2016 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Unlimited review – Roadshow

The Good The 2016 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Unlimited is an excellent off-road vehicle. It has all the mechanical goodies to make your dreams of dirt adventure come true.

The Bad You’ll have to suffer when driving on the pavement. Sure, the road noise and floaty drive may be part of the Wrangler’s charm…but only for the first few hundred miles. The infotainment system is merely average, offering outdated Garmin maps and no backup camera.

The Bottom Line The Wrangler Rubicon lets drivers take on whatever endeavor they choose, but they may pay for it in on-road comfort and media connectivity.

I stopped the 2016 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon at the bottom of the rock pile. Ahead of me were boulders the size of laundry baskets stacked pell-mell on top of each other. I got out to scout, mentally taking a picture of where I would place each wheel as I climbed the hill. Satisfied, I buckled in, put the Jeep into 4L, locked my front and rear differentials and started rock crawling.

The Jeep has quite a history in the United States. Some even say we would all be speaking German if it weren’t for the trusty little four-wheeler. While I’m not one to judge geopolitical events, I will say that the Jeep is as American as Mom and apple pie, eliciting feelings of freedom and independence as no other vehicle can.

Nick Miotke/Roadshow

The Wrangler is the SUV you want in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Even the base Sport is capable in its own right. But you, dear Roadshow readers, are not base kind of folk. You are Unlimited Rubicon folk, the top dawg of 4x4s. With four doors, hence the Unlimited nomenclature, and all the off-road bells and whistles, the Unlimited Rubicon Wrangler is made for getting you into nature, and out of trouble.

Nick Miotke/Roadshow

Powered by a 3.6-liter V6 engine, the Wrangler makes 285 horsepower and 260 pound-feet of torque. A six-speed manual transmission is standard but my tester came with the five-speed automatic. Word on the street is that a diesel, already available in Europe, is in the works for 2017 as well as an eight-speed automatic transmission, but that’s straight out of the rumor mill.

Still, this gas-powered dirt genius gets all the off-road goodies a wheeler could want. Dana 44 heavy-duty front and rear locking axles, disconnecting front sway bar, 10 inches of ground clearance; all are essential to getting to the top of the rock pile, but the keys are the 4:1 low gearing and the 4.10 axle ratio. Sure, the axle ratio will cost you about $700, but it puts more torque to each wheel. When paired with the super-low gearing it’s possible to crawl over weighty obstacles with low speed and greater control.

Unfortunately, all the axle ratios in the world won’t help you if you pick the wrong line. I was halfway up the rock pile before I realized I’d put myself in a precarious situation. The BF Goodrich KO2 tires were trying their damnedest, but I’d gotten a rear wheel up in the air and the rocks were too slick for the remaining three tires to get a purchase. I looked out the door (because of course I had taken the doors off) and realized I was off my intended mark. Had I placed my front driver tire just 2 inches to the left, I would have been OK. As it was, I had no choice but to build a bridge under my open tire with my Maxtrax recovery boards and reverse out of it.

A few bangs and crashes to the skid plates later and I was at the bottom of the rock pile, the Jeep no worse for the wear. My ego, however, was crushed.

Still, there were plenty of obstacles to conquer at The Mounds Off Road Vehicle Park about an hour and a half outside of Detroit, all of which the Jeep, and more importantly the driver, did without a problem. Steep and sandy hills were easy. An approach angle of 42.2 degrees meant I could hit precipitous inclines with speed and not worry about hitting the steel front bumper. Coming over sharp crests is easy with a 21.2-degree breakover angle, and add 4 more degrees to that spec with the standard, two-door Wrangler Rubicon. Coming down a steep face can be done the old-school way, in 4L or with the hill-descent control feature. Don’t worry about the rear steel bumper scraping, as the Rubicon has a departure angle of 32.5 degrees.