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I own a Miata and am honestly a little scared in the car on the highway because of all the big trucks-I feel like I could be squashed like a bug any minute! just something to consider-otherwise I love my Miata on the twisty roads around town-only hope I never get into an accident in it! (knock on wood)
Thank you - an opinion from an actual OWNER, like myself. That is what is needed here.
The BIGGEST question to the OP... do you live where there is significant snowfall? If so, dont attempt to drive the Miata in it, its one of the WORST cars in the snow. If you do have lots of snowfall where you live, then go with the Wrangler.
If you don't ever plan on going off road then get the Miata. If you do plan on going off road at least once a year then get the Wrangler. How did you manage to narrow your choices down to two completely different vehicles? If you said Miata, Honda S2000, Saturn Sky, Pontiac Solstice, or BMW Z3 (or is it now Z4?) then that would be a better selection. If you said Wrangler and other off road vehicles that'd be a better selection.
What do you drive, a Camry? You simply read straight out of CR and regurgitated their bias, but I'm not sure you read the latest report on the Wrangler.
I haven't noticed a Polaris driving on the interstate lately either.
OK, Steve ... I'll bite.
First off, I own a 1966 CJ-6, which I bought many years ago for a utility vehicle from it's original owner with a long family history of using it for teaching his children to drive, family camping trips, and hunting trips in the mountains. It's been a "fun" utility vehicle when I go visit friends at remote mining sites in the Colorado mountains during summer months ... but it's a pain in the ass to drive on the road or in town when you have to use the 3-speed trans with the hi-lo range to get moving off the line, and then upshift to the high range (unless you want to slip the clutch a lot to get off the line). At least the old CJ was simple, sturdy, but very crude. It took adding a second auxilliary heater to make it half-way comfortable in cold weather ... if we bundle up in layers and long coats and gloves. Calling it a safe vehicle at highway speeds would be a lie, and I never have gotten warm fuzzies over sitting on top of the exposed gas tank in case of a crash. And it's handling on the highway at 65 mph is nothing to get a lot of confidence in, it's best limited to running about 45-50 mph. At least the old V-6 in it has turned in yeoman service, but it's no torque monster for hill climbing ... and it's outperformed on slow jeep trails by the old 4 cylinder jeeps with appropriate low range gearing. Now that I've got several "big boss" Polaris machines, I've parked the jeep except for rare events when I trailer it to the mountains ... the Polaris blows the doors off the jeeps in off-road performance and utility, and goes places through the woods that the jeep cannot. Around our farm/ranch, the jeep cannot hold a candle to the utility of my Polaris machines ....
Secondly, my wife owned a 1991, purchased brand new, Wrangler with the 6 cylinder 4.0 motor with manual trans. She'd always wanted one, and purchased it out of the excitement of the "jeep" experience. Yeah, right ... she got the "jeep experience" ... commuting 45 miles to work from SW Denver suburbs to her job at Centennial Airport. "black ice" on C-470 gave her the "off-road" experience of her life several times, as this vehicle was a pi**-poor performer in those nasty road weather conditions compared to her Fiat X1/9, which was very sure-footed in the same commute. Difficult as it was to swallow her pride about buying a brand-new vehicle, this machine proved it was junk when it came to adverse road handling and safety. She sold it at a substantial loss with 12,000 miles and just over a year old to another sucker who just had to have a jeep. OH, and by the way ... she started driving my 1971 MB 220D as her nasty weather car replacement, which ... even though it has only rear wheel drive ... outperformed her 4x4 jeep in the real world driving conditions in the area. At least she didn't have off-road excursions with the MB when she hit black ice on C-470 in her commute, which was at evening hours due to her shift schedule and overtime. I bought her a used Audi 4000CS Quattro, which performed yeoman duty for another 200,000 trouble-free miles, and never skipped a beat on the nasty road conditions of her commute ... where she wound up with a 200 mile daily round trip at another airport assignment. And that car turned in 29 mpg cruising 75-80 mph .... a welcome decent fuel economy compared to the jeep.
