Jeep Wrangler (US) review

With its high, upright seating position and dash, hard wearing plastics, physical switchgear, door pocket netting and suchlike, just as rugged, robust and resilient as you’d expect. That’s not to say it’s bad, mind; there’s a sense that Jeep has tried to stick to its roots while modernising for the present day.

And modernise it has. Sitting in the centre of the dash is the new 12.3in touchscreen, up from the pre-facelift 8.4in unit and the largest display ever offered on a Wrangler, housing Jeep’s fifth-generation Android-based Uconnect 5 system, which its maker claims, is five times faster than the previous generation. 

It’s pretty handy too, smooth to operate and with handy shortcut buttons (Home, Media, Comfort, Nav, Phone, Vehicle and Apps) permanently displayed down the left-hand side. Happily, below you also get a physical climate control panel, below which sit the window toggles, and below the many off-road switches. It’s all there.

IS IT SPACIOUS ENOUGH FOR FAMILY FRIENDLY OVERLAND ADVENTURES?

Well the Wrangler is available in two lengths, either a two or four-door model (PHEV variants are four-door only), with the latter measuring 21.6in extra in length. While we’re yet to try the two-door (though it does get seats in the rear, it’s more of a 2+2 seating arrangement so likely for young’uns only), the four-door was more than spacious enough for four adults, with plenty of leg and headroom in the rear.

The Wrangler two-door offers 12.9 cubic feet of cargo space behind the back seats, compared to the four-door’s 31.7 cubic feet, which we found comfortably big enough to fit four airplane hold luggage suitcases. As ever, it also has a split opening tailgate, with the rear glass opening independently of the swing gate.

ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW?

New for 2024 is the first factory application of Trails Offroad, built into the existing infotainment system, which offers detailed trail guides for the 62 Jeep Badge of Honor trails, which include the Rubicon Trail in California, Hell’s Revenge in Utah and Jericho Mountain in New Hampshire. 

Buyers can also upgrade to a premium subscription that unlocks Trails Offroad’s full catalog of 3,000-plus trail guides. One for the serious mud-pluggers, we guess.

Upper spec Wrangler 4xe models also come with a ‘Power Box’, which features four 120V outlets and enables the 17kWh battery to be used as a power bank, campsite lighting and speakers to allow the party to continue long into the night, for example.