2023 Jeep Gladiator

[MUSIC PLAYING] RYAN: Today, it's old school versus new school to see which is the best school in mid-size off-road road trucks. We're going to focus on articulation, high-speed compression, and some steep climbs. Of course, Emmy is running behind, as usual. So before this Jeep and I flex on her at speed, I'm going to start things off with a low-speed flex test, the dreaded ziggurat stair step. EMMY: I hope Ryan's not mad because I'm a little late. I had to stop and charge. So I've always loved the Rivian R1T. Just all that electric torque right there is so great! But I'm curious, can the computers beat the rear locker of the Jeep Gladiator Mojave? Hi. RYAN: Oh, Hey, Emmy. How's it going? EMMY: It's good. I'm sorry I'm late. Well, I had to charge. RYAN: Oh, that's right. See, I didn't. I did a little work already. EMMY: I see that. I see this wheel's still a little off the ground there. RYAN: Yeah. Yeah, slightly. But do you think your little power wheels can do this? EMMY: I don't know. We'll have see. Oh, can your little power wheels do it? How am I looking? RYAN: Pretty good. OK. All right. There's one. EMMY: Oh, there it goes. RYAN: Ooh, two. EMMY: OK, here we go. RYAN: You're not going to make it. Ah, three, ah! EMMY: I am the queen of everything! Three steps to your twos! But my rear tire did spin a little bit. Is my read tire touching back there? RYAN: Oh, hell no. It's way off. EMMY: So less flex. RYAN: It looks cool, though. EMMY: It does. It looks pretty awesome. RYAN: I know I couldn't do that. Come on. EMMY: Sucka! RYAN: Come on. We got more stuff to do. EMMY: All right. RYAN: Are you having fun yet? Do you like my gloves? Well, we're about to push these things even further. So go ahead and click like and subscribe so we can keep making videos like this. Also, if you want to get a truck like this, you should probably sell your car first. So go to edmunds.com/sellmycar. We'll give you a cash offer for that thing right now. So out here at the Hungry Valley off-road area. And we've already put these trucks through some challenges, but we've got a lot more to come. Now, I've done a good amount of off-roading recently. [MUSIC PLAYING] And Emmy, you've done-- EMMY: Just a tiny little bit. [MUSIC PLAYING] RYAN: So why don't we tell the people what we're dealing with with the Rivian? EMMY: OK. So this Rivian is part of Edmunds' long-term fleet. That's where we purchased the vehicle. We put about 20,000 miles on it, and we tell you all of our experiences over on the long-term blog on edmunds.com. After these dirt shenanigans, I'm going to be taking this guy out to Colorado and see how it performs in the cold and the snow. This makes over 800 horsepower and over 900 pounds feet of torque. And it is available as soon as my adventure-booted foot hits the throttle. That's what's really cool. So I don't even need low gear. And I have this fancy computer system that puts the torque to the right wheel that's got all the right grip. So I don't even need lockers. What do you got? What's your antiquated thing? RYAN: So this is the Jeep Gladiator, obviously, but it's not just any Gladiator. This is the Mojave. You get a couple of cool things with that, standard V6 engine, 285 horsepower. EMMY: Oh, is that all? RYAN: It's not a ton. EMMY: Aw, I feel so bad for you. RYAN: 260 pounds feet of torque. EMMY: Aw, that's so tiny. I'm like four times as much. RYAN: It's not a ton, but we go a step further. This is the Mojave. So it's the high-speed version. So we have a 1-inch lift to get it up a little higher. We have a high-speed transfer case to hit higher speeds. Jeep not typically known for that kind of stuff, but we're making some extra effort here. And also, upgraded Fox shocks and hydraulic jounce bumpers. So when you're really hitting the gnarly stuff you've got some added protection. EMMY: What I do really like about your vehicle over mine is I like your Falcon Wildpeak tires. These are wearing Pirelli scorpions, which are fine most of the time, especially when we're like hard pack stuff like this. But from my experience, you get it in the dunes. The weight of this vehicle plus those tires don't have as much bite. You get stuck a lot in the soft sand. RYAN: Yeah. That's going to help me a lot. But one disadvantage that I have, no front locker and no sway bar disconnect. EMMY: Right. Right. Right. And you are solid axle front and rear. I'm independent all the way around. So yeah, I still think that this thing's going to be able to do every single thing that that thing can do. RYAN: We know that the Gladiator is going to do pretty well out here. So it's going to serve as the control vehicle for this test. We'll see how the Rivian can do up against that metric. But one thing's for sure. With this, you save about $25,000 over the Rivian. EMMY: Yeah. But can it do this? Look, it's raising up to 15 inches of ground clearance. It's slow, but it's doing it. RYAN: Can yours do this? EMMY: Can you do this? RYAN: Can you do this? EMMY: Can you do this? RYAN: Can you do this? EMMY: Can you do this? [MUSIC PLAYING] And can you do this? RYAN: No more can-you-dos. EMMY: Can you do this? RYAN: All right. That is pretty cool. All right. I forgot I can do that. