2021 Jeep Gladiator Rubicon EcoDiesel Road and Trail Review

Jeep finally throws a diesel into the Gladiator. Does this make the most extreme off-road truck even better? We have a complete review right now on Driving Sports TV. Jeep's Gladiator hit the market a little more than a year ago to much celebration, and though it hasn't unseated any of the sales leaders, it has earned a solid following of enthusiastic owners. For 2021, Gladiator fans have something new to get excited about. This is the new Gladiator diesel. The model we're testing today is the up-trim Rubicon with a long list of options. Price as you see it here, $67,130 including delivery. Yes, it has $24,000 in options, including the diesel which itself is $4,000 of the price. Under the trademark double-latched hood is a 3-liter V6 turbo diesel that churns out 260 horsepower and an impressive 442 pound-feet of torque. Though you can get a petrol Gladiator with a manual transmission and an optional four-wheel drive system, the diesel is only available with an 8-speed automatic transmission and a part-time dual-range four-wheel drive setup. EPA rates economy at 21 miles to the gallon in town and 27 on the highway. That is an improvement of 5 and 4 miles to the gallon respectively versus the petrol option. Towing capacity is an impressive 6,000 pounds. Payload maxes out at 1,200 pounds. In the back, our Gladiator was equipped with the optional roll-up tonneau cover, which is a nice way to secure the bed. The standard bed is 5 feet long and there is an AC power socket in the back, which is really handy for working in the field. The second row does fold flat for gear, though it is a bit higher than I like. Fold the seats back to fit passengers. Gotta kind of pull yourself up into this. Now, I have room for my legs, just barely. Tons of headroom. Of course, this top will pop completely off if I want to take time to do that. Although it's kind of cold and threatening to snow, so keeping that on today. We also have built-in speakers here, which are for the whole party feel of the Gladiator. In the center, I have an armrest with cup holders, two more cup holders down there, and then a little basket for accessories. Yeah, not bad, actually. It's a little tight, but it's really not that bad. This is a Jeep, all right. All the normal stuff that you expect in a Jeep, it really hasn't changed at all from last year's review. Yes, I am wearing a Toyota coat and the reason is because it's really cold outside and all my coats have logos on them and I don't have a Jeep one. If I had a Jeep one, I would be wearing that right now. The interior of a Jeep is very different from any other car and it is the way that it is for very good reasons. They've moved a lot of the controls off of the doors because the doors can be completely removed. That's why we actually have the window up and down right here. Also, we have tons of controls for the four-wheel drive system. Front and rear lockers, we have sway bar disconnect, we have the part-time four-wheel drive high and low lever, and then we can also switch into drive park and all those things here with the main control. Overall, really cool looking interior that is purposeful even though, you know, you might look at it and go, okay, big knobs, but those are good for mittens if you need to do that. Some of the buttons down here get kind of buried, but you're really not going to use your front and rear lockers all that often. It's not an everyday thing, so it is buried a little bit lower. And then we also have, you know, water sealed media ports because, you know, if you're jeeping, that's important. I mean, this comes off, this comes off, you can even take the windshield off. I mean, this whole thing is like a Lego kit, and that is the appeal of these vehicles. Are they the greatest on freeways? No, but you buy something else if that's what you want. We got lots of cubbies here, here, cup holders. We have a, what's this? Oh, this is the tool. It even comes with tools to disassemble those parts I was talking about. Got a USB there, USB, and this is a USB-C. This one being a top of the line model has a lot of really great features, including blind spot warning. We have the big screen. We have the leather interior. The seats here, pretty comfortable. They say Rubicon on the back, so you know you have a fancy model. All the controls are manual. There's no electric controls here, but they are heated, as well as the steering wheel is heated, and those are some simple buttons here, or you can do it within the navigation system, and this navigation system is one of the best on the market. I really like it in all the FCA products. You can do everything from climate, which is basically a mirror of the buttons here, but you also have quick access to your forward camera, backup camera, and let's go ahead and do a search. You can do searches using voice prompts, though I found the results unreliable. Find evergreen mountain lookout. Nope, didn't mean either of those. Okay, that's not going to work. The more accurate method is to type in a search query. In addition to navigation and XM satellite radio and all the normal stuff, this also supports Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, depending on which device you have. It does not support wireless, though. I do have to plug it in, so go ahead and plug it in, and there we go. It's a nice bright display that is very responsive. Today we are heading into the mountains to test out some of the features on this Rubicon. Along the way, we will also hit the freeway so we can see just how easy is this to drive every day in normal conditions. The most significant Achilles heel for a Jeep is, of course, freeway driving. This thing is designed for really difficult off-road conditions, and on the freeway where it's smooth, all of its little problems kind of stand out. First off, there's the noise. Lots of it. That kind of is what happens when you have a vehicle shaped like a brick with a diesel engine under the hood pushing you through the wind. You get a lot of wind buffeting noise. The engine actually is fairly loud. I can tell there's a diesel under there, even at speed here. And then, of course, it's also running on all-terrain tires, which aren't known for being the quietest. Add it all up and you have the exact opposite of a luxury experience. But for the capability