drove it home on Monday/Tuesday.
I was actually surprised at how nice it drives. Really tight, doesn't wander all over the road like I expected, etc. It does let you know you're on solid axles if you hit a big bump.
The clutch pedal travel is LONG. After putting 800 miles in that in a day and coming back to my Bronco II, the BII clutch feels like a brake pedal.
I got 20mpg from Columbus, OH to Indianapolis, 17mpg from Indianapolis to St Louis, and 19mpg from St Louis to Springfield, MO. Indiana was pretty hilly so my mpg took a hit for that stretch.
Interior is typical Chrysler - where most car makes simulate leather with thinly padded vinyl, Chrysler simulates leather with leather-textured hard plastic. I was a bit perturbed at driving for 11.5 hours and not having any sort of armrest on the door panel. Resting my arm on top of the door panel only worked until I got sore where the bone in my elbow rested against the hard plastic, and of course the center console lid is hard plastic as well.
The "Premium" 7 speaker stereo has a lot of volume but the mixing is weird, can't seem to get the bass and treble at levels where it sounds right. Interestingly it blends better with the top down.
Wind noise with the soft top isn't really noticed below 65-70, but once it starts, it gets loud pretty fast. Headed into the wind at 80 it roars pretty good. A hard top will definitely be a strongly considered future purchase, but I'm working on getting a more highway friendly car so I may just deal with it and not use the Jeep much for long trips.
Engine/exhaust is almost silent, and like every other inline 6 I've owned, silky smooth. Having driven my Bronco II with it's 90dB drone at 2800 RPM a quiet engine is sooo nice, so I have no plans of modifying the exhaust.
Hopefully it was just a learning curve but the soft top is a fair PITA. Of course my last convertible vehicle was a Miata where all it took was a single latch at the windshield header and sweep the top down with one arm, still sitting in the driver seat - about two seconds. So I'm a little biased, but I will say Jeep could learn a thing or two from Mazda about an easy fold soft top. At any rate I won't be raising and lowering that thing real often...I cleared a spot in the garage so I can keep it away from the stray cats while the top is down.
Options it came with are the "Sunrider" which allows you to fold back the part of the top just over the front seats. It's pretty cool looking and kinda like t-tops, it would be good for cool weather where you want to be in the sun but out of the wind, but for 90° you want the wind and less of the sun so it'll probably be October before I use that feature much.
It's got factory sidesteps which I'll be taking off. Partly for the ground clearance but also because they just don't seem to be that useful. I find it easier to step straight into the tub when getting in, and straight to the ground getting out - and the side steps are more in the way than anything for both of those actions. Wife agrees, so they'll be coming off. They are kinda handy for getting into the back seat but the rock sliders I have picked out have a step tube (above the bottom of the body) that will work well for that.
First mod plans are a 3" lift, Cragar Soft 8's and 33x12.5R15 Goodyear Wrangler Duratracs. Next a bumper with tire carrier for a full size matching spare, then rock sliders, then probably a 1" body lift with motor mount lift and tuck the gas tank up with the body.
Being a long wheelbase I'm tempted to get some die-cut vinyl stickers and do a throwback to the scrambler...maybe put a "TJ-8" logo on the right rear corner and "Scrambler" along the side of the hood like where the Rubicons have their label.