Having recently sold my Land Cruiser Prado (more on that later), I have been casually shopping for something new. A local Jeep dealer had a used Grand Cherokee V8 in an almost perfect trim for me. After my test drive (I liked the GC, but probably not that one, this was an Overland but I have my heart set on a Trailhawk), I walked around the lot a bit. There I came upon something interesting.

There were two 2024 Wrangler 4xe Willys models parked near each other. They both had the ’24 upgrades: 33″ BFGoodrich KO2 tires, and a new interior with a new dash. Except one thing was different – one of them had what looked like a 2023 model-year grill and the other had a model year ’24 grill.

Few things to note here:

• Some ’23 models, such as the 20th Anniversary Rubicons, had the new ’24 grills but old interiors.
• The base models, non-4xe Wranglers retain the old style ’23 grill for model year 2024.
• All ’24 4xe models have or should have, the proper, redesigned ’24 grill.

I asked a technician who happened to be walking by about this. He agreed that it was weird but otherwise just shrugged it off. I didn’t ask the salesperson who was helping me with the Grand Cherokee because I was quite confident that he wouldn’t have an answer.

So what is going on here? Is it an anomaly? Did someone make a booboo at the factory? And did no one notice between the assembly plant and the dealer lot? According to Jeep’s build and price website, and all the press releases, no matter what options are included on the ’24 Willys 4xe, they all get the new grill.

We are reaching out to our friends at Jeep HQ to see if we can get an answer. We will then update if we hear back. We’d also like to say that we love Jeeps around here, especially the modern Wrangler, but we’d be kidding ourselves if we did not admit that Stellantis doesn’t have frequent quality issues.