Ted
The pilot formerly known as Twin Engine Ted
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2007
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Display name:
iFlyNothing
For those who've been following all of my various threads (especially about the RV and the vehicle we tow behind it), you might recall that we tow a 1997 Land Rover Discovery behind the RV. We love that car, it's taken us to some beautiful places, and is a vehicle that the kids universally love (they affectionately named it the "adventure car"):
These old Discos were really good off road vehicles, and really pretty good vehicles overall. They still had a lot of old school suspension that was liked by 4x4 people complete with a locking transfer case (and - most importantly for being flat towed - a transfer case that goes into neutral). Frankly we've taken it places that we probably shouldn't have, and gotten some really weird looks from people on UTVs, and it's done great. It's a lower mile example that's essentially rust-free and the interior is in overall nice shape. The exterior paint and decals are polarizing - people either love it or hate it - but we love it.
The achilles heel of these vehicles was always the aluminum V8, commonly credited with Rover but owes its roots to a 3.5L V8 that Buick originally designed in the 60s. Rover bought the design and then made variations on it, including the 4.0L in this vehicle, the 4.6L found in some Discos and Range Rovers of similar years, and even a 4.3L that was put into TVRs and had some more power to it. As an engine it really is a neat little unit. It's lightweight and would be a great engine in, say, an RX-7 when the Wankel blew up or a Miata. But in the Land Rover it's an old design that tends to be overworked and is outdated. I always knew the issues with these, and a few years ago things got set in motion for doing a diesel swap after thinking about an LS swap as well:
www.pilotsofamerica.com
Last summer I attempted to replace the bearings in the engine before our big summer RV trip (where I ultimately broke my wrist). And while doing so I found a lot more wear in the engine - bad bores in the cylinders, some bad wear marks on the camshaft, and, oh right, the bearings really weren't cooperating. On July 4th (the irony still makes me laugh) I determined this British vehicle was giving us yanks the proverbial finger and gave up on it.
The Cat engine swap is still something I want to do and remains in queue. I think it's going to be an extremely cool end result, and when the whole family likes a car, it's best to hold onto it. I have 3 kids who are going to need first cars, and in this household we heavily support cool cars, especially cool first cars. These Discos aren't getting any more common either, and we have plenty of covered space for it (at least outside - it's been taking up valuable real estate in the shop). And while we do have the enclosed trailer and can tow Laurie's Alfa (and motorcycles), the enclosed trailer does make RV travel harder. It's big and it's gotta get stuffed somewhere, which means that wherever we go has to have a place to stuff it. Flat towing is just so much easier. Get where you're going, unhook, and you're done. Park the bus, enjoy.
Over Christmas and at the beginning of the year, especially as we started thinking that it was really worth figuring out a flat towing solution. The "simple" and "obvious" answer would be to attach a tow bar to the front of my Ram since it has a transfer case that goes into neutral. The biggest issue with it is that it's, well, big. Really big. A 1-ton crew cab long bed pickup is very useful but it's not a great daily driver, and a lot of the places we go have parking limitations locally where it's sub ideal. That could all be worked around, but it just didn't feel like a great solution. Which got us thinking more.
My wife gets Wrangler Unlimiteds a lot for rentals. Which, if you pay attention to any RV flat towing a vehicle, is the most popular tow behind for RVs. Some get the standard 2-doors but it seems like you see the 4-door versions everywhere. Although the older ones didn't drive well at all, they've made a lot of improvements recently (also apparently a lot of quality improvements if you look at the various quality surveys). We both liking driving them, and even got one of the 4xe plug-in hybrid variants as a rental at Christmas which we were both surprised at how much we liked. We figured we'd take a look and see what it would actually cost to get one that met our specs.
