Wrangler, an American off-road icon, reminded me of something I really wouldn’t expect – week with Mercedes-AMG GLA 45 Two years ago. It is a similar case of a car, which annoys a person out of the specific situation for which it was created. At GLA it was a winding road, at Wrangler there were places where the roads do not lead. But in turn.
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The descendant of the ancient Willys, who motorized the US military in several wars many years ago, is not playing for anything. It doesn’t ride the retro wave, although it may look like it – its design is simply an evolution of an ancient utilitarian approximator.
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Army Willys are interesting veterans today. This piece served during the war in Italy, now it is renovated.
Over time, only the radiator grille with seven vertical holes crystallized, the hallmark of all current jeeps, but the shape of the grille, the round lights and the square, flat front fenders remain more or less the same.
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It also increased, the five-door version appeared in the offer of the American carmaker only in 2004, and made it more comfortable. Although not much, as I find out during the first few kilometers behind his wheel.
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In 2020, even an orthodox off-road can no longer do without air conditioning, a large display and electric windows.
Photo: Petr Hloušek, Právo
The seat is a bit hard by American standards, the center console pushes into the right knee, there is no support for the left foot – and it is still a bit hampered by the fabric cuff of the cables leading to the door. These can be removed and the cables are routed in this way for easier removal of the door.
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The interior has its specifics
Notice the window controls on the center console. Their location is not wrong, because all windows can be controlled by the passenger, but it is automatic only to slide the front windows down, when pulling up you have to hold the sensor. That’s what Mopary did – as Chrysler products call them, whatever their name may be or in alliance with anyone – twenty years ago.
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And the European customer has to get used to the control of the wipers, where he has to go through all stages of the cycler for continuous operation, or the fact that the central switching on of the interior lights is associated with dimming the dashboard backlight and both displays. This is how the Mopars had been at least thirty years ago. But it works well, so why change it.
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The central display shows the water temperature, engine oil, transmission oil, battery voltage and engine oil pressure. And all the indicators move according to how and where you go.
Photo: Jiří Landa
The displays are worth a special mention. It offers a huge amount of information in the instrument panel and is very widely configurable. You can edit the central one with infotainment almost like the home screen of a smartphone and also view a lot of data about the car. Here, other car manufacturers could – no, they should – learn.
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When I combine the specifics with the poor space on the front seats and in the trunk – but there is quite a lot of space on the rear bench – it surprises me that according to the dealer from whom we took over the car, someone buys a Wrangler as a practical family car.
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There is plenty of space on the back bench, but it’s a little worse with comfort.
Photo: Petr Hloušek, Právo
All the more so because the words “practical family car” breathe on me asphalt traffic with the most difficult terrain in the form of a sunken canal or a high retarder. The Wrangler really isn’t built for this.
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He is not in his skin on the asphalt
In fact, I dare say that in the Rubicon version, it is directly unsuitable for something like this. Just look at the off-road tires, from which slight vibrations pass through the whole car as I walk as the blocks hit a hard surface. Fortunately, the vibration disappears quickly when I add gas; from some 40-50 km / h they are replaced by the drone characteristic of this type of footwear.
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Off-road tires are suitable for off-road, not asphalt. Who would have said.
Photo: Petr Hloušek, Právo
The photographer says that he drove the wrangler around the Czech motorway limit. I don’t go over 110 km / h. Not that the 270k supercharged two-liter under the hood has a problem, it has enough power and the average consumption of 11.4 l / 100 km, which I see at the end of the test week, is favorable. But I want to save a little fuel and such a speed also seems to me just how the car behaves on asphalt.
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The Wrangler is built like a classic offroad, ie on a ladder frame with a rear rigid axle – and behaves accordingly on the road. It shakes at every inequality, but compared to many other “frames” it quickly aligns again. And I still have to move the steering wheel a bit to stay on the road in a straight line.
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Forest fairy in its natural habitat.
Photo: Petr Hloušek, Právo
It is clear that this car takes asphalt only as an unpleasant but necessary breaks between off-road driving. Some buttons in the interior, after all, say quite clearly where this car should drive – you can lock the front and rear differential and even disengage the front stabilizer.