of this vehicle off-road, that is why people put up with this. Now there are a few features here that can make driving on the freeway a little bit more convenient for people who own Jeeps. Items like adaptive cruise control are available, but keep in mind this one is $67,000 and change, and it doesn't have that option. So you can really see that it's super easy to look at a Jeep and go, oh, that's only around $40,000. You know, I can do that. Sure, why not? And then you start adding on the features that, in my opinion, are kind of must-have features for 2021. And yeah, all of a sudden, boom, you're in the stratosphere. So, and some of those features are really about making this easier to live with on a day-to-day basis. Things like the blind spot warning system, rear cross-traffic alerts, rear auto braking, the adaptive cruise control, those are all options. And then there's the question of, do you really want to be rolling around on all-terrain tires? All-terrains wear much faster than a traditional all-season, so you're also going to have a heavier annual investment in tires. But if all of that sounds great to you and you really just want to see this thing in its element, well, then maybe the Gladiator is for you. Right now we're going to be comparing this a lot with the 4Runner because I actually had a 4Runner up until this morning. And so I've had the two side-by-side. We have another adventure that we're going to do later in the month where we take both of them out onto a winter road. But the actual competition for this one from Toyota would of course be the Tacoma TRD Pro. The Tacoma is way cheaper, but I would say it's not as capable off-road when you really need that extra, you know, 1% of capability. Well, anyway, we're finally going to jump off the freeway here onto the forest roads. Let's see how this thing does when the road gets a little twisty. Now, weather conditions today are of course awful. We have pouring rain. It's windy, it's rainy, straight-up storm season in the Pacific Northwest. So the Jeep's suspension is super soft. You have this really high seating position, which gives you a commanding view of everything. You're kind of rolling all over the place. To be honest, it's not a very fun experience on windy roads. And in fact, I could see somebody who is very prone to motion sickness may not like this whole situation. I have no problem with it. I know just getting there is part of the deal and I'm fine with this. Would I buy a vehicle that is this roly-poly? No, absolutely not. I am considering between buying a 4Runner and a Jeep right now. And every time I get in a Jeep, I'm like, yeah, no, it's just a little too much off-road and not quite enough convenience. So we'll see how that actually shapes up when I actually do buy a vehicle. I might buy something completely out of left field like a Cherokee. Who knows? We'll have to tune back in on that one. Let's go ahead and do a 0-60. Now the diesel here is not all about speed. It's about torque. Likewise, this whole 8-speed transmission is set up for torque and getting over objects and, you know, doing stuff like that. But let's go ahead and see how it does on a 0-60. I'm going to come to a complete stop right here. Three, two, oh, I do have auto start stop disabled. Three, two, one, go. Oh, kicks in around 3,000. And 60. 8.88 seconds. It's not fast at all. Yeah. You don't buy this for the speed. No, you definitely don't. But we're going to head into the woods now and that is where we will see the real benefit of this vehicle. I have no idea what the forest roads are going to be like today. We've had a raging storm all weekend. That tree is already looking lower than it was last time. Yeah. Hello. The roads are looking a little bit better than when I was out here with the 4Runner. Today, I don't have chains for this. I do have, however, the ability to air down these tires for improved grip. Got some more trees down here. Oh, boy. For those who don't travel into the forest roads all that often, yes, down trees are a regular thing. And not just trees, branches, rocks, of course, trees, waterfalls where waterfalls weren't before. These are all things that can happen when you're out into the woods. These are basically unmanaged roads. And I'm not really going that deep and wild here either. I mean, this is going up to a pretty popular trailhead. And then we're going to take a spur road into a less popular trailhead. But still, these are places where I have seen people take every kind of car with every kind of tire you can imagine. Getting a bunch of snow on the side of the roads here. This is where it got really hairy with the 4Runner a few days ago. So I can tell the temperature has actually warmed up a bunch. Well, it's a lot more rock exposed than used to be exposed. We've had a thaw in the ice and it is going to make this passage a lot easier. I think the biggest challenge today are honestly going to be trees. So I haven't even switched into four-wheel drive yet because this has been a complete non-issue. Oh, look, somebody actually had a chainsaw and cut down the tree that was blocking the 4Runner. This was a particularly tricky tree in that it had wedged itself across the road and between two trees on the right. So I could not pull it free. I needed a chainsaw or a handsaw or something and I didn't have that with me. That was poor planning on my part. I now pack a saw with me, which I should have been packing all along. I'm currently running 34 psi on all corners, which is a little low from the manufacturer's recommendation. They recommend for day-to-day driving to have a much higher psi. I think it's like 38, which is good for heavier payloads. But when you get onto stuff like this, you kind of want to bring it down a little. And if things get tricky, we'll bring it down a lot. In this review, we're introducing a new challenge course. It has features that you really only can traverse with an advanced off-roader. Big rocks, loose surfaces, articulation, all of this will come into play. I'm going to need my cameras for low. In this very first corner, there's a really big rock on the inside that I am going to actually go over, which will make the need for that outside wheel to really reach down and grab some dirt. So here you can see my wheels as they're cutting there. Now if I go over here, that'll put my wheels right over