Less Is More // 2025 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Review

Hello, people of the world, watching new car reviews on the internet. Welcome to this, the 2025 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon X. And it's the two-door, the proper spec for a Wrangler, because four doors are for people with lazy children. Today, I'm gonna get this thing up in the air, wear a nerd out in tech specs, see how it is constructed, and then go take it off-road in the dirt. First things first, you don't need to be a physics major to understand why this is not the vehicle of choice if you wanna tow trailers with. Well, it has a rock stuck inside it. It's rated for 2,000 pounds, technically, because it's the two-door, the extreme 35-inch tire package, but no. Single tip, slim muffler, mild aluminized steel, powder-coated recovery point. Out back, the Wrangler Rubicon utilizes a Dana M220 full floater solid rear axle, both of which are fully boxed steel with coil springs. Well, there's a weird hula hoop around the bump stop. And it's paired with a set of these Redbody Monotube in-house blend Mopar shocks. Well, that's neat. It has a track bar and a rear anti-sway bar, which is bolted directly to the frame itself, measuring in at approximately 20 millimeter in diameter. Whoa, look at the color of the overspray under here. That is totally 80s fire truck. Fuel tank's protected by thick steel skid plate. The fourth generation of the Jeep Wrangler Chassis Co. JL has been in production for going on seven years now. And this two-door Rubicon X model weighs in at 4,279 pounds, 330 pounds lighter than the same model with four doors. As far as the transmission goes, this two-liter turbo four-cylinder model is equipped with the ZF 850RE eight-speed automatic transmission with a maximum torque input rating of 500 newton meters, which is approximately 370 pound-feet. And it's paired with one of two available transfer cases, this one being the RockTrack MP30-22OR two-speed transfer case with a four-auto mode. Because it's a two-door, one-piece driveshaft, look at these weights. Just welded on there, little barnacles. Single resonator in the mid-pipe, all mild aluminized steel, measures in at a rather beefy 70 millimeters, or two and three quarter inches. Ease of maintenance on Wranglers is great, especially on the four-banger models. I mean, there's absolutely no excuse of why you couldn't put a new crush washer on your drain plug when you do the oil change. Tons of room to access that. Another massive benefit of the two-door is in the steering department. This one has an electro-hydraulic power assist steering rack with a 17.7 to one ratio, but the turning radius is six feet better with the two-door over the four at 32.7 feet. Ah, look at that. Jeep actually paints their driveshafts unlike Ford. Oh, it's got a Jeep logo on there, that's cute. Up front, the Rubicon utilizes the third generation Dana 44 solid front axle with another Tru-Lok locking front diff with a 4.56 final drive ratio, cast iron knuckles, box steel lower links, tubular upper links. Again, paired with those red body monotube Mopar branded shocks with divorced coil spring, in-house Mopar branded steering stabilizer. And hiding behind the front skid plate right here is the electric sway bar disconnect. And that front anti-sway bar measures in at approximately 34 millimeter in diameter. Steel, steel bumper. How did you get up there? Also, these creepy little idiots are available for sale on my website if you wanna support this channel along with my car detailing products, RoboBubble. All right, time for the braking test. This is gonna be terrifying. Nothing behind me. Ready, set, go. Oh, man. Imagine that's how braking tests were in the 80s. I mean, the stopping distance wasn't terrible. The ABS did a good job. Bounced and weaved and bucked and bobbed as you would expect something of a short wheelbase and a lot of travel in the suspension. That braking was just made possible thanks to a set of 2-piston front calipers, slightly larger for the Rubicon 35 model, and a 330 millimeter or 12.9 inch front rotor. The wheels, these are the optional 17 by 8 positive 12 millimeter offset cast aluminum beadlock capable wheel wrapped in a set of 35 inch BFGoodrich all-terrain TAs. You'll notice the valve stems are protected in this little pocket. Front inner fender liner. Plastic, yeah. The Broncos are a hairy cardboard. LED fog lamps. The little corner caps of the steel bumper are removable. The winch capable cover makes it look like a blepping tongue to eyeballs. All Wranglers are like this and it kind of drives me crazy. I know the doors are removable, but there's this weird little dent in the sheet metal skin because of the exterior hinges. Powder-coated steel rock sliders to protect your pinch weld. Rear inner fender liners. Also plastic, easy to clean. Out back, you go down to a single piston floating caliper, but up to a 13.4 inch or 342 millimeter rotor. The wheel and tire, same size as you have up front and on the rear door. In the name of science, I am now going to give it the beans, but first, assessment of bolstering. The doors are metal. There's not actually anything over the