2019 Jeep Wrangler India Review | First Drive | Autocar India

The Wrangler is Jeep’s icon – the quintessential American off-roader – now in its latest generation. It promises to be more modern, comfortable and luxurious while sacrificing none of its legendary off-road capability. But it comes at a price. Cyrus Dhabhar drives it on and offroad in India.

There are very few things in the automotive world that stay very relevant and very iconic even after generations of existing and one of those things is the seven sled grille of a jeep this ladies and gentlemen is the brand-new wrangler it’s called the j l generation it’s of course a larger car it’s a lighter platform so let’s look first at what’s new well in

Terms of design of course they’ve kept that traditional jeep look but now the grille is the little more aerodynamic so it’s not a flat grille that it always used to be it’s got a little in it which makes a little more aerodynamic as compared to the previous generation and it also has these round cutouts now that’s a bit of a throwback a hawk back to the design

Of the cj5 jeep and if you are wondering what a cg fi looks like well your is what that is it’s also got a whole lot more tech now for example data i’m running lights led of course on the fender yeah it’s got a full led headlamp set up with a halo led daytime running light in there two led fog lamps also for the first time and it’s also got a little bit of touch

Here in there that actually keeps that jeep design well pretty much identical to what it was but has improvements so for example if you come around the side you’ve now got vented fenders which help with removing the heat from under the bonnet you got a vented bonnet on this particular generation too and you still have those original jeep touches like the bonnet

Clasps for example or these little stoppers for when the bonnet goes and completely opens up to the windscreen move along the side and the wrangler is dominated by its large 18-inch wheels and chunky 31 inch tires that can be upgraded to the meteor 35 inch off-road rubber without changing the fenders because jeep has recognized its end-user and has already given

Enough clearance move to the rear and the big spare tire take center stage and now it even has a real camera inbuilt into the mounting the tire itself has been moved lower down to improve visibility and as with jeeps in the past the taillights are a separate unit attached to the metalwork as compared to being flush with the body all in all the new jen wrangler

Is unmistakably a jeep and then there are of course those small easter eggs that are dotted all around like the jeep logos everywhere the pattern in the rear defogger that turns into an outline of a mountain and the topography of moab and area akin to mecca for off-roaders in the state of utah in the united states on the floor mats so first impressions on the

Interior of the new wrangler everything feels a lot better built everything feels a lot better put together leather wrap bash more up top you know the quality of the plastics while they still are improved they still feel very tough they can take a lot of use and trust me these cars do internationally do take a lot of abuse they do go off road all the time and

It’s the attention to detail that i really like like for example these little allen bolts holding the console together your is quite cool now a lot of little design bits have been carried forward from the last gen for example this the window switches are still on the center console because these doors do come off a couple of bolts and out they go but the big

Update on the new angle of course is that central screen it really brings the wrangler to this decade because the last generation car didn’t have that and it’s an 8.4 inch in touch screen quite responsive to apple carplay android auto stuff that you really expect in a car in 2019 a nice little screen in the middle of the instrument cluster here shows a lot of

Information very high definition screen to very crisp those sort of font the kind of information it shows very nice and crisp but i do like the colors that jeep is used in the instrument cluster to the orange really offsets everything off quite well it also has the screen the touch screen also has off road pages which is a feature here which shows stuff like the

Drivetrain of steering angle accessory gauges which include coolant temperature oil temperature etc and even pitch and roll stuff that we will show you in more detail a little later when we do take the car off road brinn general especially in this all black theme with a nice little white stitching on the seats and on the dashboard the wrangler now feels a lot

More upmarket it feels grown up almost justifiable to the price point that it commands while the wranglers interior is a great place to be in terms of features one would have expected it to be a little more spacious and while in terms of headroom shoulder room and a sense of airiness in general you are well taken care of the leg room for the driver is a matter

Of concern especially if like me you have large feet with a set of size 13 shoes and what is even more annoying is the lack of a dead pedal this lack of leg space though is mainly because of the large transmission tunnel taking up a fair bit of space that said space for rear passengers is more than adequate all the much smaller door at the back does mean ingress

And egress is a slight task and now that we are done with our first impressions it’s time to shift to four-wheel drive and see if the party trick of the wrangler still entertains its off-road ability this is where the wrangler immediately feels at home and boy am i glad to have a good old-fashioned four wheel drive selector lever it gives you a proper

Old-school reassuring chunk ensuring that the transfer case has been engaged no electronic gimmicks you also you can actually shift from two-wheel drive to four-wheel drive high on the move to up to 72 kilometers now and as always four-wheel drive low is engaged by stopping the car and engaging neutral first if there’s one word you can use to describe how the

Wrangler performs off-road it is effortless it gives you so much confidence to tackle challenging sections you just drive them without too much thought to explain it simply the power takes care of you when you want to go up hill and the hill descent control takes care of you when you want to drive down one and the sheer articulation that the solid axes deliver

Take care of everything else in between the wrangler pretty much goes where you point it it has an approach angle of forty one point eight degrees a departure angle of thirty six point one degrees and a break over angle of twenty one degrees and this means you can get into and out of some pretty steep ravines why on paper the 215 mm of ground clearance might

Feel too little for a hardcore off-road er like the wrangler one must remember though that the figure is measured using a loaded vehicle in india in fact the jeep we get in india is rated at 240 2 mm in other international markets so the last thing you have to worry about are speed breakers or for that matter dividers so now that we’ve seen how the wrangler

Performs off road which is exceedingly well let’s see how it performs on the road because people who do buy the car i’m really gonna use the car off-road as much as they do it on road because it is a lifestyle product and honestly as a comparison to the last gen wrangler which didn’t really drive very very well on road or on tarmac this one is leaps and bounds

Ahead and mainly because of the fact that this is now a lighter car but it’s also because of the fact that you now get a new four-cylinder engine as compared to the v6 that you got in the earlier car but don’t scoff just yet because this new four-cylinder 2-liter turbocharged motor makes 268 horsepower and 400 newton meters of torque and that’s more than enough

To get this car going now if you compare the power figures to the v6 of the previous generation the hospice actually a bit down but the torque due to the turbocharged engine is considerably higher and the peak torque is available much lower in the rev range at just 3,000 rpm as compared to 4100 rpm and this means more usability on the road and the less stressed

Out engine while off it the new engine is mated to an 8-speed gearbox and the difference in the way it goes through the gears is immediately noticeable quicker smoother and with less power loss between shifts but while power delivery is impressive the way the wrangler handles on-road is compromised by those tires the front end feels light the steering is slow

To respond and the wrangler clearly doesn’t enjoy corner carving the unconnected and vague drive feel the previous gen wrangler steering head however has been replaced by a much more planted feel the suspension too has been retuned while you can drive through mouthy 800 sized holes without a care in the world and the ride is so much better than the previous gen

Wranglers drive quality in general still isn’t ideal shock it absorbs bumps well and on a bad road nothing feels as invincible but there is still a fair amount of bounce over uneven surfaces and that isn’t very comfortable so there you have it the new wrangler looks nicer has a much better put together interior with a lot more features – and then there’s the fact

That it is now more refined and nicer to drive on road while some people might be put off by the 63 lakh 94,000 rupee price tag it does exert considerable pull on those who like hardcore off-road driving this is after all one of the best off-road us in the world if not the best wood we have won in a heartbeat it is just surreal and has so much character

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2019 Jeep Wrangler India Review | First Drive | Autocar India By Autocar India