JTopsUSA Mesh Shade Top; Black (07-18 Jeep Wrangler JK 2 Door)

Video Review & Installation

This JTopsUSA Mesh Shade Top in Black is for those of you that have a 2-door 2007 to 2018 JK that are looking for one of the highest quality mesh tops out there that you can buy for your JK. This is going to be a nice easy one out of three wrenches for installation and I'm gonna show you how to do it in just a second. So, a mesh top is a really great option for that sort of midway point between having the top down and really getting obliterated by the sun and having the top up and not having that open-air driving experience. If we're honest, a lot of people buy their Jeeps because they like to be able to put the soft top back or easily remove the hard top but sometimes that's sun can just be unrelenting especially if you're sitting in traffic or maybe you have pet or kids in the Jeep that you want to add a little bit of additional shade to and that's where a mesh top comes in. You still have that open-air experience, the breeze blowing through, a lot of the light of the sun but it takes that edge off and makes it a lot more comfortable. And they're gonna be a couple of different configurations out there from JTopsUSA and also from some other brands. Some we'll just cover this front part of the Jeep, just the two front seat passengers, others will go all the way back like this one from JTopsUSA covering both the front and the rear seat passengers. Now as I said, there are a lot of choices out there and the differences are really going to be in two main areas, one is just the quality of material, the quality of the construction and JTopsUSA does a really nice job there. And the other is the way that it attaches to the Jeep. So first off, this is going to be all a really high-grade material that's not going to break down in the UV rays, it's not going to fade, it's not going to change color on you. Around the outside here everything is folded over multiple different ways to keep it from fraying but also to add a lot of strength to this area. It is not only just double stitched parallel to the edges here but it also has some horizontal stitching that goes through every couple of inches just to add a little bit of additional strength. This thing is just very, very well-built and out of very high-quality materials. Across the front here sewn into a pocket, there is an aluminum bar, there are also two other aluminum bars in the back and that's something that you really won't find on any other mesh tops out there. They just add some more structure to the top, they keep it from billowing, they keep it from flapping around at highway speed and just make for an easier installation as well. One of the other things that you won't see on a lot of other mesh tops that this one has are right here. These are also sewn into some pockets on the top so you don't have to install them, they're not gonna move around, there's no guesswork. And those are rare earth magnets, they're neodymium magnets and they're designed to attach down right onto the metal of that sport cage which helps to center the top, helps hold it in place and again just helps in installation and helps it from flapping which is very, very nice. And the last thing I want to talk about is the way that it attaches onto the Jeep because again, that's very important. The front here, this is going to use all three of the footman loops and it has a really strong metal hook that hooks onto those footman loops. And that makes sure that this isn't going to move, that this is a really strong connection. Some of the other ones that I've seen use snaps or straps or bungee cords or something like that along here but I really like the fact that this is a nice strong metal hook. Everywhere else that this attaches onto the sport cage is going to use a long strap with a mil-spec buckle. So this buckle is a little bit different from some of the other ones that we see. Some of the others are designed where you weave the strap through it and you've all seen those kind where you pull it tight and it pretty much, for the most part, holds tight there. These ones are different, they actually have a little bit of a tongue that lifts up, you pull them tight and then you press that down and that really does a nice job of biting into that strap and not allowing this to loosen up until it's supposed to. Because these are mil-spec, they are also going to be every really high-quality plastic material. Again, no breakdown in the UV rays, they're not going to become brittle, they're not going to break, lose their spring or fade in color as well, so you have something that is going to attach really firmly, also install very easily onto the Jeep and it's just going to look good and do a very nice job at what it's designed to do which is a mesh top. Gives you that protection. But again, you don't have any of those negative side effects of some of the less expensive options on the market where this thing can fill up with a bunch of air, flap, cause a bunch of noise. In fact, going back to the straps for just a second, the engineering that goes into this is really obvious in the fact that it has a built-in additional small plastic buckle on each one of these straps, so the rest of the strap, after you pull these tight, of course, there's gonna be a little bit leftover can go back and feed through that plastic end of that buckle to ensure that you don't have anything flapping around. And again, that's not something that you're gonna find on a lot of the other options on the market. So all of these features really put this in that premium product category and because of that, you are going to end up paying a little bit more for this option. This is going to come in at right around the $200 mark where some of the others could be in the lower $100 marks. So depends on what you're looking for on your Jeep, if you want something you can run, if you live west or south and you want something you can run year round, this is gonna be that or if you're somebody who just likes to buy really high-quality stuff for your Jeep because you like the fit and you like the way it holds up, this is going to be it and it is going to be money well spent in my opinion. The additional premium you pay for this is gonna be worth it. So like I said before, this is a pretty easy install onto your Jeep. Let me show you how. This top is going to be a very easy one out of three wrenches to install. In fact, it's going to be even easier than some of the other mesh tops out there on the market because it has so much more structure to it. So essentially, what we're going to do here is roll the top out. The JTopsUSA logo is going to be in the back passenger side, so we can unroll the top here. And pretty much just get it set roughly where it's gonna go and then we'll adjust all of the buckles. Now one surefire way to know that this is centered where it needs to be front and back, aside from just looking at where it lines up with the windshield frame, is that the magnet sewn into these pouches here, they're gonna stick a right onto the sport cage here and they're gonna keep everything from moving around on you while you are getting this installed which is really nice. So now that we have it pretty much sitting where it's going to go, we'll go back to all of our hooks and all of our buckles. So right here we have a couple of hooks that are gonna go on the footman loops across the front of the windshield frame and that's where we're gonna start. And these are metal hooks right here that are sewn in and they have a little bit of a tab. So from the inside of the Jeep you can pull and get these seated exactly where you need them. So we'll go ahead and get the first one hooked on here.Now that we have the area across the front of the windshield attached, we can just work our way down one side and then the other attaching all of our buckles then we'll go back through and tighten everything down after the fact. So all the buckles come out of the box buckled, so we'll unbuckle it. And then also you want to lift up on this little tab here and that's going to give you your adjustability. So when that tab is lifted that will allow you to feed through some of the strap material like that and loosen things up. And we're gonna just leave that loose for right now then we can feed our buckle around the sport cage, and buckle it to itself, just like that. So then you pull it around the sport cage and then buckle it to itself. And you can either close this tongue or leave it open. When you pull on the strap to tighten it down, it actually automatically opens again. So if you do close now, it's probably just going to open because again, you want to leave these loose that way you can alternate back and forth when you're tightening them and the top isn't pulled all the way to this side and far away from that side, you want to tighten them pretty evenly. So again, leave them loose whether you close this or leave it open doesn't really matter at this stage. And we'll just work our way down this side, doing the same thing for all of the buckles and then go over to the other side and do the same thing. Now that we finished up on the driver side we'll do the same thing along the passenger side. With all of the buckles loosely connected, now we can go through and tighten them all down. And as we pull them tight and get them sitting where we want, we'll just press this little clip down and that'll hold it from loosening back up again. As I mentioned before, you sorta want to go side by side, having two people to do this we'll speed things along a little bit because you don't want to pull these ones all the way tight and then have that one sitting a little bit too far in from the edge of the Jeep. So we are gonna start on this side, we're gonna give them a little bit of a tug and tighten them down and then we'll go ahead and switch over to the other side and do the same thing. Once you have all the buckles pulled tight, you can use the included plastic clasps to store the longer ends of those straps so they're not flopping around in the wind and that's gonna be it for the installation. So if you are looking for one of the highest quality mesh tops out there on the market, I would definitely recommend this choice from JTopsUSA and you can find it right here at extremeterrain.com.