Consumers Ignorant, or Self-deceiving?

[Plasmajab]

As a former 07 TJ (Wrangler) owner, the milage was well. Horrible. But when I bought it I can honestly admit that fuel economy was not a concern to me at all. All I could think about was..

Hoo! Jeep! Off Road! Yay! Convertable offroader! Sweet. Loads of aftermarket mods! Yay!

The thought of fuel economy hit me for a few seconds when I had to fill it after only driving 400km. 14-18 mpg. Compared to my current 07 ranger and a lot of trucks at that time, it was a little worse, or on par.

There's a few different kinds of jeep owners.. One is the kind that buys a jeep because they want that all-weather convertible that loves the look and style of the jeep. This crowd buys a jeep because they want a jeep because its a jeep, they don't care much about the fuel economy of the jeep because they want a jeep.

Another crew of jeep owners are the true jeep owners. The ones that use the jeep for its jeep capability. Rock climbing, offroading, trailrunning, mudding. At low speeds, they really don't care about the fuel economy either.

The last group of jeep owners are the "mall crawlers". This rare breed of jeep owners are kind of like the first group, but they add on all sorts off offroad bits to make the jeep more capable but never leave the hard stand. Ever. Not once, other then for an instagram shot. And when these guys blow thousands into a build (or tens of thousands) some poor fuel economy isn't a concern.

But the jeep. It is not fuel economic. It never was and as long as it retains that iconic jeep shape (akin to throwing a brick through the air), it will never be fuel economic. It wasn't designed to be. Those complaining about its fuel economy didn't do the research first on the jeep.

*waaahh! I wanted a fuel efficient AWD car so I can commute in bad weather, but the jeep is so hard on gas!*

Well.. Yeah? Did you not read the window sticker? Or look it up online? If you want AWD and fuel efficiency there's literally a billion cheap SUV's and cars that will do that. Even under the jeep brand.

So I feel no sympathy for Jeep owners when it comes to fuel economy. Could the jeep be made with more efficiency in mind? Yep. Abseloutely. Will Jeep do it for the JK (Wrangler)? Not as long as they keep selling as well as they currently do.

[freebeard]

Not all Jeep owners....


https://i.imgur.com/agxlbQ3.jpg

[redpoint5]

I had the opportunity to drive a new Jeep Wrangler manual with removable hard panels about 5 years ago. Our friend group included a Jeep rep who got to drive a new one every few months and would loan them to us, sometimes weeks at a time. One of our friends destroyed the clutch because she didn't know how to drive a manual. I gave her some instruction, but she's just an aggressive driver that doesn't try to work with the machine. Same girl that goes through auto transmissions because she treats the accelerator as an on/off switch. She wanted me to continue her training in my Acura and I refused. She's got a C-Max now, so hopefully that holds up to aggressive driving.

I did use low range on the Liberty I briefly owned to go up an extremely steep and bouldery path to the top of a hill. It was steep enough that my not-yet wife yelled at me to stop and then buried her head in her lap when I continued on. When we got to the top she thought that was the greatest. I had thrashed up the hill long before in my Subaru Legacy taking a running start and flooring it the whole way, and taking the boulder strikes to the underside. Anyhow, that was fun using the Jeep as it was intended.

Originally Posted by Plasmajab

There's a few different kinds of jeep owners.. One is the kind that buys a jeep because they want that all-weather convertible that loves the look and style of the jeep. This crowd buys a jeep because they want a jeep because its a jeep, they don't care much about the fuel economy of the jeep because they want a jeep.

Another crew of jeep owners are the true jeep owners. The ones that use the jeep for its jeep capability. Rock climbing, offroading, trailrunning, mudding. At low speeds, they really don't care about the fuel economy either.

The last group of jeep owners are the "mall crawlers". This rare breed of jeep owners are kind of like the first group, but they add on all sorts off offroad bits to make the jeep more capable but never leave the hard stand.

Thanks for the detailed reply, it's very illuminating.

The JD Power survey did find that Wrangler owners are much less concerned than other compact SUV owners about fuel economy (30% vs 67%). It's surprising to me that 2/3rds of people still list fuel economy as a first consideration when buying a compact SUV. Perhaps the fact that it's a compact rather than full-size is their compromise?

It also says 70% of Wrangler owners are men (vs 50%), so that probably explains a whole lot as far as projecting an image and accepting the cost of doing so for that mall segment of owners.

A common mantra I heard on the Jeep forum was "you gotta pay to play". That was the response whenever someone asked how to improve fuel economy. Same response when things broke that needed fixing.

[CapriRacer]

One other thing to be considered:

People don't always answer truthfully. It's not that they are purposefully lying. It's that they aren't thinking about what may be true as much as they are thinking about what answer the surveyor is looking for. Sometimes that means the "correct" answer, and sometimes it means an answer that influences the outcome.

I talked to a guy at Ford who said that listening to customers was not a good way to do business. He told the story about surveying customers of a popular economy car and what improvements they would want. High on the list was a larger interior and more power - obviously not in the direction of an economy car.

[Xist]

How many people will be saying "New year, new me" in a week, but maybe will go to the gym once? How many people say "I am absolutely going to fix my Civic" or "I will totally apply to grad school?"

The worst lies are the ones that we tell ourselves.

[freebeard]

How many people will be saying "New year, new me" in a week...?

No matter when you go, then you are. Paraphrasing B. Banzai.

[TheEnemy]

Another thing which surprises people is that despite the lack of reliability a used Jeep, particularly the Rubicon trim level depreciates very little.

I would argue that the "Mall Crawler" crowd is the second largest, at least in my region.

I guess I am an oddity, my Jeep gets slightly better fuel economy than stock, and a case of rock rash... even on the roof. I considered the Jeep Gladiator but reliability was an issue.

[wdb]

I guess Jeep reliability has gone downhill. We went through a couple of Cherokees in the 1980's and 1990's and they were pretty much add-gas-and-go. Until they rotted out, but that's another story.

My Tacoma is no winner at the gas pump. But who buys a vehicle like that for its gas mileage anyway.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I see some people on EV forums saying they bought a Tesla M3 or a new Chevy Bolt to save money. I suppose buying a Chevy Bolt saves money if the other consideration was a Porsche. I would just be suspicious if their top priority in a vehicle is to save money. You don't buy a new $40k vehicle to save money.

"Saving money" is a loaded term when it comes to cars. If you're the sort who assumes that there will be a several-hundred-dollar monthly payment of some sort related to the vehicle in the driveway, every month, in perpetuity, then to you, a Tesla saves money because there won't be a corresponding set of gasoline purchases on the credit card.

[slowmover]

A good friend bought an original year JK 2007 Wrangler. Zero options, so to speak. Stays mid-20s Highway. High teens around town. About 200k on it now. Gas & Go. A regular on the Texas barrier islands and off the path at Big Bend National Park. Dead-stock, right down to the highway tires. (The owners motivation matters. Also doesn’t hurt he’s a genius with machines).

Monthly payment + Weekly Fuel = Cost of Car for the retards. A group increasing in size. Same ones expect accidents and tickets.

The sixty-car pile-up in fog on IH64?
Happy, as a newer car on horizon.
Their ALEXA is busy, busy, busy.
Probably all civil servants.
Extracting their due.
Impossible to fire,
And need only a shiny credit score.

TV in their homes every room
Video games galore
.

[Natalya]

The wording to those questions is weird. I think the real reason someone gets a wrangler is because they like how jeeps look and they might be kinda interested in doing off-road stuff. It's a vehicle that has like a specific purpose that kinda puts it outside the "compact suv" segment. I don't think it's helpful to classify it as that.