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He rules in the field
As soon as I enter the off-road complex in Vřesová, I use the lever to activate all-wheel drive; so far “open”, without inter-axle differential lock. That’s enough for a slightly muddy path uphill to the camp.
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A moment later, however, the shutter and reduction gear come into play, shifted by the same lever – and it really is a physical lever in which you feel how and when your teeth fit together. Or that they don’t want to fit in at all. In particular, shifting or disabling the reduction is not entirely trivial; if I’m on the brake pedal, it basically doesn’t work, and I have to shift the neutral to the transmission selector and let the car move freely to get the transmission to do what I want it to do.
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The transmission selector is electronic, but it remains where you move it. As well as the differential lock buttons and the front stabilizer disengagement. The transmission control lever, on the other hand, is mechanical and wants to think about what and how you do.
Photo: Petr Hloušek, Právo
The disconnection of the front stabilizer and the axle differential locks are already controlled completely electronically, so just press the button and wait a while until the icon on the display between the alarms stops flashing. Sometimes it takes quite a long time, sometimes it’s a quickie – again depending on how the teeth settle.
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Disconnecting the stabilizer means much more comfort when driving off-road, as the front wheels can move independently of each other in their suspension. Otherwise, the rear differential lock was sufficient for most situations; you rarely use the front one, because you don’t want to turn the car much with it, but use it smartly and it will stop you really little. I used everything Rubicon offers, including a few towing hooks to help lost colleagues.
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The reversing camera is suitable not only when you approach a guy with the eye of a tow rope in his hand.
Photo: Jiří Landa
The Wrangler doesn’t need any driving modes, it’s still his own. But electronics is there, of course; in addition to the obligatory one, it is worth punching out the assistant for descending steep hills. After one km / h, I choose the speed I want to drive down with the gearbox selector moved to the position for manual shifting. And it works great even in very demanding sections.
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Errors are only in the details
In the field, the rear bumper, which is not exactly cleverly solved, is a problem that is a piece of plastic under the registration plate and is relatively easy to come into contact with the ground. Similarly, the plastic under the front bumper is shaped underneath to hold mud in it. So that’s a problem only in the dishwasher, when you clean the car on the way from the off-road area from below, but I would change both bumpers better on my Wrangler Rubicon first.
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Returning to the mention of the sharp Mercedes GLA, I enjoy the “crow” the more I drive it in the field, and vice versa. She is angry on the road, but in the field she lacks basically nothing one could need.
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He just needs other bumpers. The rest was successful.
Photo: Petr Hloušek, Právo
So I can imagine her very well in my own garage; it could only endanger her Mitsubishi L200 Rock Proof, however, this is an additional modification and although I like pickups very much, I must admit that the length of the body is a significant limitation.
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I would also rather take the Wrangler in a shorter two-door variant, the passability of which will be even better. And I wonder if I want a tent on the roof, or a garden with fuel and a second, set of road tires. Because I really wouldn’t want to go to Romania on “logs”.
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| Jeep Wrangler JL Unlimited Rubicon | |
| Motor: | 1995 ccm, in-line four-cylinder petrol engine, turbo |
| Highest performance: | 200 kW (272 hp) at 5250 rpm |
| Highest torque: | 400 Nm at 3000 rpm |
| Transmission: | eight – speed automatic |
| Acceleration to 100 km / h: | 8,9 s |
| Top speed: | 159 km / h |
| Operating / maximum weight: | 2103/2630 kg |
| Combined consumption: | 10 l / 100 km |
| Length x WIDTH X HEIGHT: | 4882 x 1894 x 1848 mm |
| Cabbage tree: | permanent rear axle drive, attachable front axle, reduction, center, rear and front differential lock |
| Basic / maximum luggage volume: | 548/1059 l |
| Price of the basic version with VAT: | 1 310 900 Kč (Wrangler JL Unlimited Sport 2,2 CRDi 200k 8A/T) |
| Basic price of the tested version with VAT: | CZK 1,518,900 |
| Price of the tested car: | CZK 1,644,700 |
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