This weekend, I was off on a 1000-mile three-day run up and down the Central Coast. Sounds pretty easy, until you realise that our car was a two-cylinder, twenty-nine-and-a-half horsepower fully open vehicle with only a windshield for protection against the elements - no doors, windows, roof, heater, or other luxuries. Fortunately, I had a couple of friends tagging along in a brand-new 6-speed Rubicon Unlimited acting as the chase vehicle and carrying tools, baggage, spare gas, etc.
Some specs on the vehicle: it was a Chrysler press fleet vehicle (one of my companions is the US correspondent for a motoring magazine in Korea), so was bone-stock with around 3500 miles on the clock on day one. Tires were the factory 245/75R16 Goodyear MT/Rs; the only real options it had were cruise control and the compass mirror, and ours was a soft-top.
Days one and two were spent in the driver's seat of the Mehari, covering around 800 miles. Day three was a full-day driver swap and I got behind the wheel of the Ruby. Since we've had umpteen-billion threads on the subject of them as a possible future XJ replacement, it seemed worthwhile to share some of the driving impressions from living with it for a day as opposed to the ten-minute test-drive at the dealership I had previously.
The morning half was from King City to Hollister OHV for lunch. This was almost entirely a back road route: lots of small fords, alternating pavement / rough road / no pavement stretches, running for around 160 miles. Not a real test of its off-road capabilities, but it did give a chance to get a feel for how it performed in the twisty stuff with two people and about 400lbs. of cargo on-board.
As it turns out, the answer is 'surprisingly well'. Cornering ability isn't as good as an XJ, but definitely better than a regular TJ. The steering's pretty accurate compared to other TJs I've driven, and gives a good sense of where the wheels are pointed without being over-assisted. Brakes are excellent; even without ABS the four-wheel discs stop smartly, aided by a massive booster. Couldn't get them to fade one bit on the downhills, and braking effort seemed equal at all corners.
Torque delivery is impressive: though not as high below about 1700RPM, between 1700 and 2000RPM you can feel it start to pick up. At the 2000 mark, it *really* makes its presence known - my co-pilot described it as similar to feeling the kickdown in an automatic, but without the eventual upshift. To give you some idea of how much is available, I missed reverse a couple of times while backing out of parking spaces and got sixth instead. Even on mild inclines with clutching and accelerator action set to match pulling out in reverse, it went directly forward without chugging or stalling.
Which brings us on to the gearbox. Dear God, I *LOVE* this transmission. The clutch is very well-weighted and gives a good sense of where clutch slip is in relation to motion and engine speed. Change quality is great; the throw's neither too long or too short, and you get a good, positive engagement on each gear that feels very rewarding. Ratios are very well-spaced, but there's a noticeable gap between third and fourth - nothing fatal, but it caught me out a couple of times until I got used to it. You can drive this thing around town using only second, fifth, and sixth gears, but it was so enjoyable to use that I kept shifting through them anyway. The only item I can really pick on in the tranny department is that it could use either a seventh gear or overdrive on fifth and sixth for highway use - RPMs start getting a bit high over 60mph in sixth.
After lunch at Hollister OHV, we only had about half-an-hour to play with it on the trails; having to get back to LA before 7pm, time was limited. However, it had been raining for the past couple of days so there was plenty of mud to go around.
Keeping tire pressures at street level throughout, we started off in 2WD to see how it would cope. As expected, it did very well until we came to one hill that was very slick, steep, and fairly deeply-rutted. Slithered back down and tried 4PT: nearly made it to the top, but ended up spinning all four wheels on a slick stretch; the vehicle was also notably harder to keep in a straight line on this surface. Backed down once more and went into 4LO. Made it to the top in one shot using only fifth gear. There was still a lot of wiggle and slide in 4LO, though. At the bottom of the hill again, we flipped on the rear locker and made another shot at it: better, but still snaky. With both lockers on it was a no-brainer, still only using fifth to get up it. So the t-case and lockers definitely work... But there are a couple of things that could've made them better.
The 4:1 low range is great for crawling, but it is too low in some situations. We were trying at one point to plough through a roughly two-foot-deep mudpit when the massive torque at the wheels (even in sixth gear) was just too much for the conditions and we started bogging down. 4PT would've worked just fine had we been able to use the lockers, but without a fairly simple switch modification you can't do it from the factory. The 4:1 ratio can also be a pain to live with when you want neither as much reduction or torque as 4LO gives - even in sixth, 4LO is *extremely* low-geared, and while you can drive around from rest with no problems like this, it would've been nice to have a 4MED option that gave the classic 2.72:1 ratio as well (or, again, a seventh gear or overdrive on the top two).