the rock. But the camera has a little goober there, so let's go ahead and clean it. And clean it again. Okay, that's pretty good. Now let's go ahead and do this. I want to keep my wheels right over that rock. Really? That's going to get me over the rock? Okay. Oh, it is. It's right. And if I'm wrong, I'm going to smash one of my GoPros. So I can feel power shifting around. That rear wheel reaching down. Cool. Yeah, it's a little on the long side. I have to make an adjustment. It's one thing I don't care for with the Gladiator here. It's just a little too long. So this rock right here, that's going to be an issue. I'm going to have to go to the left of it. And the best way for me to navigate that is, again, with the trail cam. So you can see the rock there. We're going to definitely want to position this so we have lots of room. I'm going to go like that. Okay, we need to swing way around so that rock doesn't hit the right wheel. In fact, I'm going to position my mirror down there so I can see where that wheel is in relationship to the rock. Yeah, we've got a good six inches there, which definitely puts us in the loose stuff on the left. So we've got to be careful we don't slide into it. Okay, I think we've cleared it. I just keep going. It's pretty narrow, but I think we're okay. I'm actually going to put... I think we have enough clearance for me to put a wheel up on a rock there. So let's do that because I think that'll actually make this line a little bit more difficult. So again, I'm using the trail cam to help position my front wheels. And of course, trail cam, yeah, that's another option. Does not come stock on this. But I think it's a great addition. We're going to make this as hard as possible. Up and over. As we climb, you can probably see those back wheels reaching down to the ground and pushing us through. Something that no crossover can do. That is unique to vehicles that are like the Jeep here. And out we go. I have to say that the torque from this diesel makes navigating obstacles like that super easy because you have all the torque right off the bat. And it just helps you really roll over. You don't have to rev the motor at all. It's just a slow roll into what you need to do. It's quite good. I really, really appreciate that on this machine. Okay, now we've gone up. Let's see what it's like going down. We have a hill descent control system here. Soon as I hit it, it tells me that I'm currently set for 0.6 miles per hour. And over here, it tells me to use the shifter to adjust speed. So I'm going to slot this over to manual. And I'm just going to let it roll. And we're going to let it do the hill descent. Now, my job here, I'm going to switch to trail cam again, so I can see what's in front of me under my wheels. I'm going to try to basically, I'm not going to mimic the same line. I'm actually going to take a slightly different line down. So I'm going to go wide here. And we should see a real squishy with that outside suspension as we're lifting up the front. I'm putting my foot on the brake here because I'm really worried about, you know what, I'm going to cut over and put the rear tire on top of that rock. Because I am concerned that I am going to really scratch up the wheel. The thing that's great here is as I'm taking my foot off the brake, it's putting me back into this 0.6 mile per hour descent mode. So it gives me a chance to really put on the brake, release it, think about what's going, feel what's happening, and go, yeah, that feels okay. And then just tap the brake, but it stays in this descent mode. It really makes it very intentional, the process. And that's something that crossovers just don't do. They don't, you know, most of them, they hit five miles per hour downhill. This one, 0.6. Now, of course, I can't adjust it. I just go down to the shifter here. And now going up to 1.2 miles per hour, I'm still going to try to bypass that rock over there, because that is a big rock. Now let's set my mirror there. So I can make sure I'm not going to scrape these really good looking wheels. I got a good three, four inches there. And then we continue down the trail. We're not done yet. We got one more tight turn up here. Okay, now I got to decide what I'm going to do here. I think I'm going to go wide and then swoop around, which means an adjustment. Cameras are great. Love those cameras. Not sure why trail cam switched off on me. Okay, so now I'm going to actually step down quite a lot with that front wheel. Really squish up that front one as I try to make this corner with this really long gladiator. I just love how intentional everything is off-road here. You know, nothing is... there's no oh my god moments. There just aren't. Back up a little bit, and away we go. I mean, if you take the time, you use the features, it makes it really easy. It's great. What it comes down to is how are you going to use your vehicle if most of your time is going to be spent off-road, in the forest, in the desert, places where you really need this level of off-road capability, then the Jeep totally makes sense. If you're buying a Jeep because it looks cool and you are never going off-road, you're really making a bad decision because this vehicle just isn't great day-to-day in terms of, you know, freeway, side roads. Heck, even going to the mall, it's kind of a little tough to park this thing. However, when you get it out here, that's when it all makes sense. So if you're looking for a truck that'll get you pretty much anywhere in the world, the Jeep Gladiator is a great choice. However, if you want something that has better on-road manners while still getting you through 99% of what you will ever encounter, the Chevy ZR2 Bison is really good. Even the Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro, that is an amazing machine, and both of those cost less than this. So you've got to really think about what are your needs and what do you use every day. If your answer is this, then yeah, the Gladiator is probably the best choice. For Driving Sports TV, I'm Ryan... I... It does appear as though the tree that has been slowly falling down has now blocked the road, so we're gonna have to clear this. I was this close to getting out of the woods! Turns out I was really lucky. Within five minutes, Forest Rangers appeared out of nowhere with the We'll see you right here with another video real soon.