Soft doors or full doors?

RockDog

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Sep 16, 2020
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Location
Athens, Georgia
I have a pair of full soft doors and a pair of full doors. I live in Georgia and often have warm summers and rain.
Which months would you recommend running the soft doors vs the full doors? March-September, then switch?
Just looking for opinions.

Do you prefer soft doors or full doors?

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I ran soft doors for a little while but didn't like the mirror situation or problem it created. I found a decent set of oem half doors and ditched the soft doors. I run full doors in the cooler months.

Bestop does make a bracket for soft doors but it only works on the soft doors that came without the uppers. The tube for the uppers gets in the way. I didn't want to deal with a window frame mounted mirror option.
 
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I have a pair of full soft doors and a pair of full doors. I live in Georgia and often have warm summers and rain.
Which months would you recommend running the soft doors vs the full doors? March-September, then switch?
Just looking for opinions.

Do you prefer soft doors or full doors?

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Kind of a personal choice I would guess, but half doors are way better anytime it's warm, I like to never have a top on, ha. I got full doors for winter, here in Texas that's about 6 total days in December and about 2 weeks of days spread out in late January and February.

Either way, that open container of Mich Ultra is a big time ticket here in Texas....when we went to Louisiana back in College....drive through frozen Hurricane shops, oh to do non-smart things when I was young....
 
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I also have both full hard doors and 2 piece soft doors. I typically install my full doors around Thanksgiving and put the soft doors back on around the beginning of Spring. This is a garaged weekend fun vehicle so the extra noise and general flapping is not an issue. If I had to daily drive it on the highway, I would probably stick mostly with hard doors.

But the soft doors makes if seem roomier and more fun to drive. The lighter weight might also help improve mpg by 1 mpg. I picked up a set of half doors last year and will see if that replaces both or if they get used for the shoulder months. It's nice to have options.
 
I have half doors with soft top uppers and a hard top for the winter. It works but I'm debating between full doors or solid fiberglass uppers for the half doors. Can't afford either. Lot of wind noise. Need to replace my cherry bomb muffler and get a bed rug...but I need to afford it first.

Usually 1-2 or more hours of driving to get to the fun stuff around here.

-Mac
 
I had trail doors once and they just didn't to the job of keeping air and water out the way I expected them to. If I have doors I want them to work like doors with weatherstripping and a mirror mounting place, etc. I'm trying my first winter with half doors (OEM hard lowers and soft uppers) and so far so good, but I park in a garage so I don't need to clear snow and ice. If I parked outside I'd probably do full hard doors for the winter just to have glass that you can clear off without it cracking from the cold.
 
I have full doors, half doors, and soft doors. Full doors for the winter, half doors most of the spring and fall, no doors in the summer with the soft doors in the back in case it rains.
 
I’ve got a set of full doors for winter or long highway drives, half doors for summer and trails and the soft doors can be thrown in the back when I don’t want doors just in case. As the weather in CO can be drastically different at 12k+
 
Full doors blow

They're the ugliest, heaviest & most constricting ones you can put on a TJ.

But they're the good keeping out the elements, which is why mine are on presently.

So I cast another vote for keeping both, or if you really want to join the inner circle of mental illness pick up a third set, the coveted factory halfs, then you're really on to something
 
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I like my full doors okay.

Never liked my soft doors. They were hard to open and close and no mirror mount. The top halves wouldn't seal well and pulled away at freeway speeds. Sold those.

I rented a TJ in Mexico that had half doors and they were awesome. Now I have half doors.


Interesting TJ you have there. Must be a custom roll cage like the old YJs? The kind that smashes backseat rider heads in car accidents before they changed them to the family style. And YJ wheels. Nice to see something different.
 
I will happily trade my full doors for half doors. I don't mind the noise or the cold. It's a Wrangler, it's meant to be elemental.

FWIW, I had a set of Bestop soft doors on my JKU. Had to rig a bungee around the tops to keep them against the frames at highway speeds. They leaked a bit, but not terribly.
 
I usually run hard half doors and soft uppers and switch to full hard doors for about Dec. to Mar. I painted my LJ last year and simply ran out of time to finish the full hard doors (I paint outside) so I'm running it this winter as shown in my avatar. It has been about -22*C to -24*C (-7*F - -11*F) with a lot of snow and wind this week and it's been great. Plenty of heat and no wind noise. The only thing I'm concerned with is that, in the wind, the half doors being a lot lighter can get away on you when you open them if you're not careful.

I have soft lowers but much prefer hard. I also have hard uppers but prefer soft. The combination shown suits me for the winter months.
 
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I run factory 1/2 doors with soft uppers and soft top. Even on the coldest day this year, think it was 7deg, once the Jeep warmed up to 195-210 I only ran the blower fan on the second speed.
 
I had a set of softies on my JK.. I absolutely hated them. They were great for keeping out low flying birds and small farm animals but as anything that resembled a door, no bueno.

Had a set of Rugged Ridge half doors on my JK as well. Rarely took them off. Love the look.
I have been wanting OE halfies for the TJ for a long time, but can't get my head around the price. It's so easy to pull the full doors and not have to worry about storing the soft uppers.

I continue to resist buying half doors.. so... my vote is full doors.
 
I’m in NC so weather here is similar to yours. I’ve been restoring my full doors and finally finished them a couple of months ago. I think the Uwharrie off season will dictate my use of half to hard doors.
I will most likely run full doors from November to about March and half doors in the warmer months. I enjoy being able to role down the windows vs unzipping every once in awhile lol.