Thirdly, as I've mentioned many times on this forum, I was an automotive professional in the SW Denver area for over 40 years, and I got to see the experiences of my clients with their jeeps in many situations. Ranging from the "brand new" purchases with multiple repeat visits to the dealerships for warranty repairs on major components, to door rattles, to locking diffs that didn't lock up when slipping on nasty surfaces so the owner got stuck in their own driveway, to used vehicles with significant premature wear items in the drivelines and suspensions which cost a fair amount of money to keep these cars on the road. And they weren't even off-roaded ... they were bought due to the myth of their 4x4 capability for the winter driving conditions in the Denver metro area. I can tell you that I got a fair number of calls to come help "rescue" these vehicles when they broke down ... and used to have Carl's Towing bring them to the fellows at the jeep shop at 6th/Federal because I didn't work on them. Of passing note ... these vehicles weren't cheap to work on, either. I used to hear all about it from my customers when they'd note that they spent as much on their jeeps as they did on their BMW's and MB's at my shop.
Fourthly, I'm a Vail second-homeowner, for over 30 years. I've commuted up to the mountains virtually every weekend and sometimes during the week to stay at my place all year-round. The most prominent vehicle I've seen off-road ... not by their choice ... in that commute has been jeeps ... seconded only by IHC Scouts, which thankfully have long been off the road in any number. Again, the driving conditions haven't been deep snow, but snowpacked and with black ice. It's the icy conditions that jeeps on the road don't seem to handle very well, due to their very compliant suspension which gives them their off-road ability, but doesn't give much feedback or feel to when it slips on black ice. By the time an average driver realizes they're heading into the wrong direction/broke traction situation ... it's too late to correct. Yes, I know they "ice race" Jeeps (like at Georgetown), but those vehicles have been set up specifically for racing or they at least have the ability to run out of the course area safely if they "lose it" ... it simply doesn't compare to running off the road on I-70 on black ice.
And lastly .... you must have a profound ignorance of what the CR annual auto issue reports. It's not CR's opinions about road testing vehicles, it the compilation of OWNER REPORTS of what they've experienced with their vehicles. So, if a higher-than average number of vehicle owners report difficulty with, say an electrical system which requires shop repairs, than CR simply reports that item as a frequent failure item. And if it's an overwhelming number of owners that report the failure area, then it's so reported as "much worse than average". What part of this reporting don't you understand so you assert that I'm just regurgitating CR's stance? It's not OPINION, it is reported FACT by OWNERS. Or do you think that CR has some magical way of knowing who all the owners are that are having difficulties with their vehicles and only ask them what those difficulties are while putting all the highly satisfied perfectly performing vehicle owners on their ignore list?
OH, BTW ... with the latest round of fed ORV titling and licensing laws, you can now license and insure vehicles like the Polaris Ranger for road use. We're seeing more and more of them locally used as economical utility vehicles for daily transportation as well as off-road use. And if you look in on forums such as the Wyoming area, you'll see that a moderator ... ElkHunter ... uses an ATV for urban transport, claiming excellent fuel economy and great service from this instead of using his 4x4 truck to get around town.
Anyway, my points remain ... there's simply many other vehicles around with "fun factor" that will do a much better job of a daily 200 mile round trip commute than a jeep ... in all weather conditions. As far as CR's tests go which drive their opinions ... well, read the test parameters and the results for yourself. Jeeps don't handle on the road very well, don't brake very well, don't do a lot of things on the road very well .... and they're expensive to keep on the road if that's all you're doing with them. CR does acknowledge that they have their utility off-road ... but that's not what the OP really wanted the vehicle to do.
What do I drive? mentioned many times on many threads here ... MB 300Dturbo, BMW 2002, AlfaRomeo 2.0 Spider, MotoGuzzi and Ducati motorcycles, Ford and Dodge 3/4 ton diesel pick-up's, Subaru Legacy and Outback Station wagons, and a Cessna 182. Sorry, no Camry's .... and I've also owned, operated, maintained and ridden just about every European motorcycle marque, as well as MB SL's, a BMW 507, a few Porsches (356's, a '67 912 Targa, and a 904), a couple of Ferrari's, one Lambo Espada, a number of older Maserati 4-ports as well as an OSCA, and just about every English car marque you can think of ... and some you can't. Further, I've worked on just about every high dollar collectible euro marque car of the 1910-late 1940's vintage that you've only seen at the auctions ... as I was a captive shop to a major private car collection for a number of years. I've worked on cars that wound up in the Harrah's collection, or now in the Imperial Palace ... or other famous public and private collections. I've spent most of my life in and around the aftermarket automotive industry, working on high-end daily drivers and collectibles ... and trading through as opportunities presented through the years. I've been a "car nut", but not a one-brand fanatic .... and knowledgeable enough to know what cars are reliable and durable from a sampling of a much wider owner group than my own personal limited exposure.
