I guess this was one of the points I was trying to make but wasn’t really clear on. My ‘14 sport with an auto and 3.73s only had a minor drop in acceleration and MPGs after switching to 35s. After wheeling it a couple times and driving it around for a week or so, I couldn’t really remember any difference and felt that the stock gearing was just fine. My current Jeep, a ‘17 Recon, came with 4.10s and after the swap from the stockers to 35s, I could not tell a difference at all in acceleration performance and only lost about 1-2 MPGs. This is the reason I’d love to test drive a 3.6 JKU with 35s-37s and 4.88-5.13 gears. Just so I could see what the difference really feels like. I’ve had plenty of fast cars in my time so I’ve had a taste of performance and I never felt like either of my JKs were too slow to get out of their own way. They’re not winning any races but they’re definitely not near as slow as some of the “economy” cars I have owned and driven.
Does anyone have any links to videos of back to back or side by side tests of JKs that had gear swaps done or any comparisons of what we’re talking about? I’d love to line up next to one like mine with the only difference being gearing.
Your 2017 with 4.10's is the same situation that I has with my 2015 with 4.10's. After a proper break in, I could easily spin the tires on my Jeep from a stop. My shifts were consistent at 2,500 rpm's in normal traffic. Once I switched to 35" Yokahama MT's, I could no longer turn the tires from a stop. My shifts in normal traffic have increased to 3,000 rpm to go the same speeds and on the highway, while traveling into a 20 mile an hour wind, I cannot hold overdrive.
My point was to simply say, if you want to keep the stock performance, one must re-gear. Everyone notices things differently in cars and you do not see/feel a difference, but we know there is. One cannot add a much larger diamerter tire that is heavier to a car wihout changing anything and have it perform the same.
The good news for you is that you are happy with your jeep and do not need to spend the money on gearing! It does not get any better than that my friend. Some people do not want to take that power decrease.
If I get a chance, in december, I will try to throw my Jeep on my machinists dyno and show you that there is a significant power loss with larger tires and show the drop in HP to the rear wheels. We can show it in the graph and also in the time it takes the engine to spin the tires to 80mph.