Then the first thing on the Jeep website was 15% off MSRP on all leftover 2023 Gladiators, and that's before any other negotiating or incentives. Turns out at the beginning of the year there were around 20,000 leftover 2023s (there were about 3,000 leftover 2023 Wrangler Unlimiteds for comparison). Jeep apparently way overproduced on the Gladiators, combined with low demand and a lot of people not really liking them. I don't have production numbers, but it feels like I see about 1 Gladiator for every 10 Wrangler Unlimited out there, although some of that is surely because they haven't been around as long. The more we looked at them, the more we liked a lot of the practicality. It's a small pickup bed but it can still fit my GSA in the back - or the bicycles, or the kids dirt bikes, or Laurie's Triumph. She checked out one at the dealer and found the back seat was roomier than the Unlimited (this is important since the back seat needs to fit our 3 kids across). Although we already have a pickup, another pickup bed seemed like a good option for utility on trips. And while the kids aren't starting driving tomorrow, they're not that far off. The 500 HP Alfa is a poor choice, the Cobra is a "nope", and the Ram isn't a great option either. A lot of reasons that individually we'd work around translated into something that seemed a worthwhile option if the price was right. Oh, and you can still get these things with a manual transmission (something I want to support as much as possible - even though the only engine option with it is the 3.6L Pentastar V6).
And, well, it was a really good deal and the price was right. We found one that was what we wanted. Among the various options/trim levels the Mojave seemed to be the one to get. Compared to the Rubicon, the Mojave is more designed for "higher speed desert off-roading", and with that has some extras like a beefier frame, beefier suspension components, beefier steering knuckles, and an extra inch of ride height (also the tires are a bit further out, although that matters less). The Mojaves all have orange trim, and among the color options we saw the green looks best with it. We were fine with a cloth interior, but did want the cold weather package (heated seats and heated steering wheel), and of course a manual transmission. The towing package was also desired, less for actual towing and more because of the versatility of a hitch. We found one that also had the LED light package (not something we would've ordered, but it is really nice) and we negotiated in the dealership adding a spray-in bedliner. We also wanted a soft top, specifically because it'll be easier to remove and drive around with the open air on our RV trips, a lot of which are in places where the best views are looking up, not out the windows. End result, 25% off MSRP. I'm pretty happy with that.
And so I present, our 2023 Jeep Gladiator:
[continued below due to the limit on how many characters I can put in a single post]
These old Discos were really good off road vehicles, and really pretty good vehicles overall. They still had a lot of old school suspension that was liked by 4x4 people complete with a locking transfer case (and - most importantly for being flat towed - a transfer case that goes into neutral). Frankly we've taken it places that we probably shouldn't have, and gotten some really weird looks from people on UTVs, and it's done great. It's a lower mile example that's essentially rust-free and the interior is in overall nice shape. The exterior paint and decals are polarizing - people either love it or hate it - but we love it.
The achilles heel of these vehicles was always the aluminum V8, commonly credited with Rover but owes its roots to a 3.5L V8 that Buick originally designed in the 60s. Rover bought the design and then made variations on it, including the 4.0L in this vehicle, the 4.6L found in some Discos and Range Rovers of similar years, and even a 4.3L that was put into TVRs and had some more power to it. As an engine it really is a neat little unit. It's lightweight and would be a great engine in, say, an RX-7 when the Wankel blew up or a Miata. But in the Land Rover it's an old design that tends to be overworked and is outdated. I always knew the issues with these, and a few years ago things got set in motion for doing a diesel swap after thinking about an LS swap as well:
More than thinking-about Cat-swapping the Disco
A month or so ago I started this thread on maybe LS-swapping the Disco: https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/thinking-about-ls-swapping-the-discovery.129858/ Our favorite local Cat supporter @NealRomeoGolf started chatting about the prospect of something far more interesting than...
Last summer I attempted to replace the bearings in the engine before our big summer RV trip (where I ultimately broke my wrist). And while doing so I found a lot more wear in the engine - bad bores in the cylinders, some bad wear marks on the camshaft, and, oh right, the bearings really weren't cooperating. On July 4th (the irony still makes me laugh) I determined this British vehicle was giving us yanks the proverbial finger and gave up on it.
