Thinking about 4Xe

[ormandj]

Good for you. Mine doesn’t work in cold weather. I’ve got two seasons worth of winter issues to prove it.

The heater doesn't work? Or the Jeep won't drive in pure electric mode?

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[THAW]

From NHTSA, and this just went up within the last 24 hours:

Reading the associated "573 report", it appears the affected battery packs were manufactured in '21 and used in Wrangler production through late March '23.

 

[BXFXJeep]

Good for you. Mine doesn’t work in cold weather. I’ve got two seasons worth of winter issues to prove it.

Anything warmer than -12c(10F) you should be able to drive in pure electric, however sometimes that doesn't make sense because of cold cabin, range etc, it's better just to run the gas engine.

-12c seems to be the cutoff for pure electric, and it makes sense.

 

[aldo98229]

Got to test drive a 2024 Sahara 4Xe. The vehicle looked like it had been parked for awhile. It was 33F; the battery was completely depleted.

Things I liked:

1. Even with the battery depleted, the vehicle crawled in traffic in EV mode
2. More than enough oomph
3. Really liked the regen braking mode
4. The new UConnect 5 screen is nice; responsive. From the little I saw, the system seemed more stable than the the UConnect 4 in my 2018 JL
5. The front door stops feel notchier, beefier
6. The driver seat is now power operated

Things I didn’t like:

1. A $67,000 Sahara that doesn’t even have side steps! Seriously Jeep?
2. The battery gets in the way of the rear seat folding flat. It leaves a 6-inch hump
3. The ride was a bit firm. I checked the TPMS: tires were at 35 PSI all around. So it must be the 20-inch wheels

All in all I liked it.

The salesman was a mixed bag. Got a young “brah.” His pants hung halfway through his crack. His greeting was “Sup bro!” He said a few things that made me cringe. But he was friendly and meant well.

Now I have to decide if I want to get rid of the Mini. It drives soooo nice, especially on the freeway...

 

[Bleda2002]

Absolutely love our 4xe. The gas wranglers are real dogs comparatively once you get on 37s+ and some real weight. Plus better handling due to lower cg and best weight distribution, best brakes due to the regenerative braking, and also excellent (for a wrangler) fuel economy.

Add in the incentives and there is no real reason not to go 4xe other than an aversion to the hybrid tech.

 

[BXFXJeep]

Got to test drive a 2024 Sahara 4Xe. The vehicle looked like it had been parked awhile. It was 33F; the battery was completely depleted.

Things I liked:

1. Even with the battery depleted, the vehicle crawled in traffic in EV mode
2. More than enough oomph
3. Really liked the regen braking mode
4. The new UConnect 5 screen is nice; responsive. From the little I saw, the system seemed more stable than the the UConnect 4 in my 2018 JL
5. The front door stops feel notchier, beefier
6. The driver seat is now power operated

Things I didn’t like:

1. A $67,000 Sahara that doesn’t even have side steps! Seriously Jeep?
2. The battery gets in the way of the rear seat folding flat. It leaves a 6-inch hump

All in all I liked it.

The salesman was a mixed bag. Got a young “brah.” His pants hung halfway through his crack. His greeting was “Sup bro!” But he was friendly and meant well.

Now I have to decide if I want to get rid of the Mini. It drives soooo nice on the freeway...

I would strongly suggest, if you are buying one off the lot from them, have them charge it up to 100%, then test drive it to ensure it can actually drive in electric, and take charge ?

I think it asinine that they have these things sitting on the lot with zero charge.

Also check if it has the PowerBox, or if it was deleted, that's if the PowerBox is something you would want, if it's deleted, you can never add it later.

As for the steps enough people hate em, for you to find take offs for $20-$200.

There are a few things that came standard in the 2021 that's options now on the Canadian Sahara 4xe.

Steps
Colour match hardtop
Navigation
Alpine
Leather

Those are the big ones I can remember, it would cost me $17,000 Canadian dollars more to replace my 2021, with a 2024 with the same equipment.

 

[THAW]

Absolutely love our 4xe. The gas wranglers are real dogs comparatively once you get on 37s+ and some real weight. Plus better handling due to lower cg and best weight distribution, best brakes due to the regenerative braking, and also excellent (for a wrangler) fuel economy.

Add in the incentives and there is no real reason not to go 4xe other than an aversion to the hybrid tech.

Range is a real reason. And weight/payload capacity.

 

[DewHawk]

Range is a real reason. And weight/payload capacity.

