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4xe vs Ecodiesel... Help me decide!

WXman

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The Gen 1 EcoDiesel wasn't ever sold in the U.S.

The Gen 2 EcoDiesel was, but had several common problems that gave them a bad reputation.

This is the Gen 3 EcoDiesel, and you know what they say... Third time is a charm.

After all that FCA went through during the emissions scandal, and all the recalls and repairs, there is NO WAY they'd release the Gen 3 engine unless they were really confident that this one is going to go the distance and be mostly trouble free. Maybe that's why they redesigned 80% of the engine and emissions system.

On the other hand, the 4xe is brand spanking new technology that is almost guaranteed to end up having bugs and issues over the next couple of years. It also saves zero money in operation, because the 17kWh battery only gets you 20 miles, which works out to about $0.10 to $0.12 per mile depending on local utility rates. Then you fall back on the gasoline engine which gets almost identical cost per mile. The diesel costs about $0.12 per mile, has a long range with no cords, weighs less, etc.

I'm not going to tell anybody what to buy. But I do know that MOST people buying EVs have no idea that current battery technology isn't good enough to actually save them money. Isn't going to happen. And, unless you pay a licensed electrician big money to install a 240v outlet in your garage at home you're going to get really tired of waiting 15 hours to charge the battery pack fully.
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Getmadboy

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The Gen 1 EcoDiesel wasn't ever sold in the U.S.

The Gen 2 EcoDiesel was, but had several common problems that gave them a bad reputation.

This is the Gen 3 EcoDiesel, and you know what they say... Third time is a charm.

After all that FCA went through during the emissions scandal, and all the recalls and repairs, there is NO WAY they'd release the Gen 3 engine unless they were really confident that this one is going to go the distance and be mostly trouble free. Maybe that's why they redesigned 80% of the engine and emissions system.

On the other hand, the 4xe is brand spanking new technology that is almost guaranteed to end up having bugs and issues over the next couple of years. It also saves zero money in operation, because the 17kWh battery only gets you 20 miles, which works out to about $0.10 to $0.12 per mile depending on local utility rates. Then you fall back on the gasoline engine which gets almost identical cost per mile. The diesel costs about $0.12 per mile, has a long range with no cords, weighs less, etc.

I'm not going to tell anybody what to buy. But I do know that MOST people buying EVs have no idea that current battery technology isn't good enough to actually save them money. Isn't going to happen. And, unless you pay a licensed electrician big money to install a 240v outlet in your garage at home you're going to get really tired of waiting 15 hours to charge the battery pack fully.
Another thing to consider is if you have solar panels on your house. If so, charging won’t cost you anything and if you have frequent short commutes, you could be driving for “free”. A lot of employers and shopping centers also offer free EV charging so there’s that incentive. I wouldn’t say one engine is better than the other in a vacuum, I think it’s dependent on how you plan on using the jeep
 

Echo4papa

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On the other hand, the 4xe is brand spanking new technology that is almost guaranteed to end up having bugs and issues over the next couple of years. It also saves zero money in operation, because the 17kWh battery only gets you 20 miles, which works out to about $0.10 to $0.12 per mile depending on local utility rates. Then you fall back on the gasoline engine which gets almost identical cost per mile. The diesel costs about $0.12 per mile, has a long range with no cords, weighs less, etc.

I'm not going to tell anybody what to buy. But I do know that MOST people buying EVs have no idea that current battery technology isn't good enough to actually save them money. Isn't going to happen. And, unless you pay a licensed electrician big money to install a 240v outlet in your garage at home you're going to get really tired of waiting 15 hours to charge the battery pack fully.

From experience, the 20 miles seems to be VERY conservative. In fact, now that I've had my 4xe for a few weeks, my full charge estimated range on battery is showing 31 miles. My work commute is from the bedroom to the other side of the house and all of my miles during the week are just around town. It's rare that I use the full charge on a given week day, but I'll have to put that range to the test one of these weekends.

As for getting a 240v outlet installed, I'm about to split off my dryer outlet and it's not going to cost anything more than the $80 for the splitter (plus the level 2 charger but you're buying that either way). No licensed electrician needed. Until that splitter gets delivered, the lengthy charge time isn't a big deal. I plug her in after dinner and if I have somewhere to go in the morning, she's either fully charged, or she's close enough.

I'm also 4 blocks from down town and there are multiple free charging stations that are usually open. I could easily make a habit of hitting them up regularly and not even charging on my own dime.

