One of the benefits of owning a four wheel drive, as well as road testing them, is the ability to have a control vehicle.
This means I can run my off-roader on a track, checking for entry, exit, ramp over angles as well as clearance, wheel travel, engine braking and general rock-hopping ability.
My control vehicle is a bit of a dinosaur, a 1991 Ford Maverick 4.2 litre diesel, better known as a re-badged GQ Nissan Patrol. It is not modified so presents a good control vehicle on which to guage the performance of genuine off-roaders presented by the car manufacturers.
The GQ Patrol also sets the bar fairly high in most off-road aspects. Our test car was the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, the four door variant of the popular Wrangler, and fitted with a 2.8 litre CRD diesel engine mated to a five speed auto transmission.
Last year Jeep undertook a minor face lift of the Unlimited and released it with more standard features. These included a tyre pressure warning lamp which makes a lot of sense in an off-roader. There's now 17 inch alloys across the range, the auto 2.8 litre CRD now has a whopping 460 Nm of torque, up from 410 Nm, which remains the same in the manual variants.
There's a new axle ratio of 3.73:1 in the auto, replacing the former 4.10. In addition the Unlimited also gets a bigger fuel tank, a healthy 85 litres. This was no doubt acknowledging the Unlimited's potential to join the mass of grey nomads on extended touring around Australia. Lesser additions include a new colour called `Detonator Yellow.' Our test car was a far more conservative silver.
When the all-new Wrangler was launched just over two years ago it came with the first four door, five seater option, the Unlimited. But, to this writer, the biggest leap forward was in the Wrangler's road holding and ride on the tarmac.
It was a quantum leap forward and left the vague handling behind. At the same time Wrangler appeared to have lost none of its prodigious off-road ability.
Wrangler Unlimited certainly has a better ride quality than the two door, which you'd expect, having a longer wheelbase.
But, it's still not quite as sexy as the two-door drop top. The vehicles fit into different markets: The traditional Wrangler is still a choice for younger, active people. It's a sports/recreational vehicle. What we have noticed with the four door is that it's more of a family vehicle. And, we noticed a number of professionals such as real estate agents enjoying it's delights.
It would certainly fill the bill on country properties. As an around-towner we found the Unlimited easy to park, with adequate acceleration off the mark. Couple of quirky points. The doors unhinge, so there's just a strap holding them. That's okay until go to alight on a hill and the doors don't stay open. Secondly, the doors add greatly to the width of the B-Pillar which can give the driver a large blind spot on the passenger side.
The Wrangler will always be different, owing to its adventurous potential. Jeep owners even acknowledge this with their odd stickers: `It's a Jeep thing. You wouldn't understand.' Jeep plays heavily on it's heritage, and fair enough. If you've got it, flaunt it.
Wrangler is the real face of Jeep and as such has a duty to be able to perform off-road, unlike the several soft-roaders also produced by Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge.
Along came D-Day when we take the Unlimited on our test track.
The first impression is that the Unlimited is more at home on the rough stuff than the tar. It's certainly more comfortable for passengers.
Secondly, and not so good, is the engine braking. Vehicles with auto transmissions are always more prone to `run' than manuals, and the Unlimited was no different. So we needed to feather the brakes on steeper parts of the descent.
The old Maverick does the same job without touching the anchors. The only time we touched bottom was coming up a steep, short hop-up and it was minor. Coming back up the steep, deeply rutted and rock-strewn track the Jeep was simply magnificent. Okay, the auto shifter makes it easy.
But still, we rock hopped easily for a couple of hundred metres, not one clunk underneath, plenty of wheel travel soaking up the terrain and leading to no loss of traction. In fact the ride was less harsh and the engine simply idled as the 17inch wheels clawed their way over loose rocks.
Jeep Wrangler Unlimited comes with Jeep's Command Trac 4WD system, Power windows, CD player and MP3, remote keyless entry, six speaker CD system and radio.
Fuel consumption should be, depending on driving conditions and driver input, around 10 litres/100 km. It features ESP with ABS brakes and four wheel traction control, multi-stage dual airbags for driver and passenger with optional seat mounted side airbags.
Pricing:
Jeep Wrangler Unlimited:
3.8 litre petrol Sport V6 $35,990
2.8 litre diesel Sport CRD $39,990
3.8 litre Rubicon V6 $44,990
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