Sponsored
OP
OP
HungryHound

HungryHound

Well-Known Member
First Name
Rick
Joined
Dec 24, 2020
Threads
17
Messages
1,301
Reaction score
2,776
Location
TN & FL
Vehicle(s)
1975 CJ-5, 1983 CJ-5, 1998 TJ, 2021 JLURe
I test drove a 4Xe yesterday: I was ready to be impressed; I wasn’t.

It felt heavy, stiff and unresponsive. Mating the 2.0T with the electric motor felt like a flat-footed couple trying to do the waltz.

I’m told that I should have test driven it in non-hybrid mode. Perhaps that’s true. Unfortunately, that would seem to defeat its purpose. In any event, there’s only so much one can try during a test drive.

The battery pack produces compromises inside. The rear seat is raised 2 inches, eating up rear headroom, and you end up with a theatre-like seating. There’s a huge 6-inch tall hump between the cargo floor and the folded seats, rendering sleeping inside impossible; and all storage space under the seat is gone.

I really wanted to like it. 4Xe seems to be the only Wrangler that is relatively plentiful around here at the moment. And the $7,500 tax credit is a nice bonus.

If I hadn’t owned a Wrangler before I’d probably liked it.

Just being honest.
Hybrid mode is OK, but you need to give the engine time to kick on when hwavy-footing it. You can put it in manual stick mode and the engine will kick on or when it's already running at highway speeds you get the full force of acceleration. Don't discount it without giving it a real test drive.
 
OP
OP
HungryHound

HungryHound

Well-Known Member
First Name
Rick
Joined
Dec 24, 2020
Threads
17
Messages
1,301
Reaction score
2,776
Location
TN & FL
Vehicle(s)
1975 CJ-5, 1983 CJ-5, 1998 TJ, 2021 JLURe
Nice informative write-up Rick! Looking forward to hearing more.

What trails are you planning to do in Moab?

-Steven
We planned to do several which are now engulfed in flames. Today we did Onion Creek all the way thru to Paradox Restaurant on the other side of John Brown Pass. Then we cut back toward Moab on Y-11 instead of taking the long way around ... again due to the fires in LaSal loop.
 

aldo98229

Well-Known Member
First Name
Aldo
Joined
Nov 16, 2019
Threads
86
Messages
11,019
Reaction score
27,682
Location
Bellingham, WA
Vehicle(s)
2023 Jeep Gladiator, 2018 Fiat 124 Spider
Occupation
Market Research
Vehicle Showcase
3
Hybrid mode is OK, but you need to give the engine time to kick on when hwavy-footing it. You can put it in manual stick mode and the engine will kick on or when it's already running at highway speeds you get the full force of acceleration. Don't discount it without giving it a real test drive.
That is just it. The salesman asks me to floor it to show me how much "grunt" it has. Instead of taking off, the Jeep hesitates between the two motors for a few seconds. Then when the computer finally decides that it needs the 2.0T to kick in, the turbo needs a few more seconds to spool up. To make it worse, the engine noise isn't the prettiest.

If the salesman hadn't been trying so hard to "impress" me, I would probably had liked it better.

By that point I lost all interest. Drove the rest of the way like an old lady.
 
OP
OP
HungryHound

HungryHound

Well-Known Member
First Name
Rick
Joined
Dec 24, 2020
Threads
17
Messages
1,301
Reaction score
2,776
Location
TN & FL
Vehicle(s)
1975 CJ-5, 1983 CJ-5, 1998 TJ, 2021 JLURe
That is just it. When I floored it, prompted by the salesman who wanted to show me how much grunt it had, the Jeep hesitated between the two motors for a couple of seconds. Then when it decided that it needed the 2.0T to kick in, the turbo needed a few more seconds to spool up. The engine noise wasn't the prettiest.

By that point, I lost all interest. I drove it like an old lady the rest of the way.
Well, I think you're missing out not giving it a second chance. Mine is very responsive when I put my foot into it. It will hesitate if you don't plant your foot to the floor since it wants to be frugal and not kill turtles and whales and such.😁 Doing 60mph at over 10,000 feet on a back highway in Texas, I hit the 98mph speed limiter passing a truck uphill before I got back over. My wife's Infinity Q-60 RS is the only thing I've driven that accelerates as fast at speed. Seriously, I wouldn't keep hounding you if I wasn't convinced that it's the best bang-for-the-buck Wrangker out there.

