I want new wheels and tires for my Jeep Gladiator. The five-spoke wheels on a Sport S are so boring that I think about them at night when I’m trying to fall asleep. However, aftermarket truck wheels generally appear to be designed as accessories Mad Max: Fury Road, with a large filigree bro of bolts and exposed tips and striking contrasting colors. “Hey look at me!” they say, “I spent two paychecks on a set of Chud MegaOctane line wheels and increased my unsprung weight by 15 pounds per corner.” American Expedition Vehicles makes some wheels that are the exception (tasteful designs, made in Italy), but they’re also meant for bigger tires, and then you need a lift. And once that’s done, you’re on your way to what’s euphemistically called “a build.” That is, spending endless money in an endless search for some unquantifiable higher plane of vehicular existence. And I’m afraid that if I got into it, I might not know where to stop.
And so the Gladiator remains resolutely, limply, stock. I haven’t increased the boost on the 3.0 liter diesel. I haven’t raised it or even leveled the front to match the back of the high tail. It came with the Alpine stereo, so no need to be fooled. A Gladiator is a blank canvas to customize, and yet I’m afraid to make a misstep. What if I lift it up and get 35 inch tires and find they are noisy and I hate them? What if I put on a new socket and it makes noise and I hate it? That Mopar Sunrider soft top insert over the front seats looks cool, but what if… actually, it doesn’t matter what if. I tested one of these in a Wrangler and at 70 mph with the top open, the interior was louder than a low-altitude flyby of an F-16. Maybe I’ll just get some stripes.
Yes, stripes. I’ve been mulling over a stripe package that evokes the old Jeep Scramblers, a retro yellow and orange scheme on the flanks. I think it would look great, it wouldn’t cost much, and if I didn’t like the vibe, I could take it all out. As we say in the custom car game, stripes are low stakes. And yet I feel a little ridiculous for coveting such a thing: I’m a grown man and I want to put stripes on my truck. The world is chaos, a simmering cauldron of calamity and unrelenting existential crisis, and I say, “I need some stripes. For my TRUCK!” I may be rethinking it.
I haven’t even mentioned my other truck, the 2003 Ram. That one I have no intention of modifying, but at least in this case I have a point. The Dodge is in relatively nice shape, and with paint and some trim it would essentially be like driving a new truck. And that’s a rare experience for anyone interested in reliving 2003 from the seat of a regular-cab Dodge. Maybe I’ve watched too many Bring a Trailer auctions, but it looks like for the Ram, there’s no upside to mods – stock is where the love is.
With the Jeep, though, I suffer from a kind of reverse FOMO, that lingering worry that I’ll invest time and money and end up unhappy with the results. And so I do nothing. Well, ok, I bought some factory Rubicon takeoff rock rails for $100, but it’s not really a mod when you’re installing a factory part that should be standard in the first place. Have you seen a Gladiator without rock rails or side steps? There is sheet metal hanging under the doors, mounting holes clearly visible, making it look like it rolled off the assembly line 15 minutes earlier. Adding rock rails was the least I could do for it. Gladiator, come out when you’re decent.
Along these lines, I also just found someone on Facebook Marketplace selling Gladiator Rubicon wheels and tires, brand new. He took them off his truck, presumably because he lifted it and installed 35 or 37 inch tires. I guess I should feel like a loser, longing for someone else’s not-cool-enough dump parts, but building a truck mixed with real Jeep components could satisfy my economy while minimizing the chance of aesthetic ruin or functional
If this works, I might be fine for a while. That’s what I say to myself, as my Jeep slowly transforms into a 500-horsepower, eight-foot-tall monster truck with gold wheels and two rows of KC Daylighters on a tubular bar. No, no, this is not inevitable. But I only asked for the stripes.
Senior Editor
Ezra Dyer is one Car and driver senior editor and columnist. Now he lives in North Carolina, but he still remembers how to turn right. He owns a 2009 GEM e4 and once drove 206 mph. These events are mutually exclusive.
