jh0400 said:
GAC06 said:
Plug in hybrids are the answer to a question nobody asked.
On paper the GC 4xe Trailhawk was the perfect vehicle for me. I had a ten mile daily commute and wanted a 4wd SUV. When it worked right it was great. When it went into fuel oil refresh mode when it was 30 degrees outside and the heat wouldn't work until it finished the cycle or was in the shop for a week at a time for the various recalls or coolant heater failures it was awful.
As possibly the only other person on here who owned a 4xe (mine was a Wrangler) I agree with this assessment. Mine was awesome for most of the 2 years I owned it, but the 2 months it spent at the dealership with 4xe specific problems was too much. I don't count the 1 week for severe death wobble, because that is a possible feature of all Wrangler models.
For a certain niche group of people with short daily commutes, but also need the ability to drive long distances sometimes, especially if you only have one vehicle in your household, the 4xe was theoretically a great solution. Unfortunately, Jeep screwed it up and made it not reliable and also didn't have the appropriate service technician knowledge in place to fix it when it broke.
If I wasn't on a road trip, I could go months without needing to get gas. And for the poster who said plug in hybrids are boring to drive, the 4xe was the fastest Jeep you could get other than the 392, which is like $100k. I think that most plug in hybrids I have researched offer higher performance than their gas counterparts, because they can use gas and electric for acceleration. The experience of driving around the city with almost no sound, and the smoothness of no gears shifting was pretty great too.
I haven't priced them lately, and I know the pricing landscape is quite different from 5 years ago when I bought one, but mine ended up about $4k cheaper than a comparable gas version.
When I dropped my 4xe at the dealership for what I assumed was going to be a long time (ended up being 6 weeks) I walked across the street and bought a full electric vehicle. Then, when the Jeep was "fixed" I traded it in on a full gas vehicle, which is really the ideal scenario for a lot of people. I got the best of both for the specific things they were good at, with none of the things you give up with a plug in hybrid. It did mean going from a one car household to two, and owning two cars that each have much worse depreciation than a Wrangler, but it worked for me.
I'm back in a gas Wrangler now, and would have never considered another 4xe in the future.