Right now, I'm sitting in a park in Moab under a shade tree drinking a cold beverage while getting a free charge from a public station. Planning tomorrow's offroad trip. It's really badass rock crawling in full electric. No wait for engine revving and no overshoot after clearing the obstacle.
 

Sponsored

aldo98229

Well-Known Member
First Name
Aldo
Joined
Nov 16, 2019
Threads
86
Messages
11,019
Reaction score
27,682
Location
Bellingham, WA
Vehicle(s)
2023 Jeep Gladiator, 2018 Fiat 124 Spider
Occupation
Market Research
Vehicle Showcase
3
Well, I think you're missing out not giving it a second chance. Mine is very responsive when I put my foot into it. It will hesitate if you don't plant your foot to the floor since it wants to be frugal and not kill turtles and whales and such.😁 Doing 60mph at over 10,000 feet on a back highway in Texas, I hit the 98mph speed limiter passing a truck uphill before I got back over. My wife's Infinity Q-60 RS is the only thing I've driven that accelerates as fast at speed. Seriously, I wouldn't keep hounding you if I wasn't convinced that it's the best bang-for-the-buck Wrangker out there.

Right now, I'm sitting in a park in Moab under a shade tree drinking a cold beverage while getting a free charge from a public station. Planning tomorrow's offroad trip. It's really badass rock crawling in full electric. No wait for engine revving and no overshoot after clearing the obstacle.
Given how painful it is to shop for a vehicle right now, with the little inventory, dealer markups, arrogant salespeople and all that, I don't want to have to go through that all over again.

Jeep blew its chance at giving me a good first impression.
 
OP
OP
HungryHound

HungryHound

Well-Known Member
First Name
Rick
Joined
Dec 24, 2020
Threads
17
Messages
1,301
Reaction score
2,776
Location
TN & FL
Vehicle(s)
1975 CJ-5, 1983 CJ-5, 1998 TJ, 2021 JLURe
Nah. Jeep blew its chance at giving me a first impression.

Besides, given how painful it is to shop for a vehicle right now, with the little inventory, dealer markups, arrogant salespeople and all that, I don't want to have to go through that all over again.
I wish you luck finding a vehicle that fits your needs and makes you happy. It's nice to see folks concerned with performance in a world where most people look at mpg first. This is my first new one in 23 years so I'm pretty excited.
 

RubiSc0tt

Well-Known Member
First Name
Scott
Joined
Jun 12, 2018
Threads
56
Messages
1,355
Reaction score
1,688
Location
Upstate NY
Vehicle(s)
2019 JLUR in Punk'n Orange
Build Thread
Link
Occupation
Turn Wrenches/ Write code
Excellent write up.
I thought I wanted a Nacho one, but now I want a red one.

Seriously though, I probably won't be getting rid of my '19 any time soon, but I'm real interested to see how the 4xe fares longer term. The benefits of all electric mode sound really intriguing and appealing for my use case. I've done the math and it still doesn't make sense to offload my Rubi for a 4xe given the current market prices (even with the amount I would net from selling my Jeep)- but I recheck pretty often.
 

Echo4papa

Well-Known Member
First Name
Scott
Joined
May 6, 2021
Threads
2
Messages
408
Reaction score
537
Location
Florida
Vehicle(s)
2021 Sahara 4xe
Occupation
Success Engineer
My personal experience when test driving the 4xe... the dealers don't know shit about them at this point. The sales guy, while semi knowledgeable about Jeeps in general (he could pass a multiple choice quiz with a solid "C" and knew his way around the options) he knew nothing about the 4xe specifically. In fact, our drive was the first time he had been in one.

I "tricked" it into kicking the ICE on (to test launching from a stand still) by putting it in eSave mode. Even though it will turn off the ICE in eSave mode when you come to a stop or a slow speed, it turned on the ICE as soon as I swapped the mode over. It will also do the same when moving into manual shifting mode. Once the ICE comes on, it won't shut off immediately so you can set it back to D before taking off and it will keep running.
 

michail

Well-Known Member
First Name
Michael
Joined
Apr 22, 2021
Threads
46
Messages
577
Reaction score
301
Location
Florida
Vehicle(s)
2021 Sahara 4xe
That is just it. The salesman asks me to floor it to show me how much "grunt" it has. Instead of taking off, the Jeep hesitates between the two motors for a few seconds. Then when the computer finally decides that it needs the 2.0T to kick in, the turbo needs a few more seconds to spool up. To make it worse, the engine noise isn't the prettiest.