Jeep wranglers aren't it .... I have no issue with your personal ownership and pleasure from one, but I, too, have had ownership experience and a lot of experience with these vehicles. Much of their romantic reputation was earned with an entirely different series of specialized vehicles which bear little relationship to what is on the showroom floor today ... and has been repeatedly surpassed by off-road capable vehicles from other makers. As an on-road commuter, the Wranglers leave a lot to be desired in today's marketplace.
You know what's a real laugh these days, Steve? I can go into the back country with my aircraft into wilderness places where you can't take your Jeep ... and use less fuel to get there than you would with your jeep if you could drive there.
First off, I own a 1966 CJ-6, which I bought many years ago for a utility vehicle from it's original owner with a long family history of using it for teaching his children to drive, family camping trips, and hunting trips in the mountains. It's been a "fun" utility vehicle when I go visit friends at remote mining sites in the Colorado mountains during summer months ... but it's a pain in the ass to drive on the road or in town when you have to use the 3-speed trans with the hi-lo range to get moving off the line, and then upshift to the high range (unless you want to slip the clutch a lot to get off the line). At least the old CJ was simple, sturdy, but very crude. It took adding a second auxilliary heater to make it half-way comfortable in cold weather ... if we bundle up in layers and long coats and gloves. Calling it a safe vehicle at highway speeds would be a lie, and I never have gotten warm fuzzies over sitting on top of the exposed gas tank in case of a crash. And it's handling on the highway at 65 mph is nothing to get a lot of confidence in, it's best limited to running about 45-50 mph. At least the old V-6 in it has turned in yeoman service, but it's no torque monster for hill climbing ... and it's outperformed on slow jeep trails by the old 4 cylinder jeeps with appropriate low range gearing. Now that I've got several "big boss" Polaris machines, I've parked the jeep except for rare events when I trailer it to the mountains ... the Polaris blows the doors off the jeeps in off-road performance and utility, and goes places through the woods that the jeep cannot. Around our farm/ranch, the jeep cannot hold a candle to the utility of my Polaris machines ....
Secondly, my wife owned a 1991, purchased brand new, Wrangler with the 6 cylinder 4.0 motor with manual trans. She'd always wanted one, and purchased it out of the excitement of the "jeep" experience. Yeah, right ... she got the "jeep experience" ... commuting 45 miles to work from SW Denver suburbs to her job at Centennial Airport. "black ice" on C-470 gave her the "off-road" experience of her life several times, as this vehicle was a pi**-poor performer in those nasty road weather conditions compared to her Fiat X1/9, which was very sure-footed in the same commute. Difficult as it was to swallow her pride about buying a brand-new vehicle, this machine proved it was junk when it came to adverse road handling and safety. She sold it at a substantial loss with 12,000 miles and just over a year old to another sucker who just had to have a jeep. OH, and by the way ... she started driving my 1971 MB 220D as her nasty weather car replacement, which ... even though it has only rear wheel drive ... outperformed her 4x4 jeep in the real world driving conditions in the area. At least she didn't have off-road excursions with the MB when she hit black ice on C-470 in her commute, which was at evening hours due to her shift schedule and overtime. I bought her a used Audi 4000CS Quattro, which performed yeoman duty for another 200,000 trouble-free miles, and never skipped a beat on the nasty road conditions of her commute ... where she wound up with a 200 mile daily round trip at another airport assignment. And that car turned in 29 mpg cruising 75-80 mph .... a welcome decent fuel economy compared to the jeep.
Thirdly, as I've mentioned many times on this forum, I was an automotive professional in the SW Denver area for over 40 years, and I got to see the experiences of my clients with their jeeps in many situations. Ranging from the "brand new" purchases with multiple repeat visits to the dealerships for warranty repairs on major components, to door rattles, to locking diffs that didn't lock up when slipping on nasty surfaces so the owner got stuck in their own driveway, to used vehicles with significant premature wear items in the drivelines and suspensions which cost a fair amount of money to keep these cars on the road. And they weren't even off-roaded ... they were bought due to the myth of their 4x4 capability for the winter driving conditions in the Denver metro area. I can tell you that I got a fair number of calls to come help "rescue" these vehicles when they broke down ... and used to have Carl's Towing bring them to the fellows at the jeep shop at 6th/Federal because I didn't work on them. Of passing note ... these vehicles weren't cheap to work on, either. I used to hear all about it from my customers when they'd note that they spent as much on their jeeps as they did on their BMW's and MB's at my shop.
