The 2015 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara 4X4 is for Sharing

By Derek Shiekhi - September 11, 2015

One of the greatest adventures I’ve ever been on took place when I was behind the wheel of a Jeep. It was just me, nature, and a Trail-Rated Compass.

Although the Jeep Wrangler is built for adventure as well, it’s a very different vehicle – not just for the obvious reasons, either. Over the course of a week with the 2015 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara 4X4, I shared the experience of it with others. It inspired them to share certain things with me, too.

It’s natural to want to do something impulsive in a Wrangler, such as charge through mud or climb a steep grade just for the hell of it. I felt the same urge with the Sahara and my roommate Dan gave me a perfect reason to give in to it one Sunday. He’s from Cincinnati and hadn’t eaten a Penn Station sub sandwich in years. The only three Texas locations of the chain are in the Dallas, Texas area. We live in Austin. Yes, we drove more than three hours to Southlake, Texas just for sandwiches. Don’t judge.

I had removed the zip-out back and rear side window panels earlier in the week, but Dan and I shared the labor of throwing the interior and roof-mounted latches for the Sunrider soft top and folding back the unwieldy giant square kite of metal bars and fabric.

The resulting black pile combined with the high-mounted brake light and spare tire to limit rearward visibility. I love how charmingly simple Wranglers are, but a backup camera would’ve been greatly appreciated.

With the roof stowed and sunscreen applied, Dan and I set off north. At nearly 15.5 feet long, the Unlimited is the longest Wrangler Jeep produces, but it didn’t feel like a boat out on the road. I never got the sensation I was miles away from its extremities. However, I did feel nearly every imperfection of the highway’s surface as my pal and I headed up I-35. Even though Jeep doesn’t yet make a truck, it certainly makes SUVs that ride like one – in the old-school sense of the word.

As Dan looked out the window and quietly drooled to himself thinking about what he’d sink his teeth into at Penn Station, my mind wandered to the day before. My brother Anthony and I were tooling around the Austin area with the top down, an experience he’d never before had. He must’ve enjoyed it because he felt compelled to share his feelings about it with me. He said, “I’m not really a Jeep guy, but I can see why people like these. We should go to the lake or something.”

A neighbor of mine is apparently one of those people my brother mentioned. She shared her affinity for the Wrangler and her interest in my feelings about it with me one afternoon. Although I enjoyed its looks and the feeling of freedom it gave me, I disliked how I had to pair my phone with its Bluetooth system using voice commands as opposed to using a more modern and nearly effortless Uconnect interface. My Wrangler tester’s black interior also left something to be desired: cooled seats, a feature which would make a lot of sense in a model that’s often driven in convertible mode on sunny days. Ultimately, it was quicker and easier to tell my neighbor, “It’s awesome.”

Dan and I eventually began talking about what we’d do after we ate at Penn Station. Even at 70 mph with the top down, carrying on a conversation about going to get Graeter’s Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip ice cream and popping into the local Brooks Brothers store wasn’t a challenge. Sure, we had to speak a little louder, but that was it. I didn’t have to shout at my buddy to tell him that the 3.6-liter Pentastar V6’s 285 horsepower and 260 pound-feet of torque seemed a little overwhelmed by the amount of vehicle with which they were saddled and that I was looking forward to the updated, more efficient version of the engine.

Finally, Dan and I arrived at Penn Station. As we approached the building, he performed his version of “The Happy Dance” (everyone has one – even you). We shared the fact that we had driven all the way from Austin just for the shop’s sandwiches with the man who took our orders. As I took my seat with a cup of fresh-squeezed lemonade in my hand, I looked out the front window of the restaurant at the Wrangler that had transported Dan and me throughout our high-carb hajj. It had averaged almost one mpg more than the 20-mpg highway rating the EPA gave it, but it was still going to need a drink of its own after such a long trip.

The Wrangler hadn’t taken my roommate and me to Penn Station to drink, though. We were there to eat East-Coast-style sandwiches. As hungry as we both were, there was no way we were going to share.

*My 2015 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara 4X4 tester had a total price of $40,020. That included options such as Sahara Package 24G, the Connectivity Group ($595), a five-speed automatic transmission ($1,350), and a radio with navigation, a 40-gigabyte hard drive, and a 6.5-inch touchscreen ($1,145).