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right, Emmy. Found a trail up here. You ready to hit it? EMMY: Heck yeah I'm ready to hit it. Sorry, though, that you're going to freeze, because you took your door off trying to best me. RYAN: I may freeze but I look awesome. EMMY: With one door off, OK. Let's go. RYAN: I like this thing with the doors off. Little dusty, little windy. Do I need them off? No. Do I feel awesome? Yeah, I do. EMMY: What is going on? This says 20 miles per hour max. I'm in some limp mode for some reason, but I'm in off-road, all terrain. Oh, maybe let's bring that down to high. Oh, wait. There we go. All right. We're good. We're good. Finally decided that we're OK. So I guess that when you are in the highest clearance setting, it will only let you go 20 miles per hour. So my advice, then, is to RTFM, read the F-ing manual. Yeah, do that. RYAN: So we're going to try to get down to about 25 PSI now, just to give us a smoother landing on some of the big impacts. EMMY: The thing with this truck is you can't air down too much, A, because it's heavy, and B, as you air down and you spread out that footprint, guess what? You have more rolling resistance, which means you get less range. So you've got to find that happy medium between traction, and comfort, and range. [MUSIC PLAYING] RYAN: All right. We just pulled on to the wash area, and we're coming up on the whip section. So let me tell you what I'm going to do in this Mojave. First, I'm going to hit the off-road plus button. It's going to change the throttle, transmission, and the traction control to make sure I can carry a lot more speed and be more like a desert runner than a traditional Jeep. Another cool thing is off-road plus mode allows you to lock the rear locker while you're in 4 high, which is super cool for high-speed sand dunes and stuff like that. I don't think we're going to need it today, but neat feature. All right. Gladiator Mojave, off-road plus, let's do this. Oh, yeah. This smooths things out pretty nicely. I mean compared to what a standard Gladiator could do. You can feel the Fox shocks really working hard to absorb some of that impact. That worked really nice. Curious how this next part is going to go. Quite a bit bumpier. So this might be where we get into those hydraulic jounce bumpers where we get the really big impacts. And they should be able to cushion it. Oh! Big bumps. Oh! Bouncy, bouncy. That's where I'm glad I have a front lift. It's not going fast, but having a real good time. Oh, man. Let's see the Rivian do this. EMMY: All right. Here we go. Now, this part of the trailer right here, it's a little whoopy but it's not crazy. So I'm at like 30 miles an hour right now. I feel fine. I can also take the better line. That's 35. Yeah, this is great. I've got air suspension here. And I've got independent suspension all the way around. So my ride is a little bit more comfortable than the Jeep with those giant solid axles. OK. This trail's gotten a lot deeper whoops. And you can see, this is just 100% overwhelming the travel on this vehicle. If I could get up on top of the whoops, maybe I could do something. But when it comes to doing this kind of deep whoop stuff, you really need travel. And this vehicle just doesn't necessarily have it. If I were in a Raptor in this, I could be going a lot faster. But trust me, it's like 10 miles an hour. But hey, air suspension is pretty comfortable. So that's good. Just trying to find not the deepest part of the whoops here. Hey, Ryan, you know what we need to do? We got to find some hills. RYAN: Well, you're in luck. There's one right in front of us. Should we hit it? EMMY: Do it! Right behind you, buddy. RYAN: Here we go. Let's get some speed up this baby, up and over. Hey, you made it. EMMY: Easy peasy. RYAN: I dig it. Should we do some more? EMMY: Hell to the yeah. [MUSIC PLAYING] He made it look easy. RYAN: So can you do that? EMMY: Yes. Oh, can you do that? of course I can do that. I'm not even going to press any buttons. RYAN: See if this giant laptop can make it now. [MUSIC PLAYING] EMMY: Sucka! RYAN: Damn it. Think of something else. EMMY: You cannot beat me and this truck! OK, Ryan. That hill section was like super cute and all. But I want to do something that challenges your locker and challenges my tires. RYAN: Well, Emmy, guess what? You're in luck. EMMY: What's that? RYAN: Couple of hills right here, which I think are going to put both these trucks to the test. What do you say? EMMY: Yeah, buddy. Let's do it. RYAN: All right. I'm in 4 low. I got my rear locker on. Now I'm going to walk the truck up slowly. That way, it's not the speed that's carrying me up. But it's going to have to be the truck, and the tires, and the locker that's doing all the heavy work. This is going to get steep. Oh, boy. We're at about 22 degrees straight up, 25. Short work, though. Well, that's light work, light work, baby. EMMY: Man, he made that look easy. RYAN: I can't snap in these gloves. Let's go. EMMY: I'm going to do rock crawl, even though it's not rocks. And this stuff looks really, really slippery. This is where my tires might have a hard time. Let's see. Oh, my god, it's steep. There it goes. There it goes. There it goes. There it goes. There it goes. Come on, girl. All right. Woo-hoo! RYAN: Well, that was very cool. EMMY: Yes. I did it in rock crawl mode, and it was pretty easy. There was some wheelspin, but not bad. RYAN: Very impressed, genuinely impressed by that. EMMY: Shall we try that middle hill? RYAN: That's what I was thinking. And I think now we have to. EMMY: Do it! RYAN: This one looks serious. Steep again, and then, as you get up to the top, there are big ruts carved out. So the tires in the locker have a lot of work to do to get me up over that section. Let's see. EMMY: Oh, my god. Those ruts out there look really, really deep. RYAN: Good throttle. Right line. Let's go, Jeep. Let's go, Jeep. Oh, that's deep. Here we go. Ooh! A lot of spin. That didn't work. My gauge is reading 35 degrees of pitch right now. All I see in front of me is blue sky. I see blue sky and Emmy. EMMY: OK. So he's close right here on his diff, on his front diff. So you're really close on your front diff here. But I think if you give it some beans, you'll get over it. Just slow on the throttle, slow on the throttle. Yeah, a little more, a little more, a little more, a little more. Keep going. OK. Stop! Stop! Stop! RYAN: I'm sitting at 35 degrees of pitch, staring straight up at the clear blue sky, trying to figure out if I'm able to go forward or not. And the answer might be no, but at least I look cool without a door. EMMY: Now we're going to try some extracts. I can only get one in there, I think, because he's on like a shelf. SPEAKER: How functional is this little gear tunnel right now? EMMY: It's super functional. I'm glad I have all this stuff. SPEAKER: Ryan, on a scale of 1 to 10, how confident do you feel right now? RYAN: I got Emmy on my side. So let's say seven. EMMY: Seven! OK. That should help that. RYAN: All right. Here we go. EMMY: No. RYAN: Nada? Whole lot of wheelspin even on the tracks. EMMY: That smells. Well-- RYAN: Yeah, burnt some rubber there. EMMY: Try-- Yeah. You'll be fine backing down once you just get off this one little steep part. RYAN: All right. Sadly, that ain't going to work. Let's go back down to flatter ground. EMMY: OK. Now stop. Now, full throttle. Oh, [BLEEP] he's going to do it. RYAN: Oh, you weren't joking? EMMY: No, do it. Let's see what happens. RYAN: All right. Here we go. EMMY: Nope. RYAN: Thought for a second. EMMY: Yeah. There was a moment. RYAN: All right. Let's cut our losses. Gave it the old college try. EMMY: So here's what I think. Front locker, no problem. SPEAKER: So you're saying the Rivian has a chance. EMMY: Now that he's gone, I want to try it. [MUSIC PLAYING] It sounds like a great idea. Yeah, let's do the hill that the Gladiator got stuck on. If it goes wrong, just back down. It's not that big of a deal. Jesus Christ. All right. Here we go. [MUSIC PLAYING] Nope. Don't have it, but I made it past that bump. RYAN: So technically, you won. EMMY: Well, I guess I'm doing the same thing you did, Ryan. I guess we're both losers. RYAN: That was nuts. Well, we definitely put them to the test today. We couldn't quite conquer this last one. We learned a lot about the trucks and about ourselves. EMMY: Oh, my god. This is steep. Let's do the hill that the Gladiator got stuck on. RYAN: So turns out Jeeps do Jeep things. We're not breaking any news there. But apparently, Rivian's can do it too. EMMY: I know! What I really loved about my truck today was, OK, I loved the instant torque. That is awesome. I loved how fast I could go through some of the-- not the crazy whoops that section, but the little bit of a smoother section. I looked at it at one point and saw like 45 miles an hour. RYAN: Yeah, it was real fast. EMMY: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that part was fun. But once we got into the bigger whoops, like a staple gun. Not good. Not good at all. RYAN: Yeah, you were pretty bouncy. Well, I really like the offer of plus mode in the Mojave. I thought there's a lot of cool tech going on there. And it was definitely very smooth, and solid, and composed over some of the hairy stuff. I would have loved more power, and the lack of a front locker really hurt on that hill. But overall, both did pretty cool. EMMY: Yeah. What killed you on that hill was no front locker. What killed me on that hill was not enough tire. But I think what we came out here to discover is, is the mechanical locker better than all of the computer stuff? And frankly, it's a wash. Everything that you could do, I could do. And everything that you couldn't do, I couldn't do. RYAN: Yeah. The fact that it's electric is not what was holding the Rivian back. EMMY: Exactly. Exactly. RYAN: So turns out Rivian's trail-proof too on top of everything else it can do. Good time out here, Emmy. EMMY: Yeah. Strong work. RYAN: Nice. EMMY: Race you home. [MUSIC PLAYING]