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Old 21-08-2012
BeatOffTheBush  BeatOffTheBush is offline
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I realize this was posted a year ago but I thought I'd add my impressions of the JK Rubicon having owned one for 3 months now.

As a used car option the Rubicon is the cheapest way to get into something with twin lockers, decent articulation and a reasonable drive.
Having said that it is clearly built with a specific purpose in mind, and that is rock-crawling. The low range gearing (4:1) is too short for most 4wding IMO unless you are running 35s, and the lockers can only be used below 20kmh or so in low range. The throttle response has purposely been set up to be very dull and unresponsive, probably to avoid getting bumped around while going over rocks.

These are all completely unsuited to Victorian 4wd terrain which is generally medium speed bush trails with a lot of mud throughout. You need to be able to generate some decent wheelspin to clear the mud effectively which disables the lockers, and it gets annoying having to shift from 4LO to HI and back all the time. The ESP cuts into the fun in 4HI too, there should be a switch to totally disable it including the ABS.

I still enjoy it heaps and can get through most obstacles with a lot of fun, but part of the reason I bought it was for the "unstoppable" reputation so I was a bit disappointed to see it was hobbled from the factory.
All of these are minor issues in the grand scheme of things, and can be fixed with electrical bypass mods and other tricks, but the whole reason I chose this car was because I wanted something that "just worked" and didnt need constant tinkering, otherwise I wouldve gotten a GU like everyone else.

Also, and this isn't picking on the Rubicon specifically, but the Wrangler motors is complete and utter rubbish. It's near identical in spec to the old GM Ecotec V6 that powered thousands of commodores which although rough were fairy perky and are very common in various 4wd conversions, yet the Wrangler unit produces less power and feels incredibly massively lethargic, as if it's doing me a favor by responsing when I push the GO pedal. Yeah the electronic throttle is responsible for much of that, but at the end of the day someone at Chrysler decided that it was acceptable for sale to the public and thats not ok.


TL;DR - Awesome offroad performance, but dont expect the world.

Last edited by BeatOffTheBush; 21-08-2012 at 11:18 PM.