Jeep Wrangler

Few cars genuinely need no introduction. Pipe-smoking bearded types will say, “Oh, the Citroen DS needs no introduction,” when in fact it does because they don’t make them anymore and when you see one in The Fifth Element, it doesn’t have Citroen DS plastered down the side.

Everyone knows what a Jeep is and you don’t even need the model name Wrangler for anyone to know what you’re talking about.

The phrase, “I bought a Jeep,” tells someone something about you even if you’ve bought a Fiat 500X-in-drag Jeep Renegade, which you can gloss over because people think you’ve bought an actual Jeep.

In a sense, the other cars in the Jeep range are their own brand – nobody says Jeep Cherokee, they don’t need to. It’s an impressive feat of marketing and reputation.

And so we come to my week with the 2022 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. You know what that means without even looking at it, with just the detail of whether it’s a short or long wheelbase for your mind’s eye to conjure up the big beefy off-roader with extra go-anywhere gear. Which is exactly what it is.

Pricing and features

The Rubicon comes in two sizes and is based, obviously, on the iconic Wrangler. For $72,550 you can have the three-door short wheelbase version and for another $5900, the $78,450 five-door long wheelbase (both prices before on-road costs).

The price difference isn’t just based on the fact it’s bigger but it also spawns from the Wrangler Unlimited spec as opposed to the slightly more basic spec of the shortie.

You get 17-inch alloys, a nine-speaker Alpine-branded stereo, dual-zone climate control, reversing camera, keyless entry and start, adaptive cruise control, sat-nav, auto LED headlights, auto wipers, powered and heated door mirrors and a rear-mounted full-size spare.

Stellantis’ UConnect software makes an appearance on an 8.4-inch touchscreen, with USB Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as DAB+ digital radio. This system is getting a bit long in the tooth and the unsympathetic integration of CarPlay is visually jarring.

You can add a Sky One Touch package that swaps the removable hard top for a fabric retractable roof (and, bizarrely, body-coloured flared wheel arches) for $7735. The Premium Package and Trail Ready packages are each $3835.

For its three-star safety rating, the Jeep has just four airbags and they’re only for front passengers. It does have stability and anti-lock braking systems, forward collision warning, forward auto emergency braking (low speed), roll mitigation, reversing camera, blind-spot monitoring and reverse cross-traffic alert.

There are ten colours available with some endearingly silly names like Sting Grey and Snazzberry but only black is free and the rest will cost you $1175.

Comfort and space

No Wrangler is a miracle of packaging, it’s just not part of the USP. The five-door is, however, at least reasonably spacious once you’ve posted yourself through the aperture uncovered by the exposed-hinge doors, whether you’ve opened them or removed them.

Car journalists make a big deal of configurable interiors, but this one is not exactly a sliding seat van. When you’re done configuring, the line is blurred between exterior and interior.

As I’ve already mentioned, the doors come off, as does the roof and rear section to reveal the entire interior. Occupants are protected by an exposed, in-built roll cage, so if you do go over, there is something to stop your head from meeting your knees or the ground at speed.

Once everything is off, you’re as close to nature as you’ll get in any road-going vehicle, although I suspect being on-road with the doors off probably isn’t high on too many people’s list.

It would certainly make for an amusing romp off-road if you don’t mind getting dirty/wet/dealing with the idea you have no doors on. We didn’t take the doors off for the photos or any part of this test because it’s a fairly involved process.

Having said that, the boot features an extremely clever storage solution for the bolts so they don’t go missing.

The cabin is pretty basic as far as materials go and can be a bit of a struggle to enter. Once you’re in the rear seat, you’ll notice it’s very upright and of course very high. The windows are straight up and down, though, maintaining that 1940s vibe.

This car is very much in “hose out” spec, with rubber floor mats. It’s properly rugged in here but you do get nets to stop things flying around, USB ports and a 230-volt power supply for lower-powered (up to 150W) devices. You can get three across because the transmission tunnel is tiny, but the seats themselves aren’t particularly comfortable.

The backrests are overstuffed like someone went mad with lumbar support but the cushions are flat. The gigantic grab handles are therefore most welcome.

One of many ergonomic failures in the car – in part necessitated by the removable doors – is the placement of the electric window switches, practically on the floor for rear-seat passengers and in the centre stack for front-seat passengers.