All of that being said, I didn't get the 4xe to save gas money/operating cost. I got it for the added power/torque and because after taking the tax credit into account I got a well optioned Jeep at a great price (not to mention a kick ass offer on my trade-in but that wasn't unique to the 4xe).

I got to take it off-road through some forest trails and sugar sand over the weekend. Doing that off the battery in quiet mode was interesting and gives you a better connection to your surroundings, not to mention better awareness. Some of those forest roads are kind of tight and as we came up on one turn, three kids came around from the other side, 2 on motorcycles and one on a 4-wheeler. I heard them coming so I had slowed down. They had no clue they were coming up on anyone.
 

aldo98229

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EcoDiesel owners love their engines, but overall it continues to produce too many negative posts. The amount of positives vs negatives is a mixed bag at best.

Issues with the V6 or the 2.0T themselves are very rare; whatever issues there are relate mostly to electrical problems. My guess is the same will apply to 4xe given that it uses the 2.0 and all the new added stuff is electrical.

With EcoDiesels, though, the problems are varied and often affect the engine itself. Usually a partial rebuilt or a complete swap are involved.

In the past, complete engine failures were happening as soon as the warranty ended. It is too soon to tell if those issues have been fixed on JL, but the ongoing string of problems don’t look too promising IMO.

Choosing a engine shouldn’t be like playing the lotto.
 
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StormTropper

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First post... please be gentle lol!

I have a 4xe on order but given the issues we are already seeing, and given that my local Jeep dealer is the worst, I'm pretty concerned. I'd be more willing to guinea pig it if that dealer hadn't have done such poor jobs on multiple occasions in the past or there were any other dealers within 100 miles. So here's the question: 4xe or should I change my Rubicon order over to the diesel? Because of rebates, markup and discounts, expected cost to run, oil change costs, DEF, KwH... the price between the two is effectively identical.

I plan to do a Dynatrac Endurosport 2" lift (or similar) along with 315/70r17's running some nice light KO2's so nothing wild but a consideration. For use, I do a few miles of daily around town plus another 10-15 miles of highway. Daily trips up and down forest roads on the washboard. 4xe makes a lot of sense for that use however, 3-4 times a year I do 1,500+ mile road trips that usually involve a few days of "overlanding" type off road that my Grand Cherokee's of the past struggled with which is what got me looking at JL's. Diesel wins there.

We've owned 3 different full electric cars so know all about the advantages and disadvantages of electric. We have also had 3 small diesels so know the pros and cons there. I despise EGR's but I don't want to get off topic there with discussions and political debate of the pros/cons of delete. What I will say is the previous ecodiesel really had some serious issues and I know some are passionately against them because of those issues but it seems like this latest generation is doing better. Granted, 1 year isn't a whole lot of use-case but there's not a whole lot of issues I can find that are unique to the diesel platform.

Anyone else out there in this same debate? Am I over-analyzing the issues on the 4xe? Are the new diesel's more reliable? Would love to hear other's thought process who are considering the same.

Thanks in advance!
I have experience with the Ecodiesel through a ram 1500 and imo unless you live in cali where they prevent you from doing ERG delete and all that you should definitely go with Ecodiesel. Your gonna have to dump like maybe 1.5k on a pedal commander, exhaust tune and EGR delete but it will be well worth it
 

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alksion

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I have experience with the Ecodiesel through a ram 1500 and imo unless you live in cali where they prevent you from doing ERG delete and all that you should definitely go with Ecodiesel. Your gonna have to dump like maybe 1.5k on a pedal commander, exhaust tune and EGR delete but it will be well worth it
Can you elaborate a little more on this? I want to go with the EcoDiesel but also live in California.
 

StormTropper

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Can you elaborate a little more on this? I want to go with the EcoDiesel but also live in California.
From what I heard in cali due to the emissions restrictions you can't to the EGR delete for long term maintenance of the engine, and then there are issues with what Cold air intakes you can out due to CARB, and the same with what kind of exhaust upgrades you can do while still passing emissions. If your from Cali I'd recommend the 3.6 or if you have the pocket for it the hemi that's coming out soon
 

alksion

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From what I heard in cali due to the emissions restrictions you can't to the EGR delete for long term maintenance of the engine, and then there are issues with what Cold air intakes you can out due to CARB, and the same with what kind of exhaust upgrades you can do while still passing emissions. If your from Cali I'd recommend the 3.6 or if you have the pocket for it the hemi that's coming out soon
The 5.7L HEMI or you referring to the 392?
 

alksion

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I think they are only doing the 392 ik not sure tho, if they are doing a 5.7 that should be good also
Yeah but I totaled my Mercedes. I really don’t want a fast car for now. If they did offer the 5.7 L I would go with that.
 

