Inside the JK is now roomier. Sitting in the driver’s seat, you notice a few changes to the dash and inside. Gone are the voltmeter and oil pressure gauge. Though losing the oil pressure gauge is not a big deal, since it has not really indicated oil pressure in a long time, just read the same as long as the oil pressure stayed within range. Some of us remember the old gauge that used to move up and down and actually indicate pressure. I do miss the voltmeter though, was a good way to quick check the pull on the winch. Something that is hard to get used to is the fact that they swapped the tachometer and the speedometer. They also moved the temperature and direction to the dashboard, it glow’s below the speedometer. |
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| There is a button next to the speedometer to push to switch between, distance until empty, gas mileage, engine run time and temperature/ direction. The button is in a hard location to press, almost makes you have to reach through the steering wheel to get at it. |
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| Underneath the tachometer is the mileage. There is a button on the right side of the tachometer that controls the display. There are two trip odometers along with total mileage. It also displays any information that is available, like if your door is ajar, though it doesn't tell you which one. |
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| They moved the cruise control functions to a stalk that sits in the lower right quadrant of the steering wheel, takes a little getting used to, but once you get the feel of it, it is easy to use. The wiper stalk remains the same as previous years, but the turn signal stalk now incorporates a dimmer switch that actually turns off the inside lights, so now you can take your doors off and not worry about the light staying on inside. The driver’s seat now incorporates a lift function that by pumping the big lever on the side lifts the seat up. This is great for those short drivers that have a hard time seeing over the hood. The seats now have an adjustable headrest on them, to bad is does not adjust back and forth, just up and down. The headrest feels like its plastic, but it does have some cushion to it. Since I have noticed very few people driving with their heads back against the headrest I do not see this as a problem, it has not bothered me at all. The seats in the Rubicon have YES fabric, I think it actually stands for Youth's Eating Stuff, not ahemm getting lucky. |
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Over on the passenger side we do not have the seat raise lever, so passengers get the view they get. The passenger seat folds and slides now, it no longer tilts forward. The one dumb thing that jeep did was to attach the seat belt to the seat, so now it is even harder to get in the back seat with the seat belt in the way. It makes perfect sense on the four doors, but on the two doors, it makes it a pain. This probably will not be much of a factor, since this is a play toy for me, I will probably pull out the back seat anyways. The glove box is a little thinner, but deeper, so you can actually get a few things in there. However, any complaints about a glove box should remember the statement made to me one day by my friend’s son. “It’s a glove box; it would fit a glove fine.” Hmmm… The passenger seat also incorporates the occupant sensors to control the air bag. |
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All your controls have moved to the center console area. There are a few radio options, your standard CD player, a 6-disk DVD player, and MyGIG, the one nice thing is that the cab is now quiet enough that you can actually hear the stereo in it. I have only played for a little while, but I burned a .WMA DVD disk with 700 songs on it in folders. That is about 46 hours of music on one normal DVD disk (that is the drive to Moab and half way back for me). I played with a dual layer disk and found that you could only put 1024 songs on it, or about 6 GB of music, anything over the 1024 songs does not show up on the player. Still that is not bad, but I do not think it is worth the added cost of the Dual layer disks. If you were to go that way, it would add up to about 36 GB of music or 6144 songs or about 400 hours of music. Who needs Sirius or XM radio? Below the radio are two vents and the power window controls. Having power window is nice, since trying to reach the passenger door to roll down the window is now even more of a chore. Both the drivers and passenger windows have auto down features and they are fast, so watch the fingers when you roll the windows up. The A/C heat vents are now circular with louvers that you can rotate completely around. Airflow is strong, even at the lower settings. Below the power window control is the A/C heat controls. You have a rotary air position switch, fan control switch that incorporates pushbuttons for recirc and A/C. The last rotary switch on the right is your temperature control. Below the A/C controls is a push button panel that has your locker control. These works the same way as the TJ Rubicon models, except that you just push up instead of pull up. The JK Rubicon’s have another button for the front anti-sway bar disconnect. There is also a button to control the ESP. Of course, those of us who are used to the flasher switch being on the steering column will now have to look down here for it. The last button down there is just a light indicating the passenger seat air bag. On both sides of the switches are the power outlet and cigar lighter outlets. |
