Yahoo Finance The 2024 Jeep Gladiator Mojave Is a Rowdy Wrangler
This isn’t a truck for the hundreds of thousands of buyers searching for the perfect job-site-stained F-150, RAM, or Silverado, but it is a truck. This isn’t a truck that will transport your speedboat, your friends, and everyone’s coolers—all at the same time—but it is a truck. This isn’t a truck for covertly signaling six-digit-MSRP affluence or settling a massaging seat, but it is, still, a truck.
The Jeep Gladiator Mojave isn’t built to the modern conventions of what truck buyers typically want. Approach the Gladiator from the front, and you’ll surely think you know what's in the back, until you continue and see the tail behind an otherwise handsome Wrangler. Same story, different ending. And thank Auburn Hills, Michigan, for that, as the Jeep Gladiator is a truck for the rowdy.
List the pickup trucks with the highest horsepower and deepest ground clearance, and they’ll have the Gladiator beat on paper. With a years-old 3.6-liter Pentastar V-6 from making 285 hp and 260 lb-ft of torque, the Gladiator isn’t outperforming many of its competitors. On the road, live axles make it similarly deficient in terms of comfort and precision. But the sly character of the Gladiator lives in its looseness. None of us are perfect, and the Gladiator shines as an imperfect yet fun-filled truck.
The V-6 feels well suited to the chassis, if only because it does what you tell it without complaint. Paired with an 850RE eight-speed automatic transmission, the Gladiator Mojave is torquey enough to spin the rear tires off the line and provide a rearing 0-to-30-mph pull. It’s no surprise that an off-road-focused truck is capable of low-end grunt. But on the highway, the V-6 will ask the transmission to drop a gear or two and patiently wait for its request to be approved before clawing up to its 4400-rpm torque peak and reaching passing speeds. The gearbox is lackadaisical, and upshifts are clunky, especially in lower ratios. Yet what would offend in a sports car adds character in something so proudly utilitarian.
The real meat of the Gladiator Mojave is its off-road hardware. Equipped with 33-inch all-terrain tires, Dana 44 axles, and a one-inch front suspension lift, as well as Fox hydraulic jounce bump stops in the front and 2.5-inch internal-bypass shocks with remote reservoirs both front and rear, the Mojave is more at home off-road than on. With its light rear end, 31.5 inches of water-fording capability, selectable four-wheel drive and low range, and locking rear differential, the Gladiator Mojave makes loose-surface adventures much rowdier than the Wrangler can.
On the road, driving the Gladiator is like driving any Wrangler derivative—a bit loose. Keeping the wheel straight at highway speeds requires the majority of your focus, though the front end never feels like it will get away from you. This imprecision and the high-caliber suspension fitment of the Mojave trim actually play into its driving prowess in New York City, where it soaked up cratering holes and prolific expansion joints alike. Braking performance is adequate, although the pedal is a little soft, requiring an extra shove to quickly slow down the truck from highway speeds and noticeably unloading the bed-laden wheels when it does so. Venturing only 100 miles from the George Washington Bridge, I didn’t get the chance to drive the Gladiator Mojave aggressively in its natural environment. But there is no doubt that the enhanced hardware would allow the Gladiator Mojave to match or beat previous Wrangler experiences of sandstone-scrambling competency.
Inside the Gladiator, the new-year refresh has done good things for Generation Z suitability. Seamlessly integrated into the dash is a 12.3-inch screen that reacts quickly to touch and pairs easily with Apple CarPlay. While the proprietary navigation system is slow, the vehicle settings were easy enough to control, and the tech can show off some cool trail stats such as lean angle and yaw. Stacked vertically underneath the screen within easy reach of both front-seat occupants, a set of window switches and power banks are laid out with clear function. It’s not that the Gladiator has no frills, but its dressing up is designed for ease of use regardless of whether you’re covered in mud.
Hilariously, the Gladiator is still a truck, and I, of course, did my best to do truck things with it. After a failed attempt at IKEA shopping, a beloved armchair needed transporting from the Hudson Valley back to New York City, and the Gladiator came to the rescue. No matter the orientation, the chair was awkwardly situated in the 60.3-inch bed, leaving little room for much else. Compared with smaller off-road-centric trucks, such as the Nissan Frontier Hardbody with its 73.3-inch bed, the Gladiator is down around a foot of bed length.
With an MSRP of $65,865, our Gladiator Mojave tester was on the pricey side. For that amount, a nicely optioned crew-cab F-150 or Silverado is within reach for those who need a true truck, as are performance models like Ford's Ranger Raptor or Toyota's Tacoma TRD Pro. Certainly, a Ranger Raptor or a Tacoma TRD Pro can take on loose surfaces, but the Gladiator is better equipped for any surface. Boulders and rocks included. I'll even admit to having shared ambivalent feelings about the Wrangler family before my time with the Gladiator, but it managed to bring a smile to my face every time the rear tires spun up or the Fox Racing shocks absorbed a New York crater. That’s worth something, especially if you are a die-hard trailgoer, but maybe not $65,000.
It wouldn’t be fair to say that the Gladiator Mojave doesn’t fulfill pickup duties—it carries real loads in practice and can tow up to 6000 pounds. But Gladiator shoppers know that the truck is much better suited to proper single-track trails than anything else with a bed on the back. That’s doubly true for the Mojave.
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