painted area. This one has an optional package that gives you black leather with red stitch in something with a removable top. The seats are heated as well as the steering wheel is heated because this thing has quite a few options added to it. There's a physical button for traction control right next to the auto stop start off. Press that to turn off traction control. Technically you could say I do have a drive mode. I have off-road plus. I also have a manual mode with this eight speed auto. I can slap it over to the left and use it sequentially up and down. And we'll see what this thing can do. Ready? Go. A little hesitation. A little bit of a hesitation when it grabs a gear. It moves out though when it builds a boost. That's good. It's reasonably quick. I feel like they might be sandbagging on the power figures a hair. Pop in the hood. I love that you can just do this outside the vehicle. Except anyone can just do this outside the vehicle. Wait, the hinges are on the outside. You can technically take the hood off this thing too. I don't know why no one ever mentions that. Cause probably cause no one in their right mind would do that. That's just dumb. Open. No hood struts. Underneath the hood of the 2025 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is the GME T4, which is a two liter all aluminum turbo charged four cylinder that produces 270 horsepower at 5,250 RPM and 295 pound feet of torque at 3000 RPM. When this engine first debuted in the Wrangler, it did have the eTorque mild hybrid system, which was a belt driven starter generator, but they ditched that fairly quickly. Plastic charge pipe right on top of the plastic valve cover. Oh, that's foam. Squishy, neat. Huge diameter intake pipe. Jeez. So if you look at the location of the center of the axle and follow that line up, the engine is actually front midship. It is mounted behind the center line of the front axle. Digging in a little bit deeper on this 1,995 CC turbo four banger, it is undersquared at an 84 by 90 millimeter bore and stroke with a 10.0 to one compression ratio. It is a chain driven engine. It is direct inject only though. Does have variable valve timing, as well as the turbo is a twin scroll unit, which you can see that turbo is mounted right here on the driver's side of the engine bay. Has a secondary coolant expansion chamber over here. I guess maybe because it's got a cool DGR system. You can see it does utilize a traditional vacuum based brake booster. That was a bold engineering decision to put your coolant expansion chamber right next to the washer fluid reservoir. I guess the black cap and the giant emoji on the washer fluid should keep people from screwing that one up. Interesting location for the air box inlet. Now the base engine in these Wranglers is the Pentastar V6, which comes standard with a six speed manual transmission. And that is my biggest complaint with this turbo four cylinder is they don't offer the manual on this engine, which would be perfect competition for the Ford Bronco with the 2.3 EcoBoost. Huge missed opportunity there. It is now time for a rally special stage 2.0. This is not going to be this vehicle's strong suit. Short wheel base, solid front rear axles. This is not a high speed desert vehicle. Press this for the off-road plus mode. Automatically defeats traction control and puts it into four high. All right, let's see what this thing can do. Give it a little assistance and let it eat. Ready? Go. All right. Little bit of torque coming off the line there. Didn't really seem like it spun the tires even though traction control's off. It is in four high though. I mean, these big 35s, they're lots of grip. Oh, yeah, that's rough. Oh geez. Oh man. It's quick. Absolutely quick. I love the nimbleness of the short wheel base torque. Like it's very agile feeling, but solid axles and this is where the Bronco shines in this type of off-roading because it has independent front suspension. But where this thing is definitely gonna outdo the Bronco is with a solid axle. What comes a real off-roading and trails and stuff. It's an interesting sounding engine. It's got like a kind of a weird high pitch whine to it. Lots of these tires just dig right in. Traction for day, absolutely traction for days. Oh, braking shimmied around a little bit. You can feel it just, it's twitchy and wants to rotate left and right really quick, which makes the two doors a lot of fun. The shocks are not really valved for high speed whatsoever. And this isn't even high speed, I was going like 15 miles an hour right there. Oh geez, good power. Oh man, I'm breaking out a sweat just because I'm trying to feel it and pay attention. Oh geez, that's rough. Oh man. Oh geez, that was such a rough lap. It crossed the line. Solid axles on that type of a tester, brutal. Not one of the fastest laps, but this is not the type of off-roading this is designed for. This is not the Swiss army knife of off-road. I'm disconnecting my front anti sway bar real quick because I gave this thing a challenge that it was naturally not designed to do. So I'm gonna give it something it is designed to do. I'm gonna rock this thing forward and back. There we go. If I flip this up, I can lock