Jeep Wrangler Modification

 I'm a car guy.  I'm usually into sports cars and motorcycles.  As this blog is named "All Things Tech", this post fits.

I bought a 2018 Jeep Wrangler Sport S in the fall of 2018, trading in my 2011 Subaru WRX STI sedan.  Before then, I had a 1999 Jeep Wrangler Sport, and bought it used, but it had very bad frame rot, so I had to get rid of it.  I still wanted a Wrangler, so I bought a new one.

It was basically unmodified up until last year.  Last year, I needed new tires and I decided to have larger tires installed.  No, I didn't have it lifted.  I installed the largest tires that wouldn't rub against the undercarriage and/or suspension.  I installed Toyo Open Country AT IIIs (C load) in 285/75/17, which is basically Rubicon size but with a wider footprint.

Those larger sized tires will throw off the speedometer (was aware of that before I bought them).  It took me a year to get around to correcting the speedometer.

I bought a vLinker MC+, which is a bluetooth-enabled OBD II reader.  The reader is designed for use with the Jeep Wrangler.  I also installed Jscan on my iPhone, which is an OBD II tuner - I had to buy a user license to use it, but it was maybe $30.

I also had to by a set of $20 security bypass cables, as the Jeep has an integral firewall.  The cables bypass the firewall.

I used Jscan to reconfigure the tire size within the ECU.

I took a long trip to NC last weekend and found that the speedometer was spot on - I used Waze (car nav software) to determine my true speed and compared it to the speedometer's measurement...it was spot-on at all speeds.

I shouldn't have waited a full year to do this, but as I get older (I'm almost 60 now), I've less patience with car things, which is why I got the Jeep in the first place - the STI ended up being too much work for me...I'll always love STIs but mine was modded and you can't fire and forget with Subarus (you can, but it will eventually catch you out).