One note about the factory Goodyears it was shod with: they didn't appear to do the greatest job of cleaning the treads. Granted, the rains were keeping *everything* muddy so they were still going to pick up some mud on even flat, packed surfaces - but when we took a short excursion into a rock garden to see what they would do in there, there was surprisingly little mud being flung off of them. The suspension sure worked great, though, flexing well and getting over some pretty nasty boulders exactly as one would expect.
Out of time for playing around, we started south for the 175 freeway miles back to LA. Speeds ranged between 50 and 75mph (remember, we were following a much less powerful vehicle all the way) with elevation changes from 600 to 4144 feet at the Tejon Pass. On-road manners were excellent, even in high sidewinds. Interior noise was *much* reduced over previous TJs I'd driven - it was actually very surprising exactly how quiet it was, being only slightly above than in my 2000 XJ. The tires coped well on the road, and were also surprisingly quiet. There was no real flapping or wind noise from the soft-top except in headwinds, where the gusting sound from the top of the windshield would let you know you were running into one. Not one drop of rain got in, and neither of us detected any stray breezes making it in. And there was plenty of power for all freeway situations, but that gearbox really does need one more ratio for crusing.
Overall, I came away far more impressed with it after living with it for a day. The only serious complaint I have is with the front seats (the rear bench had been removed to make room for cargo): both the driver and passenger complained that there was a bar running at about one-third of the way up the lower back that got *really* uncomfortable after about 50 miles or so. Manual height adjustment on at least the driver's seat would've been nice, too - at 5'9", I wasn't exactly peering over the steering wheel, but visibility off-road over the hood and fenders wasn't as good as I would've liked. Yeah, you could probably shim it up an inch or two, but if I were letting a friend of mine who's 6'6" tall drive, the seats would have to be pulled to remove the shims.
So... Would I buy one in a couple of years as an XJ replacement? Maybe. It's an overall excellent vehicle, and Jeep should be damned proud of what they've accomplished with it. Cargo space seems to be less than in an XJ with the seats down due to the intrusive rear wheelarch sections, but we still lugged acres of stuff in it. Fuel economy seemed to hover right around a fairly constant 16mpg even in mixed driving, so wasn't too bad overall.
If I couldn't wait a couple of years for the upcoming TK and needed a replacement RIGHT NOW, it'd be a good bet - but for an XJ owner with some time to kill, it might be worth waiting for the TK and comparing the two. Having said that, if someone put the keys to a Rubicon Unlimited in my hand right now there's absolutely no way I'd refuse their generosity
Some specs on the vehicle: it was a Chrysler press fleet vehicle (one of my companions is the US correspondent for a motoring magazine in Korea), so was bone-stock with around 3500 miles on the clock on day one. Tires were the factory 245/75R16 Goodyear MT/Rs; the only real options it had were cruise control and the compass mirror, and ours was a soft-top.
Days one and two were spent in the driver's seat of the Mehari, covering around 800 miles. Day three was a full-day driver swap and I got behind the wheel of the Ruby. Since we've had umpteen-billion threads on the subject of them as a possible future XJ replacement, it seemed worthwhile to share some of the driving impressions from living with it for a day as opposed to the ten-minute test-drive at the dealership I had previously.
The morning half was from King City to Hollister OHV for lunch. This was almost entirely a back road route: lots of small fords, alternating pavement / rough road / no pavement stretches, running for around 160 miles. Not a real test of its off-road capabilities, but it did give a chance to get a feel for how it performed in the twisty stuff with two people and about 400lbs. of cargo on-board.
As it turns out, the answer is 'surprisingly well'. Cornering ability isn't as good as an XJ, but definitely better than a regular TJ. The steering's pretty accurate compared to other TJs I've driven, and gives a good sense of where the wheels are pointed without being over-assisted. Brakes are excellent; even without ABS the four-wheel discs stop smartly, aided by a massive booster. Couldn't get them to fade one bit on the downhills, and braking effort seemed equal at all corners.
Torque delivery is impressive: though not as high below about 1700RPM, between 1700 and 2000RPM you can feel it start to pick up. At the 2000 mark, it *really* makes its presence known - my co-pilot described it as similar to feeling the kickdown in an automatic, but without the eventual upshift. To give you some idea of how much is available, I missed reverse a couple of times while backing out of parking spaces and got sixth instead. Even on mild inclines with clutching and accelerator action set to match pulling out in reverse, it went directly forward without chugging or stalling.