both the front and rear diff or flip it down to lock just the rear. I don't think I need that for this though. This has lots of weird holes and bumps, so it'll be great for articulation. Yeah. I'm so glad that there's still solid axle vehicles front and rear on the market. Yeah. As far as the hill climb goes, typically this hill is reserved only for unibody based crossover, all wheel drive vehicles to test their off-road capability, which is a challenge for many. But to show the difference between a proper off-road rig, a real SUV and a crossover, I'm gonna do it with this thing and show you how simple it is. It's just in four auto. I'm not gonna lock the diffs, nothing. I'll leave the sway bar disconnected. I'm just gonna drive up it. And I'm not taking any air out of the tires. They're at like 40 PSI, not giving it any assistance. Just gonna drive up this hill. Just like this. I went down the most steep approach and it was like driving in a parking lot. That's the major complaint against crossovers. People buy them because they think that they're gonna be good in an off-road situation. They're not. They're mediocre. They can do some stuff, but not like something like this. And they're not that great on-road compared to a car, whereas a car will be far superior at handling because lower center of gravity and I'm gonna go back down the same path. I'll see if I can go down a steeper position. No, that doesn't really matter. It's simple. It's literally like driving through a parking lot in a Jeep. Now, this is an obstacle I have never done with any other vehicle in any other review because it is really only possible with a short wheelbase vehicle. And I don't know if it's possible because I've never done this before, but I think mathematically this will work based on guessing. I'll put on the screen my approach, departure, breakover, and ground clearance. It's got over a foot of ground clearance. It should be able to make it over the breakovers. But again, I've never done this before and this looks insane. I don't know if I'm gonna make it over the breakover. I really hope I don't high center. Do I got breakover or good? I do? It's so iffy because it's so steep. It's like that. Okay, keep going. This is nuts. This is super steep. Now, I'm gonna start immediately going back up. Yeah, you could not do this. I don't think you can do a four-door Wrangler. I mean, you probably could, you'd scrape, but a stock four-door Rubicon, I don't know if you can do it without scraping. This one is even steeper, even more sharp of a breakover. Did not high center. That's so sick. This right here is why I feel a two-door Wrangler especially is future-proof. I don't think it matters what is powering the vehicle as long as the mechanical bits and the dimensions still stay the same and true to the original recipe. This will forever be a fun vehicle to drive. Clean camera rear glass. Oh, it just turns on the wiper, I think. It didn't squirt the lens. Front board-facing camera. There we go. As far as the hill descent control goes, I have a foot, I can do it with that, or I'll try this. Four low to be able to use it, okay. Oh, we really gotta put some meat and potatoes into it. There you go. Use shifter to adjust. That's smart. Instead of using your cruise control buttons, you use the shifter to select your speed. I love that they use the shifter for your hill descent speed. You can already hear the little robotic whales doing their thing to control the speed. Now I'm gonna use my trail cam just because I have them. Front board-facing cam. A lot of these features, like the hill descent control and stuff, it's neat, but you don't really need that. That's where, I mean, the Rubicon is sweet just because the mechanical hardware, where you get the axles and stuff, but all the accessories are added to this. If you can afford them, great, but I don't think you need them to make this vehicle awesome. I think just a Rubicon out the door, if nothing added to it, good to go. So a little bit of a downside with this thing having a dual top option, the soft top and the painted hard top, there is absolutely zero storage space, but I mean, normal people wouldn't carry both tops around with them, but at least you can know can carry that. That's kind of neat, gives you instructions how to attach it. I got a little LED light and a outlet for old school cigarette lighter. Whoa, the back of the seat is super soft. That's really nice fabric that will get full of dirt. I will say the two-door Bronco has a little bit more space back here than the two-door Wrangler does. I don't even have to tell you the specs. They're literally written right on here. Made in the USA, developed in Auburn Hills, Michigan, built in Toledo, Ohio since 1941. Dust. This is why you don't need four doors. I am a Sasquatch and I will now climb into the back of this thing and I'm standing in dirt. Even more difficult. Okay. Oh, just a mini cap. There, proof that four doors are for people with lazy children. This is, it's not that hard to climb back here. I can still move my legs. That's a plus and I'm almost six foot tall, so I think a lot of people can get away with two doors. They don't realize it. The speaker