Jeep Wrangler 4xe Rental Experience - from an R1T owner

[virgnia_rivian]

Prior to getting our R1T in 2022 we had considered buying an Wrangler 4xe. We never got a chance to drive one because they were so hard to find a year or so ago.

Fast forward to now.. Last week I was in the Bay Area and picked up a brand new 4xe as a rental car at SFO and had it for a week. We were driving up to Calistoga and all over Napa/Sonoma counties so we got a chance to put about 500mi on this new Jeep. After driving it for a week I have some thoughts...

1. The battery pack doesn't make any sense. Our hotel had a charger, so we were able to fully charge it every night, but you only get about 28mi of range. Most of our driving was 10-20mi each way, so unless you can charge at every stop, the battery doesn't do much.
2. We would seek out parking near chargers, which drove us nuts, and then we just decided to only charge it at night.
3. The battery gauge goes down fast. It was strange to take it to 0 on almost every drive.
4. The 4xe is a 4 cylinder gas engine, and combined we got about 27mpg. This is not worth the premium of the 4xe over a standard Wrangler. I'd rather drive the V6 and pay less than the up charge for the 4xe.
5. The charge port is Level 1 or 2 only. (That was interesting to find out) Takes 2.5hrs to fully charge from 0% on a Level 2 charger. 15 usable Kwh.
6. It kinda has one pedal, but regen is nowhere near as strong as the Rivian and the 4xe won't fully stop/hold. You must use the brakes. This was actually quite annoying when I just wanted to roll to a stop at a stop sign. The 4xe will use regen until you hit 5mph and then it releases.
7. If you want a Wranger, or Grand Cherokee for that matter, the 4xe just doesn't make much sense. It needs at least double the range to be really useful in some situations. You will be plugging this in at every stop unless you just want to drive around in a gas powered Jeep, and at that rate save your money and buy a gas powered Jeep.

Driving dynamics are not even comparable to the R1T. It drives like a typical wrangler, which isn't great once you get up to highway speeds.

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[COdogman]

Yeah, 28 miles of EV range is pretty useless. I'm not against hybrids as a transition piece, but 28 miles will have you at the gas pump pretty often.

My ex had a 2nd gen Volt for years and it got 53 miles of range. That was actually very useful because it would cover most round trips we humans do in a week. In 5 years I believe she only put gas in it 4 times. She loved that car. Now she has an Ioniq 5 and also loves that.

 

[teartags]

I can see where the 28 miles wouldn't make sense when you're on vacation and "road tripping". However, I think its a really smart approach for that large amount of population that commutes <15 miles to and from work.
But yeah, not having a 6 cyl. in a Jeep is pretty lame. Also, it's still a Jeep and therefore drives on the highway like a a POS and will be in the shop a lot.

 

[KBabione]

I think it depends on your usage profile. I've got a good friend with one and he simply changed his driving style:

• Most of his around-town errands come to less than 20 or so miles per day, so he's fully in E mode (he keeps the regen off because he didn't like switching back and forth)
• For any kind of trip, he doesn't bother with E mode and just goes ICE

He's been really happy with it and doesn't have a L2 charger installed - he simply runs an extension cord to it in his driveway.

 

[virgnia_rivian]

I think it depends on your usage profile. I've got a good friend with one and he simply changed his driving style:

• Most of his around-town errands come to less than 20 or so miles per day, so he's fully in E mode (he keeps the regen off because he didn't like switching back and forth)
• For any kind of trip, he doesn't bother with E mode and just goes ICE

He's been really happy with it and doesn't have a L2 charger installed - he simply runs an extension cord to it in his driveway.

When we were looking at buying one we had a similar use case. Roundtrip to work/home was less than 15mi. We thought perfect. But in reality it's a PITA to plug this thing in every time you park it. Add an extra errand onto your trip and you're going to use up the battery pretty quick. On a standard 115v outlet, the Jeep told us it needed nearly 18hours to fully charge.

We plug in our R1T once a week. This thing you'd plug in daily, if not multiple times a day. Also, the power/acceleration you get from the battery-only operation is not good.

 

[supervlover]

The 4XE is a great vehicle for someone that isn't 100% in need of a BEV.

1) Added electric motor gives it a big boost in torque and hp without having to upgrade to a big V8 Hemi
2) Avoid the annoying start/stop feature on regular gas Wrangler
3) Can turn off electric motor and use gas only, head to the trail and run it 100% on battery
4) Powerbox feature (2024) that allows 120V from J1772 port.

 

[Kenmecca]

My wife has a 4xe and we are just coming up on our 1 year anniversary. Ill make an assumption the reason its in the rental pool is that Stellantis has many sitting and likely gave a good deal to the rental companies. Like EVs, these 4xes are not a good candidate for rentals. My wife's RT commute is about 28 miles, so she can generally go 100% battery. At the current price of EV charging, you are saving about 1 gallon so when we do longer road trips right now(as we do with the 4xe more than my R1S due to poor EV infrastructure and time constraints) we dont plug it in. With the $7500 tax credit you can generally be close to what an ICE Jeep costs. She absolutely loves her Wrangler with one-touch sky roof and the vehicle fits her style well. You dont buy a Jeep for gas savings per se as the aerodynamics are that of a brick. I agree that plug ins battery life should be min 50 miles and I think once they get to 100 miles per charge they will be even better.