Fourthly, I'm a Vail second-homeowner, for over 30 years. I've commuted up to the mountains virtually every weekend and sometimes during the week to stay at my place all year-round. The most prominent vehicle I've seen off-road ... not by their choice ... in that commute has been jeeps ... seconded only by IHC Scouts, which thankfully have long been off the road in any number. Again, the driving conditions haven't been deep snow, but snowpacked and with black ice. It's the icy conditions that jeeps on the road don't seem to handle very well, due to their very compliant suspension which gives them their off-road ability, but doesn't give much feedback or feel to when it slips on black ice. By the time an average driver realizes they're heading into the wrong direction/broke traction situation ... it's too late to correct. Yes, I know they "ice race" Jeeps (like at Georgetown), but those vehicles have been set up specifically for racing or they at least have the ability to run out of the course area safely if they "lose it" ... it simply doesn't compare to running off the road on I-70 on black ice.
And lastly .... you must have a profound ignorance of what the CR annual auto issue reports. It's not CR's opinions about road testing vehicles, it the compilation of OWNER REPORTS of what they've experienced with their vehicles. So, if a higher-than average number of vehicle owners report difficulty with, say an electrical system which requires shop repairs, than CR simply reports that item as a frequent failure item. And if it's an overwhelming number of owners that report the failure area, then it's so reported as "much worse than average". What part of this reporting don't you understand so you assert that I'm just regurgitating CR's stance? It's not OPINION, it is reported FACT by OWNERS. Or do you think that CR has some magical way of knowing who all the owners are that are having difficulties with their vehicles and only ask them what those difficulties are while putting all the highly satisfied perfectly performing vehicle owners on their ignore list?
OH, BTW ... with the latest round of fed ORV titling and licensing laws, you can now license and insure vehicles like the Polaris Ranger for road use. We're seeing more and more of them locally used as economical utility vehicles for daily transportation as well as off-road use. And if you look in on forums such as the Wyoming area, you'll see that a moderator ... ElkHunter ... uses an ATV for urban transport, claiming excellent fuel economy and great service from this instead of using his 4x4 truck to get around town.
Anyway, my points remain ... there's simply many other vehicles around with "fun factor" that will do a much better job of a daily 200 mile round trip commute than a jeep ... in all weather conditions. As far as CR's tests go which drive their opinions ... well, read the test parameters and the results for yourself. Jeeps don't handle on the road very well, don't brake very well, don't do a lot of things on the road very well .... and they're expensive to keep on the road if that's all you're doing with them. CR does acknowledge that they have their utility off-road ... but that's not what the OP really wanted the vehicle to do.
What do I drive? mentioned many times on many threads here ... MB 300Dturbo, BMW 2002, AlfaRomeo 2.0 Spider, MotoGuzzi and Ducati motorcycles, Ford and Dodge 3/4 ton diesel pick-up's, Subaru Legacy and Outback Station wagons, and a Cessna 182. Sorry, no Camry's .... and I've also owned, operated, maintained and ridden just about every European motorcycle marque, as well as MB SL's, a BMW 507, a few Porsches (356's, a '67 912 Targa, and a 904), a couple of Ferrari's, one Lambo Espada, a number of older Maserati 4-ports as well as an OSCA, and just about every English car marque you can think of ... and some you can't. Further, I've worked on just about every high dollar collectible euro marque car of the 1910-late 1940's vintage that you've only seen at the auctions ... as I was a captive shop to a major private car collection for a number of years. I've worked on cars that wound up in the Harrah's collection, or now in the Imperial Palace ... or other famous public and private collections. I've spent most of my life in and around the aftermarket automotive industry, working on high-end daily drivers and collectibles ... and trading through as opportunities presented through the years. I've been a "car nut", but not a one-brand fanatic .... and knowledgeable enough to know what cars are reliable and durable from a sampling of a much wider owner group than my own personal limited exposure.
Jeep wranglers aren't it .... I have no issue with your personal ownership and pleasure from one, but I, too, have had ownership experience and a lot of experience with these vehicles. Much of their romantic reputation was earned with an entirely different series of specialized vehicles which bear little relationship to what is on the showroom floor today ... and has been repeatedly surpassed by off-road capable vehicles from other makers. As an on-road commuter, the Wranglers leave a lot to be desired in today's marketplace.
You know what's a real laugh these days, Steve? I can go into the back country with my aircraft into wilderness places where you can't take your Jeep ... and use less fuel to get there than you would with your jeep if you could drive there.
I don't have time right now to read your entire post (seriously, not poking fun at the length) but I have an excellent understanding of every page of CR's annual auto issue and I have every annual auto issue dating back to 1993. How do you know this supposed unbiased owner data is what they say it is? I don't believe everything I read and I doubt you do either.