The Cat engine swap is still something I want to do and remains in queue. I think it's going to be an extremely cool end result, and when the whole family likes a car, it's best to hold onto it. I have 3 kids who are going to need first cars, and in this household we heavily support cool cars, especially cool first cars. These Discos aren't getting any more common either, and we have plenty of covered space for it (at least outside - it's been taking up valuable real estate in the shop). And while we do have the enclosed trailer and can tow Laurie's Alfa (and motorcycles), the enclosed trailer does make RV travel harder. It's big and it's gotta get stuffed somewhere, which means that wherever we go has to have a place to stuff it. Flat towing is just so much easier. Get where you're going, unhook, and you're done. Park the bus, enjoy.
Over Christmas and at the beginning of the year, especially as we started thinking that it was really worth figuring out a flat towing solution. The "simple" and "obvious" answer would be to attach a tow bar to the front of my Ram since it has a transfer case that goes into neutral. The biggest issue with it is that it's, well, big. Really big. A 1-ton crew cab long bed pickup is very useful but it's not a great daily driver, and a lot of the places we go have parking limitations locally where it's sub ideal. That could all be worked around, but it just didn't feel like a great solution. Which got us thinking more.
My wife gets Wrangler Unlimiteds a lot for rentals. Which, if you pay attention to any RV flat towing a vehicle, is the most popular tow behind for RVs. Some get the standard 2-doors but it seems like you see the 4-door versions everywhere. Although the older ones didn't drive well at all, they've made a lot of improvements recently (also apparently a lot of quality improvements if you look at the various quality surveys). We both liking driving them, and even got one of the 4xe plug-in hybrid variants as a rental at Christmas which we were both surprised at how much we liked. We figured we'd take a look and see what it would actually cost to get one that met our specs.
Then the first thing on the Jeep website was 15% off MSRP on all leftover 2023 Gladiators, and that's before any other negotiating or incentives. Turns out at the beginning of the year there were around 20,000 leftover 2023s (there were about 3,000 leftover 2023 Wrangler Unlimiteds for comparison). Jeep apparently way overproduced on the Gladiators, combined with low demand and a lot of people not really liking them. I don't have production numbers, but it feels like I see about 1 Gladiator for every 10 Wrangler Unlimited out there, although some of that is surely because they haven't been around as long. The more we looked at them, the more we liked a lot of the practicality. It's a small pickup bed but it can still fit my GSA in the back - or the bicycles, or the kids dirt bikes, or Laurie's Triumph. She checked out one at the dealer and found the back seat was roomier than the Unlimited (this is important since the back seat needs to fit our 3 kids across). Although we already have a pickup, another pickup bed seemed like a good option for utility on trips. And while the kids aren't starting driving tomorrow, they're not that far off. The 500 HP Alfa is a poor choice, the Cobra is a "nope", and the Ram isn't a great option either. A lot of reasons that individually we'd work around translated into something that seemed a worthwhile option if the price was right. Oh, and you can still get these things with a manual transmission (something I want to support as much as possible - even though the only engine option with it is the 3.6L Pentastar V6).
And, well, it was a really good deal and the price was right. We found one that was what we wanted. Among the various options/trim levels the Mojave seemed to be the one to get. Compared to the Rubicon, the Mojave is more designed for "higher speed desert off-roading", and with that has some extras like a beefier frame, beefier suspension components, beefier steering knuckles, and an extra inch of ride height (also the tires are a bit further out, although that matters less). The Mojaves all have orange trim, and among the color options we saw the green looks best with it. We were fine with a cloth interior, but did want the cold weather package (heated seats and heated steering wheel), and of course a manual transmission. The towing package was also desired, less for actual towing and more because of the versatility of a hitch. We found one that also had the LED light package (not something we would've ordered, but it is really nice) and we negotiated in the dealership adding a spray-in bedliner. We also wanted a soft top, specifically because it'll be easier to remove and drive around with the open air on our RV trips, a lot of which are in places where the best views are looking up, not out the windows. End result, 25% off MSRP. I'm pretty happy with that.
And so I present, our 2023 Jeep Gladiator:
[continued below due to the limit on how many characters I can put in a single post]
