2002 Jeep Wrangler

The Jeep Wrangler is truly a love it or leave it vehicle. It is made for rough and muddy back roads, and for those conditions, as well as bad weather, these babies are great. It handles uneven roads, swampy muck and flooded areas as though it was everyday road wear.

As for the open road, the Wrangler is not so great. It’s slow, loud, leaky, has a rough ride, is cold in the winter and hot in the summer and lacks even common items such as cup holders. When driving on regular roads, there is so much road noise as to be ridiculous.

Not much has changed in the last 10 years of production; the style is still boxy, and the top still comes off. There isn’t much in the way of comfort (that’s not what it is made for). Headroom is aplenty, but other than that the space is limited, though the new 4 door model offers more.

As a tow truck driver, most of the times I see a Wrangler it’s upside down from someone trying to take on too steep or rocky of a climb. I also find them often with broken axles, punctured pans and just all sorts of severe damage to the under carriage. This is more of a driver problem then a Jeep issue. Jeep drivers need to remember that it’s only a little Jeep; It can do a lot but not defy gravity.

Owning an earlier model is still a better deal than a newer one. For some reason through this last decade the price of parts and labor has more than tripled from the '97 version to the '07. The Gas mileage has gotten better, but will still at best only come in at 16-18 MPG. Wranglers are easy to work on, and easy to go crazy with. There are a lot of after market items, from winches to flares, for those who like to do them up.

As roughly as people treat them, most of the times that I have rolled these Jeeps over they have started up and, though battered, kept on going. The Wrangler is tough, can take a lot of abuse and is in general very dependable.