First drive report - highway only

[word302]

Well I finally got to test drive a pretty loaded jlu Rubi. Silver with black interior leather 8.4 radioauto. Hardtop. Man oh man after driving in my 08 Rubi with a 3.5 inch OME lift stock 410 gears bilstiens and 315 70 17 tires the jl felt like a jeep space ship designed by friendly aliens. It was like back to the future jeep style. The sales guy let me punch it and it takes off fast. I almost started that crazy hey this really fun insane laugh did I mention that mine is an 08 with170000 miles on it?

The steering from my perspective felt very tight and quick reacting. It was so smooth and so quiet on the freeway. Played with the radio and gauges that has some pretty impressive features that at first for an old guy like me seemed complicated but I quickly got the hang of it. I loved the pitch and roll mph. The start stop is pretty seamless. From what the sales guy said it monitors the engine temp and will start up on its own if the engine rises so sometimes while at a light it would stop the motor would get warmer and then it would start to bring things temp wise back down . I didn’t think to see what the actual temp was. It was fairly hot today probably in the 80s.


Put it in 4 low and crawled a few yards but when ants started to pass me I hit the maual plus minus shift and started to go through the gears ( while in 4 lo). The first gear is so low it’s hard to describe you almost can’t feel that your are moving. It wasn’t until I was in 4th that I felt like we were even over 10 mph. The shift to four low felt pretty solid maybe even stiff. Both shifters feel nice and beefy strong. The jeep had only 62 miles on it.


The key fob is fine

On the return to the dealership I tried to hook up my iPhone to se if I could get full sync. Got the phone up but couldn’t get google maps or Apple maps to come up. And couldn’t get topo usa on the screen either. But I also ran out of time.. in summary this thing rocks. I really really liked the transmission. So now I am questioning my decision to go manual. But I haven’t driven a manual YET

To say I have jeeep fever well that’s sorta like saying the Pacific is a nice little lake.

CarPlay is not wireless on the wrangler. You have to plug it in.

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[wanderer]

I did withthoriginal Apple cord. I was running out of time otherwise I am sure we would have figured it out. Plus we weren’t reading the instruction manual

 

[Smarrtazz]

Took my new JL for its first long drive last night. My JL is an Unlimited Sahara, loaded with everything but dual tops and tow package. Long story short, I'm thrilled and feel like a kid who just bought his first car with his own money

This was just a 2 hour highway run, but I did get caught in some crappy weather on the Malahat (google "Mahalat BC"). The Malahat is a nice coastal, highway that has quite a twisty climb and is a great test for overall drivability.

Handling - tucks into corners quite nicely, not quite as good as my old Landrover LR4 but pretty effortless and no absentmindedness on the straights like JK's I've driven. The weather turned to crap as I was climbing the Malahat, snow-ice-rain-wind, typical coastal mountain winter mess. Would have been nasty in 2WD and not consistently bad enough to use 4Hi but Selec-trac worked great.

Power and transmission - Very good, roars a bit when the RPMs are above 3K but accelerates well going up steep highway climbs. Tranny did a great job of shifting down for engine breaking going down hill. Never felt a lack of power.

Noise - Up to about 70kph its as good as my Landrover was, over 70kph its starts to get bad road/wind noise from the back. Think this might be the stock tires more than wind noise.

Comfort - I'm a big guy, 6' 4" - 300lbs, I was able to find a few different positions that were very comfortable. A little shy on shoulder room and the roll bar is a little closer than I would like but otherwise I fit Ok.

Headlights - The new LED headlights are awesome!

I hope to get out on some ugly, muddy, rutted logging roads this weekend to see how the suspension holds up.

Hope this quick writeup is useful to folks.

Thank you!

 

[Smarrtazz]

Well I finally got to test drive a pretty loaded jlu Rubi. Silver with black interior leather 8.4 radioauto. Hardtop. Man oh man after driving in my 08 Rubi with a 3.5 inch OME lift stock 410 gears bilstiens and 315 70 17 tires the jl felt like a jeep space ship designed by friendly aliens. It was like back to the future jeep style. The sales guy let me punch it and it takes off fast. I almost started that crazy hey this really fun insane laugh did I mention that mine is an 08 with170000 miles on it?

The steering from my perspective felt very tight and quick reacting. It was so smooth and so quiet on the freeway. Played with the radio and gauges that has some pretty impressive features that at first for an old guy like me seemed complicated but I quickly got the hang of it. I loved the pitch and roll mph. The start stop is pretty seamless. From what the sales guy said it monitors the engine temp and will start up on its own if the engine rises so sometimes while at a light it would stop the motor would get warmer and then it would start to bring things temp wise back down . I didn’t think to see what the actual temp was. It was fairly hot today probably in the 80s.


