Archive for February, 2009

We think we’re raising them right! Our two year old has become recently obsessed with Jeeps. Today we went to the mall and out of a group of 7 ride on cars my daughter choose the Jeep. I put her and her brother in; fed the Jeep three quarters and let them ride. They were both so excited and I of course was proud that she went right up to the Jeep. I let them go two turns and then said it was time to go home. My daughter is passive, never throws fits, today she threw an all out tantrum right in the middle of the mall. She was rolling on the floor, kicking her feet and screaming “I drive the Jeep” at the top of her lungs. All I could do was laugh at her, I too know the need to drive a Jeep.

Two Jeep loving toddlers

My husband and I have been talking about what we’ll replace our Yukon with when she falls apart. We were originally talking about replacing her with a Yukon Hybrid but we both are not fans of the body shape on the new Yukon so we started talking about getting a Wrangler Unlimited. Most recently I’ve been looking at the Wrangler Unlimited EV. A Wrangler that gets 400 miles to 8 gallons, after owning numerous gas guzzling Wranglers over the years I never thought that would be possible. I hope the EV makes it to the production line but given Chrysler’s current financial status there are many that doubt it will. Chrysler’s position is that it will come out in 2010.

I imagine the EV will come with a pretty hefty price tag and that alone would probably make me want to keep it mostly on road. I don’t think I would do any serious off roading with it but I think it would be good to replace our larger family car with. Maybe when my inefficient Yukon falls apart I can turn it in and get my paltry voucher.

I have been reading some reviews on the SpiderWeb Shade Top and was really surprised to see as many negatives as I have. Everyone I have spoken to loves them and can’t make it through summer without them. I’ve even been known to let strangers with a Wrangler sit in my Jeep to have a look at it.

The majority of the negative reviews I read have all been about the bungee cords not having enough stretch or them breaking. I personally do not see this as a negative for such a great product. We lost one of our cords but after a quick trip to Walmart and less than $5 later we had a large pack of them. We in fact have so many of them that we keep finding them in in the oddest places in the Jeep.

The ones we bought from Walmart come in a few different colors, we chose bright red to match our Jeep. They have a lot more stretch in them which allows you to get better angles around the roll bar and get a better fit. If you are planning to purchase or have purchased the shade top I highly recommend buying some extra cords so they are there when you need them. The extra slack in these cords does not at all affect the performance of the shade top, it does not have any extra give and does not flap around in the wind.

If you like to run top down in the summer without having the hot sun beating down on you then this product is just what you need. You don’t have to deal with window channels and if you run into rain then you can throw the top right over the top of it without having to take the shade top off. Don’t worry about headroom being compromised with the shade top on, my husband is a tall guy with a big head and he has plenty of room.

In my travels over the Internet to get my Jeep fix I came across a list of 50 things to do in your Jeep before its too late. I haven’t knocked near enough off that list for my liking, come October we’re going to start fixing that!