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Above the dash are two tweeter speakers that stick up in the corners. This is kind of a weird place to put them. The one thing that I cannot figure out is what was going through Jeeps mind when they designed the sun visors. These things are beveled plastic, shaped like a wedge. Nothing will hook to them. Therefore, my garage door opener was stuffed into the door pocket until I can figure out how to get something stuck to the visor, maybe some heavy duty Velcro will work. Of course, Jeep kept some door (map) pockets for us, and I can report that they are big enough for a garage door opener or a map if you fold it up a couple more time, but not much more. |
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The center console goes back to a cavernous compartment; though getting the top open is a different motion. The button is under the front lip of the top. You now need to push the button back and then lift. The cup holders are still there, but the change trays are gone. |
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The back seat has the same headrest as the front, but they are not adjustable. They do block a little bit of the view as you look backwards from the front seat. I removed them for a better view out the back. More like the older TJ. The headrests do not affect folding the seat forward. They just fold down into the rear foot well. The rear seat folds and tilts just like the older ones. The nice thing is that it now takes the center seat belts with it, so you do not have to try to stuff them back through when you fold it back down. The rear seat does incorporate LATCH for child seats. |
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| The rear head rests are not adjustable, but they are removable. You have to press in both bottons on the headrest and then pull up and off. If you don't you can pull the insert out of the seat. |
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Opps
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| Your jack is now a scissors jack and is located in a compartment all the way in the back. There is another small compartment forward of this that you can store a few small items in. No real security here, but it does give you an out of site area. They also moved the subwoofer to the rear area now, so as a trade off to having a center console again, you lose a little bit of storage room. The subwoofer does remove easily, so if you need to carry a big load you can just pull it out. |
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| The new top is not much different from the older ones in basic design. The four doors have the sun rider feature like the older unlimited, just that it is much larger. I watched two people at the jeep dealership try to put it back. It was amusing to watch. It did appear to be a little more difficult than the older sun rider, but did open much more. The two doors do not have this feature. I was a little concerned seeing the factory pictures of the soft top. It looked squared off in the back like the hard tops, but seeing what is actually on the dealership floors is different. The back does have a forward rake to it and looks much better. The hard tops are squared off. Now this next comment is going to irritate a few people, but the four doors with the hard top really does look like a Hummer H2 or H3. We can sit here and deny that, but the Hummer is Jeeps competition. There is a difference between the two, but if you do not know the product like most of us do, a simple glance you could get the two of them mistaken. I do not mind Hummer losing a little to Jeep. The soft top on the new JK is designed pretty much like the old TJ’s. I can only really talk about the two door’s top. It now sites in behind the windshield instead of latching down to the top of it, this really helps cut down on the wind noise. As far as folding it back, it is the same procedure. They did change the side windows and rear window a little. The side windows now have this small L shaped lip that slips into a channel behind the door. It is a real pain to get in there, I much prefer the old ones for being easier, but once in the side windows are tight, they do not flap around like the TJ’s. The rear window operates the same way, with the exception of the bottom bar that is now longer and fits in behind the rear part of the soft top. You pretty much have to slide the rear window bar in first before putting down the rear flaps. It is a pain, but just one more step in making the soft-top quiet. Another change was to the clips that hold the soft top down to the door surrounds. They went with a 1-piece clip on each side vice the 2 pieces in the TJ’s. This is actually easier to put in, but a little more difficult to get off since it is tight. The bow ends appear to be the same as the TJ’s so I would expect these to bend eventually. I think Sun Performance had the billet ends for the old bows, so they might fit these. |
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| And some more interior pictures. |
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Cheesy mirror
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