Driving Impressions

If you've never owned or driven a Wrangler, you might think it's twitchy and choppy. But it's a relative thing. Compared to earlier versions, the current model feels like a luxury liner. Compared to the last-generation Wrangler, the wheelbase is longer and the front and rear tracks are wider, the chassis has been stiffened and the suspension redesigned. All these things yield significant improvements in the ride and handling, but still, on city streets, the Wrangler is pretty bouncy, and out on the freeway it can feel squiggly over pavement changes. On rougher surfaces the driver needs to pay attention to keep the Wrangler going in a straight line. That said, we drove the Wrangler at speeds up to 85 miles per hour on the open freeway and, when the pavement was smooth, it was stable and surprisingly quiet. If the road was even slightly rough, the ride would quickly deteriorate. However, it's important to note that our Sahara had the 18-inch wheels with on/off-road tires and high-pressure gas-charged shock absorbers. The Wrangler X uses 16-inch tires, also on/off-road, but the shocks are low-pressure, so that combination might offer a slightly smoother ride. The 3.8-liter V6 engine has overhead valves and makes 202 horsepower and 237 pound-feet of torque. Acceleration is good, but on those long uphill 75-mph grades between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe, the automatic transmission kept kicking down out of the fourth-gear overdrive, until we turned the overdrive off. More torque at lower rpm might have prevented this. We didn't have the opportunity to test the standard six-speed manual transmission, but we're inclined to suggest it might be more compatible with the Jeep than this four-speed automatic. The Wrangler Unlimited would have been a different animal on this road. The ride is significantly smoother and the handling more stable, thanks to a wheelbase that's 20.6 inches longer. The Unlimited also weighs more, so the engine will work a bit harder. However, all 4WD Wranglers are EPA-rated at 15 city and 19 highway miles per gallon. When we drove the Unlimited around Lake Tahoe, there were a lot of other Jeeps on the road, and our four-door never failed to turn heads. At the view points, Jeep owners would ogle and marvel, and many of them expressed a strong interest in having a Jeep with four doors. We were also behind the wheel of an Unlimited with the six-speed manual transmission on the rugged Rubicon Trail, where its capability was downright dazzling. In low range and first gear on the most challenging sections, we drove without using our feet; merely steering over daunting obstacles and letting the vehicle do the rest. The two-door Wrangler should be even more capable. The only limitation with the Unlimited was its turning radius of 41.2 feet versus 34.9 feet with the two-door. Six feet is a big difference. In San Francisco, we used the two-door's tight turning radius to make a U-turn in the middle of a street to snatch a parking space on the other side.

Final Word

The Jeep Wrangler is one of the most capable off-road vehicles available today. Its four-wheel drive system also offers all-weather capability and its convertible body style offers open-air fun. The Unlimited body style has greater cargo capacity, making the Wrangler more practical. You'll give up a lot of ride and handling prowess, as well as fuel mileage, but the Wrangler is fun. NewCarTestDrive.com correspondent Sam Moses drove Wrangler models up the Rubicon Trail, through San Francisco and around Lake Tahoe while preparing this report. Kirk Bell reported from Chicago.