I will be lifting my 4 door Sahara Automatic with a 3.5" Rubincon Express lift then adding 35" Nitto Trail Grapplers. At this point it will be time to talk Gears. I plan on going with 4.88's However there is a broad range of brands and pricing out there and I wanted to get opinions on which brands are good, bad, ugly and whats the best bang for the buck. I've read several threads but wanted to put one together where people could list what they thought were the best to worst along with the best pricing they found. Also feel free to add experiences and stories. Right now I'm thinking Yukon $$$ ouch or G2. Hopefully this thread will give me a better idea of what I want to do. Thanks, ya'll.

 

There have been claims that every gear co. Gets their gears cut by the same factory. True or not I do not know, but I have experience with Yukon, Richmond and Superior and have nothing bad to say about any of them.

 

U.S. Gear now makes a 4.88 for the JK D44, all others are still coming out of overseas plants. So, it's all about the 'deal' that you find, rather than the name on the box.

G2 had a deal on gears with free aluminum diff covers. Lots of people went for it, but can't say that I would jump on aluminum covers.

From what I have seen, the gear package at northridge is pretty hard to beat. 550 for two sets of gears and two overhaul kits with timkens.

 

Thats what I did, great deal

And, since

Here is a picture of the nifty sticker you'll get with those Yukon gears:

 

I did the Yukon gear package from Northridge as well. Great deal if you can find someone to install them and will warranty the work. You may want to consider 5.13s unless you live in a flat area. I'm running 5.13s and it holds OD pretty good, but on large grades it still downshifts into 3rd.

 

Well, I live in N. Texas so flat is not an issue. The shop that I was looking to do the install said they wouldn't warranty anything over 4.88 in a Dana 30. They qouted me for Yukon 4.88 gears front and rear installed and warrantied for $1495 + tax. that includes the overhaul kits and the 3.73+ carrier for D30. Anyway, I have the flashpaq so hopefully downshifting on grades won't be too big of an issue. Does that price sound pretty reasonable?

 

You do know Rubicon Express went out of business for now, huh?

 

Haven't heard that. Their website is still up. Well that's not good. Do you think it would be a bad move buying one of their kits?

 

I have G2's and have never had any problems

 

I talked to the local gear shop who informed me the majority of gears are currently being made in Korea and China. The Korean gears being the better. Even the major brands, Korean made.