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Tank the Jeep

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I love my JLURD. I just posted this in another section but I just got back from a trip to the outer banks NC. 1400 miles and 29 mpg on 37s. That’s 29 mpg including Memorial Day beach traffic.
c39dd510-67ed-455d-ab79-97632ef8c6cb-jpeg.jpg

Plenty of power, goes anywhere, comfortable, and great economy. What more would you want.
 

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The Gen 2 EcoDiesel was, but had several common problems that gave them a bad reputation.
I had a Gen 2 in a WK2 Grand Cherokee. It was great. I put 90K+ on it without any issues. I wonder if the bad reputations are spread by people that never owned one.
 

WXman

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I had a Gen 2 in a WK2 Grand Cherokee. It was great. I put 90K+ on it without any issues. I wonder if the bad reputations are spread by people that never owned one.
I think the bad reputation came from the fact that FCA was doing warranty work on hundreds of Gen 2 EcoDiesel engines per month per actual reports that surfaced a few years ago and the failure percentage on them was considerably higher than any other engine they sold.
 

Tank the Jeep

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I think the bad reputation came from the fact that FCA was doing warranty work on hundreds of Gen 2 EcoDiesel engines per month per actual reports that surfaced a few years ago and the failure percentage on them was considerably higher than any other engine they sold.
So you are saying the bad reputations were spread by people reading reports. My experience is that it was a great engine. I won’t say that about the Mercedes 3.0 diesel in the 2007 Grand Cherokee. It was less than perfect.
 

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First post... please be gentle lol!

I have a 4xe on order but given the issues we are already seeing, and given that my local Jeep dealer is the worst, I'm pretty concerned. I'd be more willing to guinea pig it if that dealer hadn't have done such poor jobs on multiple occasions in the past or there were any other dealers within 100 miles. So here's the question: 4xe or should I change my Rubicon order over to the diesel? Because of rebates, markup and discounts, expected cost to run, oil change costs, DEF, KwH... the price between the two is effectively identical.

I plan to do a Dynatrac Endurosport 2" lift (or similar) along with 315/70r17's running some nice light KO2's so nothing wild but a consideration. For use, I do a few miles of daily around town plus another 10-15 miles of highway. Daily trips up and down forest roads on the washboard. 4xe makes a lot of sense for that use however, 3-4 times a year I do 1,500+ mile road trips that usually involve a few days of "overlanding" type off road that my Grand Cherokee's of the past struggled with which is what got me looking at JL's. Diesel wins there.

We've owned 3 different full electric cars so know all about the advantages and disadvantages of electric. We have also had 3 small diesels so know the pros and cons there. I despise EGR's but I don't want to get off topic there with discussions and political debate of the pros/cons of delete. What I will say is the previous ecodiesel really had some serious issues and I know some are passionately against them because of those issues but it seems like this latest generation is doing better. Granted, 1 year isn't a whole lot of use-case but there's not a whole lot of issues I can find that are unique to the diesel platform.

Anyone else out there in this same debate? Am I over-analyzing the issues on the 4xe? Are the new diesel's more reliable? Would love to hear other's thought process who are considering the same.

Thanks in advance!
My recommendation is the 4xe is good for daily driven jeep that sees shorter trips. For instance your daily commute is 30 or 45min max and has stop and go traffic. Your offroading is usually day trips and not week long overland trips. I do believe that this hybrid won't last 10y with what battery tech is today, but I'm no expert and could be wrong.

For diesel, I don't think they are good for people who have short commutes and daily drive it; especially if there is stop and go traffic in your daily drive. Diesel is great for long distance travel since the miles per tank are quite high once the engine is broken in. I don't mind DEF fluid, but the DEF tank is not in a great spot IMO on the wranglers. I don't know enough of EGR to truly know how bad it is, but my take is I think it is probably done better now than when these diesel changes were introduced a decade plus ago. I'd rather not have it, but I don't think it is quite as bad as everyone makes it out to be. What I know of diesels, it is the idle running and short engine runs that are killers for the diesels.

I have a diesel and love it. But it is mostly garage queen who gets driven on week long trips or the occasional commute in the winter or summer (naked). My commute is 40ish minutes and has next to no stop and go traffic. Worst I see is 5min of stop and go. I also tow a trailer since my jeep is full and has no room for camping gear.
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