Put it in 4 low and crawled a few yards but when ants started to pass me I hit the maual plus minus shift and started to go through the gears ( while in 4 lo). The first gear is so low it’s hard to describe you almost can’t feel that your are moving. It wasn’t until I was in 4th that I felt like we were even over 10 mph. The shift to four low felt pretty solid maybe even stiff. Both shifters feel nice and beefy strong. The jeep had only 62 miles on it.


The key fob is fine

On the return to the dealership I tried to hook up my iPhone to se if I could get full sync. Got the phone up but couldn’t get google maps or Apple maps to come up. And couldn’t get topo usa on the screen either. But I also ran out of time.. in summary this thing rocks. I really really liked the transmission. So now I am questioning my decision to go manual. But I haven’t driven a manual YET

To say I have jeeep fever well that’s sorta like saying the Pacific is a nice little lake.

 

[JAW]

Check your tire pressure, every time I took JK for service they pumped my ko'2s way up! My new Rubicon, they were also too high. Cold pressure on tires is 37 (Per the door jam,) Mine were up at 42 cold, took some air off and it's better!

I'm new to this. What tire pressure do you run for just normal driving around town?

 

[DanW]

I've got about a 6.5 hour drive next Friday night up to Manistee, Michigan, so I'll have a nice highway report soon afterward. Can't wait to stretch the legs on this thing!

 

[Dynomite1371]

I'm new to this. What tire pressure do you run for just normal driving around town?

Cold pressure in KO2 is 37.( Per the JL door jam) , so moving a couple lbs either way is personal preference. I'm running 37 cold now , once heated up in cold conditions they max out at 39/40/41. Summer I may go down to 35, we'll see…

 

[JAW]

Cold pressure in KO2 is 37.( Per the JL door jam) , so moving a couple lbs either way is personal preference. I'm running 37 cold now , once heated up in cold conditions they max out at 39/40/41. Summer I may go down to 35, we'll see…

Make sense. Dealer set mine at 37, seems fine to me. Some people say they run at 30 and that's where they should be. Long flights get me researching and over evaluating dumb stuff...

 

[Tfom]

This will be my first Jeep, and I think I've decided I'm going to stick with the tried and true V6 as I'm not keen on having more things that can break on an engine. That said, in Phoenix, we regularly drive up to the mountains to escape the summer heat. Highway speeds are 65-75 mph with a lot of long uphill slogs. I won't be able to test this when I test drive, but it seems there should be adequate power to hold speed up these hills. Can anyone fill me in just so I know? I have to do something while I wait... And wait...

 

[DanW]

This will be my first Jeep, and I think I've decided I'm going to stick with the tried and true V6 as I'm not keen on having more things that can break on an engine. That said, in Phoenix, we regularly drive up to the mountains to escape the summer heat. Highway speeds are 65-75 mph with a lot of long uphill slogs. I won't be able to test this when I test drive, but it seems there should be adequate power to hold speed up these hills. Can anyone fill me in just so I know? I have to do something while I wait... And wait...

It'll have plenty of power, whether with the 8 speed or 6.

 

[Benjohn15]

Great question, yes it has the Anti-Spin Diff, but no it doesn't have the upgraded tires or wheels. Slightly disappointed about that but this isn't the first time I've seen this happen on US vs Canada car configurations.

It has the H/T tires which are optimistically rated as M&S. The dealer didn't know why it wasn't fitted with the A/T tires and the nicer rims. Might be a Canadian thing.

Did quite a long drive today on the Pacific Highway (for those that don't know the area read that as partially paved mountain logging road) and I can honestly say I detest the tires and I am in the process of choosing replacements. Not a big deal since I was planning on doing that anyways but still they could have put something decent on. They are noisy and I learned today, crap on gravel, snow and ice.

Thinking about putting 33" Nitto Ridge Grapplers on it with 17" rims.

The Sahara did amazing though. I was pretty worried I wouldn't be able to handle the ride but it handles these roads almost as well as my LR4 did.

Only time I really noticed a difference between the Sahara and my LR4 was climbing up a goat trail with loose gravel and I started getting bounced around because the crappy tires were slipping. Have to admit I was missing the air suspension in the LR4 at that point.

I hear you on wanting the sky touch, that and the new turbo 4 and the pumpkin paint were on my list, but I just could't wait. Waiting is not in my DNA

Picture of the Sahara on the trail behind Lizard is attached.

My JL Sahara came with frustrating stock H/T tires as well, upgraded 3 days after purchase!

 

[MacBigButt]

It'll have plenty of power, whether with the 8 speed or 6.

Agreed, where I live we don't have a lot of freeway speeds but we definitely have lots of up and down and around. Even with the bigger tires I put on its moves along just fine. Lots of gears for it to drop down into.

It wasn't that long ago that 285hp - 260lb/ft torque were considered big numbers in a stock vehicle. Still pretty decent. I think the 0 to 60 time is something like 6.8 secs which not to long ago was considered high performance...times have changed.

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