I don't have time right now to read your entire post (seriously, not poking fun at the length) but I have an excellent understanding of every page of CR's annual auto issue and I have every annual auto issue dating back to 1993. How do you know this supposed unbiased owner data is what they say it is? I don't believe everything I read and I doubt you do either.
It's very simple, Steve, how I know about the problems specific to the wrangler vehicles.
You see, unlike the general population's perception that all of us automotive shop owners are mortal enemies sworn to destroy the competitor down the street with other brands and clientele ... the real fact is that most of us recognize that we're all in the business together. Many techs who work full time on other brands than I do are my friends.
So, when I got to take some of my client's brand-new under warranty jeeps to the dealerships in the Denver area (as a full service auto support shop to my clients) ... I got to visit with the techs and service writers and shop management. Kind'a a "busman's holiday" type of situation; sometimes I got to spend a hour or two at the shop while waiting for my own ride back home or a determination if the jeep was going to be fixed immediately or needed to stay while parts were located and I needed to leave the vehicle, or I could take it back for awhile until parts arrived. I also had a fair number of times where I picked up a customer of mine at the jeep dealership with their car upon completion of my repairs when they then dropped off their jeep to be worked on. So I typically got an earfull of what was going wrong with their jeep as we headed back to my shop in Denver.
In fact, the lead tech at our local jeep dealership recently moved on to his own shop. That was after making about $100K per year for the last few years, but he wanted to be "on his own" ... and he visited with me a number of times about running his own business and leaving the security (and politics) of a single-point dealership in a town of 50,000 population, and in a rural state with only 8 other dealerships. So, we've gotten to talk a fair amount of the type of work orders he was seeing and the dealership and the repetitive nature of a lot of common failure areas on the vehicles. That proved to be his dissatisfaction with the dealership work challenge ... he got to earn a lot of money, but he got to do the same tasks over and over again, which bored him. And warranty work was becoming a pain in the butt for him, too. He thinks he'll make as much money now in his own service shop with a rural fuel delivery service and retail gas station ... I hope so, but I doubt it.
I think your questioning the methodology of CR is a little far-fetched. Their readership tends to be competent buyers who rely upon an independent service to evaluate products in the marketplace. I'm not saying that CR is infallable in all their tests, but there has to be a reason why so many jeep owners report "trouble areas" with their vehicles compared to many other marques that they own. When you look at the annual auto issue compilation of trouble areas, the jeeps are consistently solid black circles of much worse than average in almost every aspect of reporting. So, unless you can document that CR is affecting the survey results by only sampling dissatisfied owners, or selecting only those with serious problems with their vehicles ... this issue is an absolute "red herring" which doesn't warrant our energy or time.
This has even affected the marques I worked on for years ... the upper end German cars have really suffered a lot into the 1990's and early 2000's with build quality, electrical problems, climate control problems, and many other areas in comparison to their up-market competition. And frankly, I did see a strong correlation between the CR reported trouble areas and the cars coming through my shop as they came out of warranty and/or into the secondary marketplace.
The final sources I use for my insight into problem areas are to-the-trade repair forums and technical bulletins. There's a lot of stuff discussed there that we in the trade share to make more efficient diagnosis or repairs of customer vehicles. Unless you're a paying subscriber, you'll not see the frequency of certain problems with the various car makes. I've personally seen the difference between having professional experience with certain problems and advising the cure on this forum ... where you get all kinds of hearsay and non-related volunteered assistance from well-intentioned folks who have limited exposure to the repair marketplace. Having been attacked by others here who don't know shi* about certain cars and specific problems, but they "know" all about certain things because they "fixed" a car once or twice in years past ... I've made a choice to not assist too many folks here any more with specific advice or fixes on industry-wide well known problem areas. And so it goes with my exposure to jeeps ... they've been problematic vehicles in a lot of mechanical areas, and their strength ... off-road utility ... is rarely used by the normal average buyer. Especially somebody with a 200 mile per day commute and saying that they won't use it for off-road service.
Again, I have no issue with your personal ownership and satisfaction of a jeep. But the OP's premise to use one for a road driver as a "fun" vehicle remains, in my opinion ... a very short lived happy relationship. And I've got enough miles and experience with these vehicles to have seen that scenario time and time again.
I second that. I just don't have the time to sit here and read them, nor write them for that matter.
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I just don't have the time to sit here and read them, nor write them for that matter.
