HungryHound
Well-Known Member
Hey all!
Just completed a major road trip moving to Utah from Oregon, about 750 miles on the freeway. The entire way I pulled Uhaul's largest trailer, a 6'x12' dual axle with surge brakes. Thought I'd give a quick write-up of my experience.
First, the important part: I did this trip with my 4xe Rubicon. Currently, she has 35x17x12.5 AT3/W's on the stock wheels, stock height. Added LOD's Armorlite rocksliders, Metalcloak front and rear diff skids and track bar, and Rockhard 4x4 front and rear LCA skids. At the start of the trip, she had about 1600 miles on the odometer, at least half of which were electric.
The trailer weighs about 1900lbs empty according to Uhaul's website, and I'm pretty sure I added at least 1000lbs of furniture/clothes, etc to it, so was definitely coming close to the max tow rating.
Now for the trip: Almost the entire way I was running E-Save or E-Save, Charge. My puppy was riding in the Jeep with me, and it was 95+ every day, so each stop I wanted to use the remote start to keep him cool while I ate/got gas/etc. One time I wasn't was when I figured out I was about 50miles to the next gas station the first day, and my gas only range was not indicating that I was going to make it. So, per the suggestion of very helpful members here, I put it in hybrid with manual shift to engage both gas and electric to stretch my tank out, which worked beautifully. Downside was blowing the nearly full battery I had charged, so I had to use charge mode while driving to make sure the puppy stayed cool. I'll take worse mpg to make sure he's happy .
For the towing experience itself, this Jeep pulls very well. Merging onto freeways I could definitely feel the trailer, but the turbo kicking in would make sure I had no trouble getting to speed. Adding in any help from the battery and it was a dream. The one questionable spot, which I knew was coming, was Cabbage Hill/Deadman Pass in Eastern Oregon. For those who don't know, this is an about 6% grade climb over 10ish miles. While this would be no trouble normally, pulling a trailer in nearly 100 degree weather makes it a bit more sketchy.
In terms of power, the Jeep had zero trouble. I could easily cruise at 50-55mph up the hill. The entire way I was cycling through the coolant/oil/transmission temps. Coolant saw about 220 degrees max, oil 242 degrees, and transmission about 202 degrees. Once I saw 240 on the oil, I kicked into hybrid mode to take some load off the engine, just to be safe. I probably could've stayed cooler if I didn't power up the hill so quick, but it was a guilty pleasure feeling the Jeep climb up so quick.
However, about 3/4 of the way up, I did get the warning light Rubicon owners hate: Service E-Locker. Seeing that made me very scared, as I knew it was an issue, but shouldn't be showing up this soon in the vehicle life. I slowed down to about 40mph, and pulled off at the rest area at the top of the pass. I powered off the Jeep, took a break, and read through the info here to make sure it wasn't going to strand me in the middle of nowhere. Once I powered back on, it stayed off, and didn't come back the rest of the trip or since. I'm guessing the differential just got too warm climbing the hill and caused the warning light, and once it cooled off it was good to go. I'm still wondering if the Metalcloak rear diff skid may have had an influence on this, and kept heat trapped in.
Other than that, the trip was gorgeous. Once you load this Jeep down with some weight, she drives very comfortably, and never once did I feel the trailer was pushing me around. Did have to watch out for strong crosswinds, this trailer and rig can act like a sail in that situation .
Jeep also had more bugs on the front than I've ever seen. Wasn't helped by the windshield washing buckets at each gas station being empty once I got into Idaho...
Also, MPG was horrible.
Did a similar trip with a similar load in a 2015 Cherokee Trailhawk v6, and it saw around 18mpg. When I wasn't running charge mode I was seeing about 15mpg according to the dash, about 13.5mpg with it charging. That being said, this was not the use case I bought this for by a long shot. If I did this more than once a year at most, I would have strongly considered the diesel. But my drive to work is 1 mile now, so still very happy with the 4xe.
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