is conveniently placed so that way if you have the annoying person, you stick them in the back seat and then the front people don't have to listen to them. They get drowned out by the music. The vents look like Ritz crackers. LED lights. Are you serious? I got dual USBs back here. Oh, I have USB-C and there's four ports for only two seats and an AC power inverter. Dual cup holders with these little bubbles that keep your drinks in place. I don't know if I'd want carpet and a Rubicon. That's, there's only two seats. The center is not actually a seat. Map pockets and some hooks. Well, that's wild. There's an airbag in the roll bar. The back of the seat looks like Domo's face screaming. Accomplished ingress. I must accomplish egress. Oh, the seat slides forward. That would have been way easier to get in if I would have thought of that. That's a cute little Easter egg. A Jeep and a Gladiator. Too bad this one's a four-door. I'm making four-door people so mad by clowning on four doors, I'm sorry. I have to admit, it's kind of a smart idea, this little convertible front portion. It's something people would frequently open. Ooh, I didn't even notice. It has the SOS assist thing built into this little area. Home link garage door opener. I'm surprised the same logic doesn't apply with the window switches for the door unlock buttons. I didn't know floor mats were that complicated that they needed a caution triangle and you to read a book about them. Those got a Gorilla Glass windshield coating. A proper mechanical e-brake instead of a stupid electronic one, love that. They put so much effort into making these two buttons look like little Jeeps, but the traction control, not so much. That just looks generic. The infotainment screen is nicely incorporated into the dash and it's pretty idiot-proof, self-explanatory, has fruit and robot compatibility. That's wireless. A stereo in here is decent, but if you go up to the upper levels, it'll start to distort and kind of hear the speakers pop. But other than that, sounds great. And because it is a Rubicon, it does have the off-road pages, adventure guides, and GPS trail logs where you can make your own trails and save them. Have all your telemetry, a front-facing camera where I put all my camera gear on the front bumper so I don't have to set it in the dirt. The first thing that's worth mentioning is Jeep has a lot of fun colors that they offer, but they kind of do it like an In-N-Out menu. It's like a hidden menu of colors. You can go to build a vehicle on the website and sometimes a color isn't listed. I didn't see this color on here for 2024 or 2025. So it's probably like that purple fuchsia pink color that they just recently had too, where it just comes and goes. Or because this is a press vehicle, sometimes press vehicles are weird, they're not for sale. Either way, Jeep, excellent job on offering fun colors. This is my favorite color that they offer because it reminds me of a fire truck from the 1980s, except this doesn't have a screaming Jimmy under the hood. It would be sweet if this thing had a Detroit in it. Although I will say this, with all the options added to it, 16 grand worth of options in the mid-60s is mind-blowing, but it also depends. Like I prefer base model vehicles and I modify vehicles myself. So I would just buy a base model two-door Wrangler and I feel for that price, it's not bad. I think the issue also is dealers don't typically stock low trim grade vehicles because they don't make as much of a profit off of them. Fuel economy, I did not get what this thing is rated for. However, this does have 35s on it. So I've been averaging a little over 18 miles per gallon over the past week of driving it. And I mean, for something that's shaped like a brick on 35s, that's acceptable. Watch this. I'm gonna turn around on a super tight trail. Oh my God, little parking sensors. I'm in two-wheel drive right now, by the way. See if I can do this in two high. I'm gonna turn around on a super narrow trail. Do this in a four-door. I mean, you could, you just have to run over more stuff. The turning radius is great on this thing. Yeah, see, case in point, why a two-door is better. It is now time to give this Jeep some scores. Starting with the bean score, the assessment of feeling you get in your gut when you give it the beans. And it earns a rating of... Next is the cookie score, the assessment of value. And a two-door Rubicon X with no options added to it would be comparable to other off-road vehicles in its class. But where you can get crazy at the cheese whiz is when you add 16 grand in options to it, bringing the price into the mid-60s. That gets a rating of... Next is the wrench score, the assessment of ease of maintenance. And it gets a rating of... Next is the meatball score, the assessment of off-road capabilities. And it gets a rating of... And lastly is the penguin score, the assessment on how much I personally like a vehicle. And a two-door Rubicon gets a rating of... As someone that chose to buy a Ford Bronco over a Wrangler, I will say that I love them both in their own unique ways. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this review. I'll see you soon with another. Bye.