2016 Jeep Wrangler Road Test and Review

2016 Jeep Wrangler nose ・ Photo by Dan Gray

When it comes to rough and tough 4x4s, why is the 2016 Jeep Wrangler still unchallenged after after all these years? Jeep sold over 200,000 Wranglers in the United States in 2015, more than doubling the number they sold in 2010. Have all the other 4x4 manufacturers fallen asleep at the wheel? While the introduction of the 4-door Wrangler Unlimited brought a slew of new Jeep owners into the fold, we haven’t seen a significant revamp since the Wrangler JK hit the street in 2007. With the Wrangler JL coming in the 2018 model year, at least one rival may have woken up.

What's the Wrangler Backcountry all About?

The 2016 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Backcountry is designed to appeal to winter sports enthusiasts, with a bold graphic motif wrapping across the front fenders to the hood and around the rear quarters to the tailgate. The decals look like they were lifted straight off a snowboard. With the Extreme Purple Pearl Coat paint, you won’t miss this one in the parking lot.

Base price on the 4-door Wrangler Unlimited Sahara 4x4 is $33,695. Our test truck was loaded up with a slew of options, starting with the Backcountry package. It clocked in at $47,550 with delivery. The Backcountry edition including a body colored grill with black accents, off-road bumpers, rock rails, and 17-inch black alloy Moab wheels wrapped with 265-70 BF Goodrich KO2 tires.

If you have to pick just one pair of tires to tackle a wide variety of terrains, the rugged BFG KO2s are an excellent choice. A wee bit of highway noise from the aggressive tread is worth the capability off-road. Chrysler’s 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 is the only engine available in the Wrangler. It produces a healthy 285 horsepower and 260 lb.ft. of torque. A 6-speed manual transmission is standard and a 5-speed automatic is optional. The Pentastar is responsive throughout the range, with 0-60 mile per hour times somewhere in the 7-second neighborhood.

Photo by Dan Gray

Trail Rated

While I didn’t have the chance to tackle any seriously tough terrain in my time with the Wrangler this go-round, I did venture off the beaten path onto a bunch of rutted 2-track and gravel roads. With the Wrangler’s ample ground clearance and BFGoodrich KO2s there was never a need to engage 4-wheel-drive.

The Trail Rated Wrangler Unlimited is equipped with Jeep’s Command-Trac 4x4 system and Hill Descent Control as standard equipment. All Unlimited Sahara 4x4s are fitted with a heavy duty Dana 44 rear and a Dana 30 solid front axle. Our tester was also equipped with the optional Tru-Lok locking rear differential.

I learned to never go anywhere risky off-road without a buddy in a second truck and a trusty tow-strap, long ago. So I jump on those opportunities whenever I can. I 4-wheeled a Jeep Renegade Trailhawk at a Chrysler event in West Virginia last fall and had a blast climbing all over Hunter Mountain in a Poison Spyder-modified KO2-equipped Wrangler Unlimited with rally champ Andrew Comrie-Picard two years back. My family fleet has included a lifted Jeep TJ and a Suzuki Samurai. These experiences have provided perspective on the current Jeep lineup. 

Photo by Dan Gray

Your Daily Driver?

The Wrangler is the best at what it does off-road, but it’s not always the best choice for many folks; this is an uncompromised 4x4. Not everyone needs that. The Renegade Trailhawk surprised me with its capabilities in the slippery stuff and is much more livable for folks that don’t spend a lot of time off the pavement. It all depends on what your daily routine is like. If I had a long-distance commute on the highway, the Wrangler wouldn’t be my first choice for a daily driver. But if I had to deal with gnarly road surfaces every day, the opposite would be true. Before you decide on a Wrangler, think long and hard about your commute.