Moving to the front, the seats are more comfortable, which is welcome and for the driver, you’ll enjoy a big thick-rimmed steering wheel. There are buttons everywhere, some of which are down to the Rubicon’s go-anywhere gear but the fairly ordinary U-Connect multimedia system soldiers on in a small screen set into the vertical cliff-face of the dashboard, to which you might feel quite close.

Storage is limited, with a small bin under the armrest and a slot for your phone under the climate controls. Pleasingly, the USB port is covered by a plastic flap which is quite thoughtful.

That’s the weird thing about this car – lots of thoughtful touches to offset the less-than-thoughtful or, perhaps more accurately, necessarily unpleasant touches.

On the road

As if the basic Wrangler wasn’t off-road capable enough, the Rubicon features a hefty technical package to render your planned Simpson Desert/Kakadu/Cape York trips little more than a jaunt.

Starting with 32-inch BFGoodrich off-road tyres, you have what Jeep calls a Rock-Trac 4x4 system with a 4:1 transfer case and a  77.2:1 crawl ratio. Until I experienced rock crawling for myself I had no idea if that was a good thing and it turns out, it is.

The front sway bar can be disconnected to allow for freer wheel articulation, the front and rear axles are heavy-duty Dana units and to keep things reasonably protected underneath the car, there are chunky rock sliders.

It’s quite a lot. Does all of this make for a good on-road experience? I’ve thought carefully about this and the answer is no. But with a heavy caveat that will confuse and delight you.

Before the caveat, let me explain why it’s not great on road. The steering is extremely vague and you have to keep steering at all times to stop wandering off the road. And we’re not talking small corrections like a hyperactive hot hatch on a bumpy road, I’m talking big “Donald Trump pretending to drive a truck” or “take control of The Beast” movements.

The BFGoodrich tyres make a huge amount of noise on tarmac and the noise rises the faster you go. Other noises join in, with wind noise from the square-rigged body shell and the giant mirrors really pushing up the levels. The uninsulated hardtop doesn’t help here. Which also makes the Wrangler very cold or very hot and not much in between.

On the upside, the 3.2-litre Pentastar V6 is up to the challenge with 206kW and 347Nm, driving all the part-time four-wheel-drive system via an eight-speed automatic transmission. The transmission loves a take-off and makes it feel faster than it probably is. Beside the shifter is a selector for 4HAuto, 4H, 4L and of course two-wheel drive to save some fuel.

Which you will probably want to do because, despite a 10.3L/100km official figure, you won’t see that. I got 14.1L/100km in mostly city driving, but at least the long-wheelbase car has a larger tank for a longer range.

Here’s the caveat – you are not buying the Wrangler for lovely on-road manners. Many of us grew up watching this car’s progenitor bouncing around the Hollywood Hills pretending to be in Korea during the war of the early 1950s while eating an after-school snack.

Nobody in their right mind should buy this car thinking they’re getting a car that just looks like that; Jeep has kept the DNA of its military ancestor for good reason – it’s absolutely brilliant off-road.

I can’t tell you that personally because I had neither the opportunity nor the training to test that out, but this website is littered with examples of how incredibly capable is this car. And on top of that capability, it’s a lot of fun if you like that sort of thing.

Roof off on a nice day cruising about is probably a huge laugh, again not something I had the opportunity to test, but like its off-road capability, I wanted to. It does get under your skin, the Wrangler, despite all of its considerable shortcomings.

Ownership

Another endearingly silly name is the Jeep Wave commitment, referring to the two-fingered wave (no, not that one) Jeep owners allegedly give each other as they pass on the road.

This includes a five-year, 100,000km warranty, lifetime roadside assistance (dependent on you servicing at a Jeep dealership), the claim that the price on 17,000 parts has been reduced and a team of flying mechanics if something goes wrong and you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Fixed-price servicing applies for the first five intervals, which cost $399 each. That would be okay if the service intervals weren’t a little short at 12 months or 12,000km, but it’s also not extortion.

And, as I say, you’re not buying a Jeep for a simple ownership experience.

VERDICT

Like a lot of cars in the broader Stellantis empire, the Wrangler Rubicon isn’t a car you buy with your head unless your head spends the majority of its time bashing down rocky tracks or fording rivers.

That’s when this thing makes perfect sense and I’m itching to really get stuck into the mud-plugging capabilities. And I guess that’s what most owners feel too, even if they never get there.

It’s kind of like the nuclear deterrent or owning a V10 sedan that never leaves the city – it’s nice to know you’ve got it if the need arises.

All at once, it’s too serious to be a toy but too much fun to be anything else.

2022 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon specifications