 

[emoore]

I understand having more battery only range but I don't know why it's such a pain to plug in every day. Takes like 30 seconds if you have a charger at home. I guess if you didn't have a place to plug in at home it could be a pain but then so is any EV or PHEV.

 

[Tim-in-CA]

Yeah, 28 miles of EV range is pretty useless. I'm not against hybrids as a transition piece, but 28 miles will have you at the gas pump pretty often.

My ex had a 2nd gen Volt for years and it got 53 miles of range. That was actually very useful because it would cover most round trips we humans do in a week. In 5 years I believe she only put gas in it 4 times. She loved that car. Now she has an Ioniq 5 and also loves that.

Yup. I had a 2nd gen Volt and I was forced to burn off the free tank of gas the dealer gave me. The vehicle will detect that gas was not added and put the vehicle into an ICE mode after a year. I knew about this behavior and “manually “ burned off the tank while freeway driving 11 months in. Had the car 2.5 years and only used 2 tanks of gas

 

[MrMetlHed]

I think it depends on your usage profile. I've got a good friend with one and he simply changed his driving style:

• Most of his around-town errands come to less than 20 or so miles per day, so he's fully in E mode (he keeps the regen off because he didn't like switching back and forth)
• For any kind of trip, he doesn't bother with E mode and just goes ICE

He's been really happy with it and doesn't have a L2 charger installed - he simply runs an extension cord to it in his driveway.

My ex has one, loves it. She plugs in a 120v outlet in her condo parking lot at night and has a fully charged battery with enough miles to get around the next day. Short commute, so that's not a concern. Fills up the gas tank less than once a month.

PHEVs are great for a lot of people once you understand the limitations. Maybe not a great vehicle to rent, but if you're worried about traveling on vacation and finding a charger they're your answer. All-electric commute and around town driving, and on road-trips you can use the gas infrastructure.

 

[COdogman]

Yup. I had a 2nd gen Volt and I was forced to burn off the free tank of gas the dealer gave me. The vehicle will detect that gas was not added and put the vehicle into an ICE mode after a year. I knew about this behavior and “manually “ burned off the tank while freeway driving 11 months in. Had the car 2.5 years and only used 2 tanks of gas

I didn't even know about that! Other than having a typical Chevy interior, that was a great car. Only saw the dealer for a couple recalls and that was it. It was horrible in the snow with the stock tires, but with some all seasons it did much better.

 

[FutureTruck]

Had a 4xe Rubicon for about a year prior to my R1T.

I live in a small town and don’t commute. It generally was driven 10-20 miles a day. I rarely ever used the gas engine. It was perfect for my use case, which is non-typical and I understand. I really loved the sliding power top, can’t remember what it was called but it was worth the $5000 and never leaked.

It’s terrible for road trips or longer commutes. When the turbo 4 banger cranks up its sounds like a loud diesel engine and feels really lethargic on the highway.

But we loved the EV experience so much we got rid of it to get the R1T and have no regrets.

With the price I was able to get the 4xe, plus the $7500 tax credit, I made about a $2000 profit when I sold it after owning it for a year.

 

[Marchin_MTB]

The 4xe sounds like it has an EPA efficiency of around 1.8 mi/kWh. I have looked into some PHEVs recently and some of them are as low as 1.4 mi/kwh (mid size suv). The rav4 prime is supposed to achieve just under 2.0 mi/kwh and even the Prius Prime only gets 3 mi/kWh in ideal conditions. Other than the cost, this is the biggest issue I see with these “parallel” PHEVs. Their electric efficiency is just poor. Meanwhile our R1T gets over 2.4 lifetime in real world driving. The “series PHEVs” aka range extended EVs do much better in range and efficiency and make a lot more sense (i3 or the OG Volt). I’m just not sure why there isn’t a bigger market for them.

 

[Riviot]

Last week I was in the Bay Area and picked up a brand new 4xe as a rental car at SFO and had it for a week.

We had one in San Diego in October, went to Joshua Tree and I can agree that...

It’s terrible for road trips or longer commutes. When the turbo 4 banger cranks up its sounds like a loud diesel engine and feels really lethargic on the highway.

It's just another Jeep with even MORE maintenance needs. Loud, clunky, torquey. I'd rather have a $5k banger for trails than a 4xe

 

[sfvR1S]

In early 2020, I was expecting a new wave of EV's to arrive in a couple years. So when my Bolt EV lease was up, I went with a 2 year lease for an Outlander PHEV. Then a little thing called Covid happened and everything was pushed out a couple years.

But back to the Outlander PHEV. I suppose it's fine if you have a short commute, but for anything longer 20 miles, the battery depleted and then I was left hauling a dead battery with an underpowered 4 banger. Even with the option to "recharge" the battery with 100% ICE, it was pretty disappointing.

I understand people think PHEV's can be a bridge to get ICE drivers to convert to EV's, but from my very limited experience, it didn't function as an "EV" or an ICE vehicle very well.

However, maybe if I would've leased a better PHEV like a RAV4 Prime, I would be a believer since it offers better battery range & ICE/combined power.

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