Which brings us on to the gearbox. Dear God, I *LOVE* this transmission. The clutch is very well-weighted and gives a good sense of where clutch slip is in relation to motion and engine speed. Change quality is great; the throw's neither too long or too short, and you get a good, positive engagement on each gear that feels very rewarding. Ratios are very well-spaced, but there's a noticeable gap between third and fourth - nothing fatal, but it caught me out a couple of times until I got used to it. You can drive this thing around town using only second, fifth, and sixth gears, but it was so enjoyable to use that I kept shifting through them anyway. The only item I can really pick on in the tranny department is that it could use either a seventh gear or overdrive on fifth and sixth for highway use - RPMs start getting a bit high over 60mph in sixth.
After lunch at Hollister OHV, we only had about half-an-hour to play with it on the trails; having to get back to LA before 7pm, time was limited. However, it had been raining for the past couple of days so there was plenty of mud to go around.
Keeping tire pressures at street level throughout, we started off in 2WD to see how it would cope. As expected, it did very well until we came to one hill that was very slick, steep, and fairly deeply-rutted. Slithered back down and tried 4PT: nearly made it to the top, but ended up spinning all four wheels on a slick stretch; the vehicle was also notably harder to keep in a straight line on this surface. Backed down once more and went into 4LO. Made it to the top in one shot using only fifth gear. There was still a lot of wiggle and slide in 4LO, though. At the bottom of the hill again, we flipped on the rear locker and made another shot at it: better, but still snaky. With both lockers on it was a no-brainer, still only using fifth to get up it. So the t-case and lockers definitely work... But there are a couple of things that could've made them better.
The 4:1 low range is great for crawling, but it is too low in some situations. We were trying at one point to plough through a roughly two-foot-deep mudpit when the massive torque at the wheels (even in sixth gear) was just too much for the conditions and we started bogging down. 4PT would've worked just fine had we been able to use the lockers, but without a fairly simple switch modification you can't do it from the factory. The 4:1 ratio can also be a pain to live with when you want neither as much reduction or torque as 4LO gives - even in sixth, 4LO is *extremely* low-geared, and while you can drive around from rest with no problems like this, it would've been nice to have a 4MED option that gave the classic 2.72:1 ratio as well (or, again, a seventh gear or overdrive on the top two).
One note about the factory Goodyears it was shod with: they didn't appear to do the greatest job of cleaning the treads. Granted, the rains were keeping *everything* muddy so they were still going to pick up some mud on even flat, packed surfaces - but when we took a short excursion into a rock garden to see what they would do in there, there was surprisingly little mud being flung off of them. The suspension sure worked great, though, flexing well and getting over some pretty nasty boulders exactly as one would expect.
Out of time for playing around, we started south for the 175 freeway miles back to LA. Speeds ranged between 50 and 75mph (remember, we were following a much less powerful vehicle all the way) with elevation changes from 600 to 4144 feet at the Tejon Pass. On-road manners were excellent, even in high sidewinds. Interior noise was *much* reduced over previous TJs I'd driven - it was actually very surprising exactly how quiet it was, being only slightly above than in my 2000 XJ. The tires coped well on the road, and were also surprisingly quiet. There was no real flapping or wind noise from the soft-top except in headwinds, where the gusting sound from the top of the windshield would let you know you were running into one. Not one drop of rain got in, and neither of us detected any stray breezes making it in. And there was plenty of power for all freeway situations, but that gearbox really does need one more ratio for crusing.
Overall, I came away far more impressed with it after living with it for a day. The only serious complaint I have is with the front seats (the rear bench had been removed to make room for cargo): both the driver and passenger complained that there was a bar running at about one-third of the way up the lower back that got *really* uncomfortable after about 50 miles or so. Manual height adjustment on at least the driver's seat would've been nice, too - at 5'9", I wasn't exactly peering over the steering wheel, but visibility off-road over the hood and fenders wasn't as good as I would've liked. Yeah, you could probably shim it up an inch or two, but if I were letting a friend of mine who's 6'6" tall drive, the seats would have to be pulled to remove the shims.
So... Would I buy one in a couple of years as an XJ replacement? Maybe. It's an overall excellent vehicle, and Jeep should be damned proud of what they've accomplished with it. Cargo space seems to be less than in an XJ with the seats down due to the intrusive rear wheelarch sections, but we still lugged acres of stuff in it. Fuel economy seemed to hover right around a fairly constant 16mpg even in mixed driving, so wasn't too bad overall.
If I couldn't wait a couple of years for the upcoming TK and needed a replacement RIGHT NOW, it'd be a good bet - but for an XJ owner with some time to kill, it might be worth waiting for the TK and comparing the two. Having said that, if someone put the keys to a Rubicon Unlimited in my hand right now there's absolutely no way I'd refuse their generosity
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