Fuel Economy

Let's take a moment to talk about the Wrangler’s fuel economy, and the lack thereof. While the 22.5-gallon fuel tank provides a fair amount of range, the official Environmental Protection Agency fuel economy ratings for the automatic-equipped 4x4 Wrangler Unlimited are a scant 16 city/20 highway/18 combined mpg. Blame it on weight and shape. The Wrangler is one of the least aerodynamic passenger vehicles on the road today. I put the Wrangler through the paces over a week’s time, though a variety of conditions. A 160-mile-long highway run yielded slightly over 19 mpg, which is just under spec. I averaged slightly over 16 mpg for the week. Keep in mind that the Wrangler Unlimited’s base tire is a highway all-season Goodyear Wrangler ST and that the BFGoodrich KO2s are likely to be less fuel efficient, due to their aggressive tread. The EPA does not provide fuel economy ratings for optional tire and wheel combinations.

Photo by Dan Gray

Interior

The Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Backcountry’s interior features include leather and sport mesh cloth front buckets with 2-level seat heaters, and “the connectivity group.” The front bucket seats are nicely bolstered and quite comfortable, although they lack adjustable lumbar support. The deep-dish all-weather slush mats feature a unique tire-tread motif and are well-suited for winter-sports enthusiasts. The leather-wrapped steering wheel provides a full array of controls, with Bluetooth and info-screen controls on the left side of the wheel and cruise control on the the right. As with many Chrysler products, the steering wheel features stealthy audio system controls on the back of the wheel. This provides the highest level of functionality, while allowing for a clean uncluttered design on the face of the wheel.

Photo by Dan Gray

Infotainment

The Backcountry package also includes a 9-speaker Alpine sound system, with beefy roll bar-mounted speakers and an all-weather subwoofer in the cargo area. The sound was quite good, even with the front roof open. Although the optional 430N 6.5-inch touchscreen headunit features Garmin navigation, it looks and feels dated. It was disappointing to not find the current version of Chrysler’s excellent Uconnect system in the Wrangler. The SiriusXM weather and fuel price guides are most welcome, however. Plugs and ports are adequate. There’s a USB port on the face of the head unit and a second USB port is located inside the center console, alongside a 12-volt outlet. A house current outlet is positioned on the front of the console and there’s a second 12-volt outlet is in the cargo area. Our test Wrangler did not have a charging port in the second row, although the console looks like can accommodate one.

Photo by Dan Gray

Pop the Top

A black 3-piece Freedom hardtop is included with the Backcountry package. Opting for a body-color top adds an additional $1100 to the bottom line. Our tester also had the optional hardtop headliner, which adds a more finished look. To what degree it reduces road noise remains to be heard. The Wrangler may have the (optional) convenience of power windows these days, but it’s never been a lazy person’s push-button convertible. Taking off - and reinstalling - the two front pieces of the Freedom top takes a bit of time, but it’s well worth the trouble. On a hot summer day, you may want to take off all three pieces of the top and the doors, as well. You’ll need a buddy or two to do so.

Photo by Dan Gray

Second Row and Cargo

The Wrangler Unlimited's second row seats provide 40.4 inches of headroom, 37.2 inches of legroom, and 56.8 inches of shoulder room. At five foot, ten inches tall, I had over five fingers of headroom. Legroom was tight, however, with my knees hitting the back of the front bucket seats. There are two floor mounted drink holders behind the center console. The cargo area provides a generous amount of room for hauling gear, with 31.5 cubic feet of storage behind the second row seats. The split bench seat is easy to fold down, providing a total of 70.6 cubic feet of storage.

Photo by Dan Gray

Final Thoughts

With the departure of the slow-selling Toyota FJ, the Jeep Wrangler has no direct competition these days. That may not be the case for long, as Ford is rumored to be working on a new Bronco. 2017 will be the last year for the traditional Jeep JK. The 2018 model year will mark the arrival of a brand new Wrangler JL, with a significant technology refresh. We’re likely to see high-horsepower turbocharged 4-cylinder engines to complement the current Pentastar V6, in addition to a long-awaited turbodiesel engine, which is sorely needed to improve fuel economy. The solid axles will remain, but the old 5-speed transmission will make way for 8-speed units and the roof structure is due for a significant redesign. It may even become slightly more aerodynamic. The big question is whether the Wrangler can evolve without adding too much refinement.

Photo by Dan Gray