Tell Me About That 4 banger turbo in the Wranglers.

[smritte]

That's highly debatable, or you'd never see the mileage you see in older diesel engines.

You must have missed I said gas not diesel. I also was not aware the OP wanted opinions on diesel. Your entitled to your opinion. I still remain in the industry and still get to see reports from a number of car lines. It gets down to physics and build quality. Looking at the blowby from two identical engines with over 100k is a bit telling though, as well as crank bearing wear. Maybe I only see the bad ones. who knows.

 

[bgenlvtex]

I've never known anyone to have one, but I have not seen nor heard anything bad about them. My understanding is that the design architecture is very similar to the 3.0 Hurricane but i do not know that to be fact. I have a 2023 Wagoneer with the 3.0Hurricane SO (420hp/469tq), and I have been impressed with the performance of the engine (and the rest of the vehicle for that matter).

I traded my 2020 Gladiator Rubicon (3.6l Pentastar) mid year after it shelled a rocker arm half way across Nevada pulling our camper (3000ish pounds) at 103,000 miles and replaced it with a 2024 Ram 2500 Tradesman Power Wagon. The 3.6 is under-powered in the Gladiator.. Tow ratings vs real life experience with the Gladiator are wildly disparate. My truck had a 7000lb tow rating and struggled with less than half of that. The 3.6' s have a long history of valve train issues that FCA has fixed at apparently unsuccessfully still. If Stellantis wasn't managed by idiots hell bent on bringing "green alternatives" that literally nobody who is buying their vehicles wants, they would put a Hurricane in the Gladiator. Even a de-tuned SO in like a 375hp/425tq configuration would fix Gladiators and they could finally have an adequate power plant.

As for longevity an engine designed for forced induction won't give up anything to naturally aspirated engines. Strapping aftermarket turbos/superchargers on to an engine not designed for it might. Virtually every diesel engine on the market has forded induction, some of them are famous for longevity.

If I was buying a new Wrangler today and the 2.0L Turbo and 3.6L Pentastar were the options, I would buy the Turbo 2.0L.

Stellantis needs to either fix the 3.6 to make it as reliable as its production numbers are prolific, OR they need to quit using it

 

[LostWoods]

You must have missed I said gas not diesel. I also was not aware the OP wanted opinions on diesel. Your entitled to your opinion. I still remain in the industry and still get to see reports from a number of car lines. It gets down to physics and build quality. Looking at the blowby from two identical engines with over 100k is a bit telling though, as well as crank bearing wear. Maybe I only see the bad ones. who knows.

It makes no difference gas or diesel, it's how the engine is designed and older turbo diesels are a perfect example of how proper design can last even under extreme stress. Sure, if you build a 2.0L turbo package you'd get more life out of the engine if you removed the turbo but then you lose a lot more than that too. Which is why nobody is comparing a turbo engine to it's non-turbo counterpart, they're comparing a 2.0L turbo to a 3.6L V6 with similar power. If the turbo engine is built properly for the stress, it can absolutely last as long as the NA engine. The 3.6L doesn't exactly set a high bar for that

 

[smritte]

It makes no difference gas or diesel,

Then we can agree to disagree. Again, I'm referring to small gas engines. I'm sure your decades of tearing down and inspecting these factory turbo small gas engines will probably eclipse mine. As I said before, maybe I just got engines customers abused but, I have seen quite a few as well as owning and building several. The modern 4cyl engines I tear down now, do not impress me in the least (other than the valvetrain and some injection systems). I will admit, I don't work for Jeep but I doubt they are higher quality than who I do see.

The jeep turbo is running 15-20 psi on the highway. They get away with it because of variable valve timing. The whopping 270 hp happens at 5200 rpm. The torque is 295 @ 3000 rpm. Compered to Toyota's small turbo engine, 310 torque @1700 RPM
They designed them for highway milage, that's it. The variable valve timing will help with the low end but considering the shear amount of boost, the compression needs to be a bit low. There goes bottom end power you need for bigger tires and off road.

If the turbo engine is built properly for the stress, it can absolutely last as long as the NA engine.

This, right here. I've seen very few factory "non" European engines that fit that bill. Referring to the above engine spec, 15-20 pounds of boost @5200 rpm, longevity doesn't seem to be in the cards. I can say the same for Toyota's engine but at least the torque comes in around where your driving off road.

I don't want to start a pissing contest because I gave an opinion you don't agree with.
ALL of my original comments were about "MY" experience with small gas turbo engines. I wasn't slamming Jeep nor did I mention diesel. The OP wanted to know about long time owner experience. All I could add was my long term turbo small engine experience. You gave your opinion, it differed from mine, that's it.

