Which Wrangler Is right For You When Off-Roading ?

If you love off-road, you need to know what the better Jeep on the trails. An off-road is incomplete without a Jeep that is good for you. We made a test for you with our Jeep. One is Jeep Wrangler JK 2 doors, the other one is a Jeep Wrangler JK 4 doors. Of course, the two-door and four-door JK and are both similarly set up. And the four-door jeep jk does have a little bit more armor on it, and that's for a good reason. We're gonna talk a little bit more about that in just a second.

More Space for 4-door JK & More Compact Wheelbase for 2-Door JK 

First things first, and this is going to be the most obvious thing, a four-door JK is going to have a lot more space in it. You wanna be able to bring a bunch of gear and a bunch of friends. Or maybe you just don't have any hardcore wheeling around you so it's more dirt roads like this. In this case, the four-door is definitely gonna be the winner.

But as you can see from the pictures, we are in a little bit more of a hardcore off-road situation than we were when we were rolling down that fire trail, and this is where the two-door is going to be a little bit more beneficial. It has that nice, compact wheelbase. You can get around corners a little bit easier, and you're not going to be dragging things on the ground quite as much as you will with the longer four-door. With the four-door, you're definitely gonna wanna make sure you have rock sliders and underbelly skid plates. You do a lot more dragging due to the longer wheelbase.

This Jeep JK 2 Doors is just running some factory skid plates, no rock sliders and we still were able to get over obstacles without dragging quite as much. That's not to say you don't need armor on your two-door. Armor is always a good thing. It's definitely gonna give you some peace of mind and allow you to attack obstacles that you otherwise wouldn't know you're not gonna have any sort of damage. But it's not going to be quite as necessary on the more compact two-door.

Brokeover Angle

The brokeover angle is the angle between the front tire, the lowest point between the tires, and then the rear tire. What that leads to in the real world is the ability to go over a hill, to crest a hill.  With a more compact wheelbase,  you can go over a steeper hill. You can crest that hill without dragging the belly of the Jeep on the ground. With the four-door Jeep, that's not going to work out as well.

As you can see from the picture, you have a longer wheelbase, that angle between the tire, and the center of the frame, and the front tire is going to be flatter, meaning that your breakover angle is also going to be flatter. You're not going to be able to get over as much without dragging the belly, and that's why we're talking about armor here. We're talking about rock sliders and underbelly armor and you're gonna wanna have some more of that armor on your four-door because you are gonna be dragging a lot more.

Yes. It would be a little more comfortable with rock sliders. Trust us ! You need sliders, you need armor when you're trying to maneuver a big four-door Jeep around some of these sharper corners. Maybe you could take them into consideration for your 2-door.

underbelly jeep jk skid plates

Here are underbelly jeep wrangler jk skid plates and the importance of having them, or when you're in the two-door, how you don't necessarily need them quite as much. The thought process behind that is closely related to the breakover angle that we already talked about. The fact that you can keep more tires up on the high stuff, up on the rocks with the two-door more of the time than you can with a much longer four-door.  

Looking at this obstacle in the pictures, we used the factory skid plates that are on the two-door that I'm driving right now. But with the four-door, we're definitely gonna be glad that we have those aftermarket skid plates that are gonna be a little bit stronger and give us a little bit more coverage. It is very solidly on that transmission skid plate here in the two-door. That is a testament to having that shorter wheelbase.If have much larger, something like an oil pan, transmission skid plate, something thicker, something with some nice countersunk bolt heads, a really nice piece like we have on the four-door. You wouldn't be quite as worried about it. And it can be able to slide over and drag over those obstacles.

We do a good job of pointing out the big differences between the two-door and the four-door JK. And if you're doing some more hardcore wheeling. And yes, the two-door is going to take it. It makes it over those obstacles that much easier than that four-door is going to. If you have the proper armor and the proper gear on your four-door, you can slide over those obstacles, where you're gonna clear them a lot easier in a two-door JK. With that being said, if you're just running those fire trails, you're getting back and forth to the campsite, you need to carry a lot of gear and have a lot of people, obviously, the four-door is gonna take it.

In the end, it depends on how you're gonna be using your Jeep. And the most important thing is that you're in a Jeep, you're off-road, and you're having a blast.