BooGTS

2016 Mercedes in case my comparison didn't make sense:

thatXJguy

My opinion is that it never hurts to have luxury features. It hurts when people are stupid with them, for example like you said someone fell asleep at the wheel. Well DUH on that person, right?

This is certainly the wrong forum to come online saying, hey I like my JK, but quite frankly I love the new features lol.

My opinion also on old stuff being less likely to kill you is that the numbers would show otherwise. Old stuff have less safety features and there are more recorded deaths compared to new stuff, which only a select few safety issues have been covered on the news. It's about as "viral" as his BLM stuff when the news covers it, but never really as bad as the news says.

My most important point was when I did anything to my Cherokee, I liked OEM parts, and there are certainly no OEM parts like this available for the Cherokee. With that being said, the experience always felt hacked together and I never would have left it in there for more than a day before going, "meh."

What I like most about the Wrangler is how it's all built in to the OEM experience. Everything seems to work great with one another right out of the box, there's no modifying anything necessary anymore, and I can just go about my business.

Why do I like OEM parts? I like car shows. I like when stuff looks good in addition to working. I took my Cherokee to car shows all the time, but if I had things all wired up and little crimps here, plugs there, and a gizmo that looked weird smack in the middle, I wouldn't want to take it to a car show. It's just personal preference, but I would rather have the features combined with the dash rather than hanging all over the place.

OBD2 Live output can be had on the Wrangler as well, but you can already get engine codes on the dash in almost any Chrysler car, so it's almost pointless to have one. What you call lazy items, I don't. I call them, "ooohhh this is niceeeeee" items.

BooGTS

I think we have very differing opinions on what makes a car "niiiice" but I'll just say at car shows, if there are 25 Challengers in a row (which is common) I only care to look at the ones where it doesn't look like it did on the showroom floor - because there are tons of those.

Now 40 year old cars...I like stock. Or if they are commonly modded, like my S2000 - mine is proudly stock.

Nobody cares to see my XJ at a car show, but I did bring it, I'd imagine I'd get more interest from my tablet than the stock radio.

thatXJguy

Well that's precisely my point. Have you seen my old XJ?

The inside was as bone stock as you would see in my build thread, but it had ALL of the factory upgrades because I put a lot of time and effort into junk yard scavenging to find them.

On the outside, it was pure aftermarket beauty. It never saw a drop of mud and people at the car shows loved it. I left it in a condition that someone could remove all of that aftermarket stuff, and the body and interior of the car itself would be like a garage-kept stock vehicle.

I'm not saying that my JK is a car show car, I'm saying that I love driving it. I traded my XJ and I got the JK in return, and there were multiple reasons I chose to take that step. The comfort I exhibit when driving this has far exceeded my expectations.

There are some parts of the XJ I love, and one of those is its simplicity. Having the words of wisdom to look back on it, this is my view: I would never get rid of my JK to have such a simple car as an XJ again, but I would love to have another XJ again some day as a tinker car.

After all, everyone should have one vehicle that they can rely on, and one vehicle that they can decommission and play with under the hood.