 

[MidOH]

Bottom end power comes from gears.

The high torque modular Ford engines, were the worst mistake Ford ever made. Everybody called them gutless. And that's because Ford listened to the customer too much.

The low torque, short stroke, big bore 6.2l base engine, crushes all the modular engines. Lower trans gears. Better 4.30 axle gear options. Realizing their mistakes, they're finally getting ahead on engines and trans.

Jeep should notice. If the Bronco keeps stealing their lunch, they'll have to release an updated Wrangler.

I expect smaller and smaller engines, as transmissions improve, and eventually as hybrid systems improve.

If the boost on the 2.0l is that high, it might actually be a pretty tough engine. You can't get away with soft parts, with high boost. Might explain the head gasket issues too.

The cam and rocker issues on the 3.6, and hemi v8, are straight up corrupt corner cutting. There's no excuse for those failures in today's engines. Especially an old fashioned ag engine. It's almost 2025. Cams, lifters, and rockers, were perfected 30 years ago.

 

[tjZ06]

Bottom end power comes from gears.

That makes no sense. Gears provide torque multiplication, and impact the engine RPM for a given speed/gear (as in, what gear in the trans you're in) combination. Gears do not change the actual "bottom end power" aka low-RPM torque an engine products, just when/how it is accessed. You can gear a rig to the moon but that doesn't change the RPM where it produces peak torque, nor the RPM range with the most power under the curve. Something like the 3.6 will need to continually turn more RPM when heavily loaded as compared to the 2.0T, no matter how you gear it. The "high torque" mod motors weren't actually "high torque", they just ran out of steam up top. So they were high torque only as compared to their abysmal top end HP numbers (excluding the 4-cam or blower versions, of course).

It's like the argument I often find myself in regarding WJs. You'll see time and time again folks post that the 4.0L is better than the 4.7L for the WJ because it's so "torquey" and produces its torque at a lower RPM. When you actually look at the factory dyno charts you'll see yes, the 4.7 (I'm considering the HO variant in this case) produces its peak torque at a higher RPM than the venerable 4.0L... but at the 4.0's peak torque RPM it's producing something like 60 ft-lbs more torque than the 4.0 at the same RPM (again, the peak torque for the 4.0L). The 4.0L isn't a "torque monster", it just only has torque, very little HP so it feels like all the power is down low.

If it were proven to be equally reliable, the 2.0T would be the better engine for the JL/JT... especially when you factor in the ease with which you can add significant HP/TQ as compared to trying to add power to a 3.6 (talk to anybody that's tried a Supercharger on one...).

-TJ

 

[MidOH]

Put 4.88 gears in a Mustang, and tell me it doesn't feel "torqier". Torque multiplication through gears, is still torque.

If peak torque is occurring 3000 rpm late, simply gear down. Transmission and axle gears. We wouldn't have dreamed of running 4.88 gears in a regular truck, years ago. Now it's perfectly normal.

Tires and earth, don't care if torque comes from a gear box, or a con rod.

Massively lower 1st and 2nd gears, and you can switch to short stroke engines. You can switch to smaller engines. You can concentrate on peak power and efficiency. By by, long stroke gassers. Big bores rule again.

Jeep needs to find away to combine a modern engine with the manual trans and 4.88 gears. Wranglers are supposed to be fun vehicles. Slush boxes aren't fun.

 

[Murphy Slaw]

I have a 2023 Wagoneer with the 3.0Hurricane SO (420hp/469tq), and I have been impressed with the performance of the engine (and the rest of the vehicle for that matter).

I traded my 2020 Gladiator Rubicon (3.6l Pentastar)

If I was buying a new Wrangler today and the 2.0L Turbo and 3.6L Pentastar were the options, I would buy the Turbo 2.0L.

I'm seeing more and more of this.

 

[armyRN]

I ordered a new 23 JLU Willys XR 2.0T back in Dec 2022, and got it in Mar 2023. The XR package comes with HD axles, 4.56 gears, a 1.5" factory lift, and 35" tires. I've got about 22,000 miles on it now. No issues. I love it. Tons of power from idle onward, decent gas mileage, and is comfortable. The 8-speed auto tranny is awesome. It's the vehicle I go on dates with my wife. It is my daily driver.

I've driven it from SW WA to FL and back. I've done the Vancouver Island loop towing a homemade lil' adventure trailer (1500lbs when fully loaded). I've flat-towed a 3000lb 46 Willys flatty from SW WA to ID and back with no issues. The turbo takes care of any issues with driving in higher elevations.

I did add an 0.5" spacer lift all around, and had True Tracs installed front and rear (and did a FAD delete).