That seems suspect itself and this process is getting rather fatiguing and demoralizing. We are just northwest of Pittsburgh and willing to travel to get what he wants, but so far this has been so stupidly painful.

I've heard that Criswell in Maryland has great prices and is easy to work with. I'll probably reach out to them soon to see. But I'm just trying to get some help first to know that I'm not crazy that it's possible to get a fairly low end Gladiator. It's like these dealers don't think they exist and build them to the moon.

Contact Leon at Criswell for 7% off invoice and stop wasting your time with the run around that other dealers give. Dealers here would tell me the same and act dumb, because they rather just sell what’s on the lot at a premium. I just ordered a Sport S. You can definitely order how you want for around $40k. It is true that some packages are required or not available on the sport with diesel (I got a gas), but it shouldn’t be anywhere near $50k

 

[F3Orangeman]

Take a look at a Willys. The jeep.com build configurator allows for the diesel, cold weather package, and has black aluminum wheels. MSRP 48k, Invoice 46K. If you go custom build with Tri-City in NC, or Gupton in TN (and a few others like Criswell, anecdotally), 5% under invoice with be 44K, plus tax/tag/fees.
I know from fact that Travis at Tri-City will not force you to buy anything you don’t want, and if their system won’t allow something to happen, you can be assured they aren’t trying to gouge you.

 

[centra28]

I went to Jeep.com and used the build and price tool to try and put together what your dad is wanting. Have to go with the Sport S trim to get the Cold Weather Group. It's really odd, when you add the cold weather group it forces you to add the popular equipment package. This is likely because they only manufacture them this way. The items in the cold weather group are probably connected with the technology or convenience group. Even adding in the popular equipment package it only came in at 45k (only added what you stated).

Also, when I add the diesel engine it removes the black rims, that I don't understand because they are both aluminum. I know from doing previous builds you cannot option the AT tires with the diesel eng in the b&p.

 

[ZTMAN]

JTs are great, but you said you talked you dad into one. Are you sure he is going to be happy with a JT if it his daily driver?
I love jeeps just as much a anyone on this forum, but at my advanced age, I would not want a JT as a DD. Make sure your dad takes a nice long test drive.

 

[Max Quordlepleen]

JTs are great, but you said you talked you dad into one. Are you sure he is going to be happy with a JT if it his daily driver?
I love jeeps just as much a anyone on this forum, but at my advanced age, I would not want a JT as a DD. Make sure your dad takes a nice long test drive.

Thanks for this input. We have been out driving them and he actually loves the drive. To be clearer, he's coming off of a 2006 work truck with pretty much zero options. He was just assuming he could find something similar for cheap which is also super hard to find. So by "convinced" I just meant that I told him to enjoy himself a little and pay a little more and actually be comfortable.

Plus he was hung up on the truck part. But he runs an in bed toolbox and whenever he needs to actually haul anything substantial, he hooks up one of his 3 trailers. So I just told him it was a bit crazy to not consider a Gladiator when he isn't even doing anything that crazy that requires a "real truck."

 

[Quan2xr]

I went to Jeep.com and used the build and price tool to try and put together what your dad is wanting. Have to go with the Sport S trim to get the Cold Weather Group. It's really odd, when you add the cold weather group it forces you to add the popular equipment package. This is likely because they only manufacture them this way. The items in the cold weather group are probably connected with the technology or convenience group. Even adding in the popular equipment package it only came in at 45k (only added what you stated).

Also, when I add the diesel engine it removes the black rims, that I don't understand because they are both aluminum. I know from doing previous builds you cannot option the AT tires with the diesel eng in the b&p.

Had the same issue when I was configuring a Sport S. Only wanted the black aluminum wheels, ATT, cold weather group, convenience, and a couple others, but was forced up to a $45k-46k msrp.

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