Here's the Best $1,000 You Can Spend When You Buy a Jeep Wrangler (2024)

I'm rolling toward the chain-control checkpoint outside Truckee, California, snow falling hard, when the Toyota Highlander arcs into my peripheral vision. It's a first-gen model, painted in that noncommittal gold-beige that adorns so many of them, and it's having what's known as a tank-slapper: The driver overcorrected a skid, and now the rear end is coming around back the other way. It's coming right at the driver's side rear door of the car I'm driving, a 2019 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited.

The Highlander slides through the intersection, setting up what would be a T-bone hit if he were pointed straight. I have time only to breathe a "Fuuuu—" on the exhale and attempt what could be described as the driving equivalent of a flinch, easing the wheel right while lightly touching the accelerator because there's not much room up ahead. The Jeep reacts and time momentarily slows down, the oversteering Highlander doing a Ken Block gymkhana slo-mo as its rear bumper comes within a quark or two of slapping the Wrangler into the snowbank. Near miss. Accident averted. Because, yes, I was paying attention, but also because the Wrangler had the agility to get the hell out of the way.

I submit that this might be the first Jeep Wrangler with the chops to do that. Why? Because this Wrangler, the JL, is the first one to offer all-wheel drive. The MP3022 Selec-Trac transfer case fitted to this particular Wrangler—lucky me—uses a center differential to allow the front and rear axles to turn at different speeds. Other Wranglers use a part-time system with no center diff so that the front and rear axles are locked in sync. That means that if the front and rear ends are traveling at different speeds, the equalization has to happen through slip at the tires' contact patches.

In corners, part-time systems tend to "bind"—the vehicle doesn't want to turn until the tires break free. Picking your way through a trail, you don't really notice. On the road, in low-traction situations like snow, part-time systems tend to feel reassuringly stable. That's because they don't want to turn.

But when a Highlander's teeing up your door, you do want to turn. And I had the Sahara in its 4WD Auto mode for that exact reason—we were heading up onto a winding mountain pass, and I wanted both traction and the ability to negotiate tight switchbacks without fighting the road. In the end, that might've made the difference.

Long story short, I set out to test the Wrangler's new turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, but inadvertently would up with a deep appreciation for a transfer case. In the time since the redesigned Wrangler debuted last year, it hasn't received much attention. But I'd consider it a fundamental reason to upgrade to the Sahara, if you drive on winter roads. Straight-line traction is important, but turning can be nice, too.

Now, the four-cylinder. It's the best Wrangler powerplant yet. Yes, it's down 15 horsepower on the standard V-6 and it costs $1,000 more. But it nets significantly better mileage (up to an extra 4 mpg on the EPA combined cycle) and is temperamentally better suited to Wrangler duty. The Pentastar 3.6-liter V-6 is, relatively speaking, a screamer. It likes revs and hits its horsepower peak at 6,400 rpm. Redline is close to seven grand. That anger is fun in a Challenger but always a little strange in a Wrangler, on those occasions when you wring it out. It's like your Bean boots are trying to morph into Jordans.

The four-cylinder is mellow. It makes 295 lb-ft of torque at 3,000 rpm, but it never feels like you have to rev it that high. Give it some throttle, the boost builds and you motor on up the hill. No drama. And it didn't get winded in the mountains, either. By dint of its forced induction, the 2.0 felt just as strong at 8,000 feet as it did back in the foothills. That wouldn't be true of the Pentastar, which would have more than surrendered its horsepower advantage at that sort of altitude. The four-cylinder also uses a beefy electric motor (sort of a souped-up alternator) to kick in a little extra torque and smooth the power delivery even more. Chrysler calls that system (also seen on Ram trucks) eTorque.

Speaking of the Pentastar and eTorque, what are we calling this four-cylinder? It doesn't seem to have a name, which is unusual for this company, where even the standard-issue four-bangers get cool names (see: MultiAir). I say that if the Chrysler V-8 is called Hemi and the V-6 is Pentastar, then the Wrangler four-cylinder shall be christened ... the Demi. That thing got a Demi in it?

Yeah, mine would. For $1,000, it seems like a no-brainer. But that's one of the conundrums with the JL Wrangler—I tell myself that my perfect Wrangler is a stripped-down Sport, with steel wheels and a manual transmission, but some of these new options are mighty tasty. The Demi. The all-wheel-drive transfer case. The Sky One-Touch power soft-top that slides all the way back at the push of a button.

So I'll say that, if you're not counting dollars or driving hard-core trails, an AWD four-cylinder Unlimited Sahara with the power top is a pretty choice setup, the one to have. At least until they roll out the third engine in the JL Wrangler's roster. That one's already got a name: EcoDiesel.