What's under the hood?

[Whaler27]

Even I am surprised. If you check out the Jeep tracker, the V6 is outselling the Turbo 4 by a large margin. This is for those who custom order. These are usually your Jeep enthusiasts (be it first time owners like me or Jeep veterans).

same for this forum: usually Jeep enthusiasts sign up for this forum. New and Veteran enthusiasts typically prefer the 3.6 due to it’s perceived reliability. Time shall tell if the Turbo 4 is equally as good. Good news is that so far there have not been any major issues with that engine.

A big portion of Jeep owners are also general car drivers who just go to a dealership and pick from the lot. Those guys are mainly not on the Jeep tracker or this forum.
Pretty sure most of those folks get the Turbo 4 as they may not be as familiar with the technical aspects of a vehicle in general. At least in Long Island, it is hard to find a Pentastar on a dealer lot and usually needs to be custom ordered. They all carry the Turbo 4. This tells me that your typical car buyer doesn’t care about engine as much as an enthusiast and will take whatever the dealer has on the lot.

I suspect typical Jeep owners on Long Island, or Long Island South (Miami) are very different from the typical Jeep owner in the mountain west or Alaska. When I bought my 2019 JL there were over 70 new wranglers on the lot at Roberson Jeep in Salem. The vast majority of them were equipped with the six. Northwest Jeep, about thirty miles away, only had about 50 in stock at the time, but their proportions were similar. I’d say close to one third of the inventory in both places was Rubicon, maybe more, but it seems like the other trim levels dominate dealer inventory in some other parts of the country. I assume dealers tweak their stock orders to fit their local demand. Also, I’ve been buying Jeeps since 1977, and I have never custom-ordered one. In fact, I’ve never custom-ordered any vehicle. With one exception, I’ve always been able to find what I want nearby. (The one exception to that rule was our Ford Raptor. West coast dealers were demanding HUGE premiums for them, so I spent an hour on eBay and found exactly what I wanted at the price I wanted to pay at Yankee Ford in Portland, Maine. (Nice people there, by the way.)

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[Whaler27]

On the comparative virtues of the two engines: I didn’t even consider the 2.0 because the 2.0 was more expensive and I loved the six during the test drive. The six was the peppiest Jeep motor I’d ever driven, and I had the five liter 304 In my 1980 CJ.

But my brother, a first time Jeep buyer, bought the 2.0, and we’ve been sharing notes on our builds. In September we took turns driving each other’s Jeeps in Colorado. I was very impressed with the 2.0. To me, it feels like it has more power. I don’t love the engine sound, but I liked almost everything else about the drive, and he gets noticeably better fuel economy. The only real downside to the 4-cylinder is the noticeable lack of engine braking on a sustained steep decline. That’s an issue for me, as I don’t want to ride my brakes for long stretches coming down the mountain.

 

[Dan M.]

I got the 3.6 as I don't live in a high elevation area and I would wince every time I had to put premium gas in (in upstate NY it is far pricier than the cheap stuff)

 

[RedundanT]

150 rabid hamsters with a death wish on most day's when I drive.

 

[cosine]

3.6 non e tq mated to a 8 spd auto. by far the best combo, plenty of hp and tq for the 2 door sport. mpg is great. never bothered in looking at the 2.0 and to be honest, if i was to get another wrangler, i would still get the 3.6 even if it came with the e tq.

 

[Chupacabra]

Need to add 2.0 w/o eTorque as that's been dropped for 2021 I think? My 2021 2.0 doesn't have eTorque and I wouldn't have wanted it if it was offered. Dealer said they order mostly 2.0's here in Denver due to altitude, but they had some 3.6's to choose from as well.

 

[johnnyj]

2020 JLUR, 2.0 Non-Etorque.

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