If the salesman hadn't been trying so hard to "impress" me, I would probably had liked it better.

By that point I lost all interest. Drove the rest of the way like an old lady.
Another thing you may have felt is when the engine comes on, especially when cold and in electric mode, the engine may rev higher or stay on the same RPMs independent of speed. It can feel a little strange at first.

In normal hybrid operation you don't actually hear the engine that much. It only comes on at speed or when hard accelerating. By that time the tire and wind noise are louder. I often don't notice.

But if you want to launch, Manual mode, 4H Auto, Traction Control off. People are getting 5.5s 0 to 60.

Passing is crazy fast and responsive.
 

Sponsored

OP
OP
HungryHound

HungryHound

Well-Known Member
First Name
Rick
Joined
Dec 24, 2020
Threads
17
Messages
1,301
Reaction score
2,776
Location
TN & FL
Vehicle(s)
1975 CJ-5, 1983 CJ-5, 1998 TJ, 2021 JLURe
Another thing you may have felt is when the engine comes on, especially when cold and in electric mode, the engine may rev higher or stay on the same RPMs independent of speed. It can feel a little strange at first.

In normal hybrid operation you don't actually hear the engine that much. It only comes on at speed or when hard accelerating. By that time the tire and wind noise are louder. I often don't notice.

But if you want to launch, Manual mode, 4H Auto, Traction Control off. People are getting 5.5s 0 to 60.

Passing is crazy fast and responsive.
Yep. You gotta have the engine going. Then it GLH!
 

Windshieldfarmer

Well-Known Member
First Name
Randy
Joined
Feb 27, 2020
Threads
0
Messages
1,454
Reaction score
2,066
Location
Wichita, Ks
Vehicle(s)
2015 JKU, 2020 JlU on order
I test drove a 4Xe yesterday: I was ready to be impressed; I wasn’t.

It felt heavy, stiff and unresponsive. Mating the 2.0T with the electric motor felt like a flat-footed couple trying to do the waltz.

I’m told that I should have test driven it in non-hybrid mode. Perhaps that’s true. Unfortunately, that would seem to defeat its purpose. In any event, there’s only so much one can try during a test drive.

The battery pack produces compromises inside. The rear seat is raised 2 inches, eating up rear headroom, and you end up with a theatre-like seating. There’s a huge 6-inch tall hump between the cargo floor and the folded seats, rendering sleeping inside impossible; and all storage space under the seat is gone.

I really wanted to like it. 4Xe seems to be the only Wrangler that is relatively plentiful around here at the moment. And the $7,500 tax credit is a nice bonus.

If I hadn’t owned a Wrangler before I’d probably liked it.

Just being honest.
We’re you driving a Rubicon or Sahara. The final drive ratio in the Rubicon is lower than the Sahara, making it more responsive.
 

michail

Well-Known Member
First Name
Michael
Joined
Apr 22, 2021
Threads
46
Messages
577
Reaction score
301
Location
Florida
Vehicle(s)
2021 Sahara 4xe
We’re you driving a Rubicon or Sahara. The final drive ratio in the Rubicon is lower than the Sahara, making it more responsive.
I think his issue was initial hit. If you don't know what's going on, or how to set things, that first 1/2 second is unimpressive. If the salesperson said to punch it on the highway, he would have needed new underwear.

But, it's a jeep! Slow, controlled performance and torque is more important.
 

No IFS

Banned
Banned
Banned
Joined
Nov 13, 2019
Threads
10
Messages
1,167
Reaction score
2,306
Location
So Cal
Vehicle(s)
JL Rubicon
4xe definitely cheaper than 392 With the rebate on the one people don’t want to buy and the dealer mark up on the one that people do want to buy there’s 25 to 50K difference.
 

Ratiogear

Well-Known Member
First Name
Justin
Joined
Apr 15, 2021
Threads
1
Messages
243
Reaction score
434
Location
DFW
Vehicle(s)
2021 4xe Rubicon
I'm always astounded by people. Like you had to go to page 3 to get to threads last updated Thursday to post an insult on the 4xe?

So snappy.
Sponsored

 
 



Top