^This. The range on these might be advertised as great, but unless you're on street tires, there's no way. I will 100% admit the Diesel absolutely shits on the 4xe for range and has a better payload capacity, and so do the other powertrains (minus the 392 because it's just a guzzler period, but it's still reasonable weight). It's a damn shame they killed the 3.0 this year. Now all that's left is the gasser 2.0 to really get solid range. Even then, you're still gonna want gears if you up the tire size beyond 35's.

 

[THAW]

Absolutely love our 4xe. The gas wranglers are real dogs comparatively once you get on 37s+ and some real weight. Plus better handling due to lower cg and best weight distribution, best brakes due to the regenerative braking, and also excellent (for a wrangler) fuel economy.

Add in the incentives and there is no real reason not to go 4xe other than an aversion to the hybrid tech.

Also, it's unclear to me how adding hundreds of lbs above the axles helps handling.

 

[Yawnie'sPapa]

Personally based on your use case, I feel like a standard 2.0L Turbo is less of a risk overall

I dunno - 5 miles or less per trip is trouble for a gas engine, and a DI engine at that.
He'll never get it warmed up and the valve build-up could be problematic.

4xe gets "49mpge" (worst unit of measure ever, but I digress) which translates to roughly 1.5 mi/kWh. That's a pretty horrible efficiency for an EV, but Wrangler is a heavy shoebox. So it's not surprising.

I totally ignore those numbers. Once the battery is down and it's in pure hybrid mode, I've seen 16 to 20/21 mpg on ours. Likely to get better as it breaks in, but it's still a brick on wheels.

Our electric rates over the last year - 8 cents/kWh in the winter months, about 12 cents/kWh in the summer.
I figured my wife spends about $1.18 in the lower rate months per mile and about $1.70 or so in the summer per mile on battery.
Since most of her trips are short, she runs mostly on battery.
This past summer she went Mid-May to mid-August on about 9.7 gallons of gas, 500 miles in that time. It actually went into FORM because I didn't add gas to it soon enough. Once gas was added, it went out of FORM.

 

[Bleda2002]

Range is a real reason. And weight/payload capacity.

Range for sure, never understood the obssession with 400 mile range, but I'm assuming thats because thats basically the diesels only actual advantage. If you have an actual need for that and cant just carry jerry can's then I guess that could be a big deal.

Payload is basically a wash though. The 4xe has a significantly higher Gvwr that puts it even with the diesel more or less.

 

[THAW]

Payload is basically a wash though. The 4xe has a significantly higher Gvwr that puts it even with the diesel more or less.

You're right, I wasn't aware they have the same payload. I assume the regen braking assist is the key to it? Or are there other components that differ? Either way, the significant weight increase affects common parts/upgrades and (off road) handling.

 

[Bleda2002]

You're right, I wasn't aware they have the same payload. I assume the regen braking assist is the key to it? Or are there other components that differ? Either way, the significant weight increase affects common parts/upgrades and (off road) handling.

It's actually only about 300 more pounds or one fat dude than the diesel. The 4xe gets the gladiator axles, same rear brakes as the 392 which I believe are bigger and I'm assuming some chassis upgrades. The low cg actually makes it handle better on and off road as it's less tippy though. You can go with more lift but keep the cg close to a less lifted regular jeep or lift the same amount and have an even lower one.

300 lbs is 300lbs, but 300lbs is such a small fraction of the total weight it really doesn't move the needle much in one direction or the other as long as the vehicles suspension is set up for it.

 

[GrumpyOldVet]

You may already know, and I may have missed someone else mention it - but after some time on pure electric it'll also force you to use the gas for a bit to cycle the fluids and keep the fuel in the tank from getting stale. Keep that in mind if you didn't already know. I think the refresh mode forces you to use enough gas that you have to add 4 gallons or so.

 

[DewHawk]

You may already know, and I may have missed someone else mention it - but after some time on pure electric it'll also force you to use the gas for a bit to cycle the fluids and keep the fuel in the tank from getting stale. Keep that in mind if you didn't already know. I think the refresh mode forces you to use enough gas that you have to add 4 gallons or so.

Typically it's more than that, but there's an easier way to get out of FORM. Get the oil temps nice and toasty (we're talking 190ish) when it decides to make you run the ICE. There's a bunch of owners on another board (I'm sure you know which one but I'll leave it nameless here) that gripe about never being able to get out of FORM in winter. Their solution was to add block off plates to the grille to get the engine bay nice and toasty from essentially suffocating the radiator. I don't know which dork decided that was a smart idea because even in the coldest temps out here, I've never had an issue getting mine up to the 190's. I suspect most of them are so head over heels about driving conservatively to maximize their electric range that they don't know what "Spirited" means when using the throttle.

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