Wheeling in the JL Jeep Wrangler at Austin JeepPeople’s Polar Bear Run
Even with three of us working at the same time, it took a while to open the Wrangler up. I decided going doorless and topless in the 30s and 40s was enough, so I left the windshield up. It was time to join a group and hit the trails. Cutler rode shotgun and we met up with a bunch of other Jeep drivers. I had been wheeling in the park several times before in a variety of vehicles, but this was different. There was a good chance we were going to tackle trails (albeit relatively mild ones) that I had never seen before and the majority of (if not all of) the rigs in my convoy were substantially upgraded. Lifts and giant tires were the common theme. I had my concerns about how a stock Sport with the Unlimited’s 118-inch wheelbase, stock rubber, and 9.7 inches of ground clearance would fare on paths that the enhanced machines around me were deemed capable of completing. However, I was still in a Jeep. A Jeep Wrangler. I engaged the Command-Trac part time four-wheel drive system’s low range. Whenever I came to a part of the park that offered an easy way out and a hard way out, I trusted my guide C.K. and the JL, and so I chose the latter, heater blasting the whole way.
The Wrangler turned the daunting into dust. It always got me up, down, over, or across whatever I pointed it at. It didn’t come out unscathed, though.
The Wrangler turned the daunting into dust. It always got me up, down, over, or across whatever I pointed it at. It didn’t come out unscathed, though. More than once, the skid plate under the JL’s NV241 transfer case loudly announced that it was working to get me through the park. One descent ate up all of my test vehicle’s departure angle of 36 degrees…and then some. The rear bumper ended up getting a little rock rash.
In between legs of the trail, as some of my fellow group members’ Jeeps clunked and Chewbacca-groaned up and down large chunks of rock, several people in the JL’s growing fanbase would come by to give it a thorough look-over and ask questions. A common query was, “How does it compare to the JK?” My answer was always something along the lines of, “the Pentastar feels snappier and the re-tuned shocks give it a better ride quality,” a sentiment Cutler echoed two or three times as we ambled over the park’s rough, uneven earth. Another person was pleasantly shocked by how roomy the JL’s second row was in comparison to the second row in the outgoing Wrangler. C.K. used a four letter word in his exclamation of how much he enjoyed watching the JL do what Wranglers do best.
