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" On Sale Date: Late August 2011 Price: $22,045\u2013$33,570 Competitors: Toyota FJ Cruiser, Nissan Xterra, Land Rover LR4 Powertrain: 3.6-liter V6, 285 hp; 260 lb-ft; six-speed manual or five-speed automatic; four-wheel drive EPA Fuel Economy (city/highway): 17/21 mpg What&amp;#039;s New: A year with our 2007 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon unearthed two major complaints with the vehicle: its cheap, hard plastic interior and a powertrain that made the Wrangler nearly as slow as a Smart car. No amount of legendary off-road capability could make up for that lack of potency.  Jeep must have been listening. Last year, it upgraded the Wrangler with a fresh new interior. Gone are the nearly concrete-hard surfaces that pained our elbows on long trips. They&amp;#039;ve all been replaced with softer materials, chrome accents and thoughtful places to stash your stuff. Heated seats are now available, too. The Wrangler became almost... luxurious. This year, Jeep decided to do some work under the hood. The carmaker replaced the sloth-like 205-hp 3.8-liter V6 and old-school four-speed automatic with the same 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 and A580 five-speed automatic that debuted in the new Grand Cherokee last year. And manual transmission fans can rest easy. The NSG 370 six-speed manual is still available, but wears a new clutch assembly. The new V6 makes 285 hp and a solid 260 lb-ft of torque\u2014that&amp;#039;s an improvement of 80 hp and 20 lb-ft. Also, the more powerful motor, standard 3.21:1 axle ratio (3.73:1 and 4.10:1 gears are also available), and new transmission combine for a 10 percent fuel-economy benefit.  The standard tow capacity remains at 2000 pounds, unless you get the extra tow package, which bumps the rating to 3500 lbs. These Wranglers could probably tow more, but Jeep says the towing capacity is limited by the cooling system. Along with the powertrain improvements, you can now order the 2012 Wrangler with a body color hardtop and fender flares. And Jeep has retuned the shocks too. Tech Tidbit: The new 3.6-liter V6 is all-aluminum, so it weighs more than 90 pounds less then the old cast-iron block 3.8-liter V6. The new engine is 94 mm shorter as well. That may not sound like much, but it helped engineers package an improved, higher-flow intake system. It also allowed Jeep&amp;#039;s engineers to raise the alternator, so the 2012 Wrangler can ford deeper water. Driving Character: It&amp;#039;s difficult to accurately gauge the dramatic improvement in acceleration from this new V6 without sampling the previous model at the same time. So we took twin 2011 and 2012 automatic-equipped Wranglers out for a test drive. The results were dramatic. We got both Jeeps up to about 30 mph and then pinned the throttle simultaneously. The old Wrangler falls behind the new one as if it were saddled with a heavy trailer. And from a dead stop in a foot-to-the-floor drag race, the new Wrangler pulls away. Jeep says it&amp;#039;s a 25 percent improvement in 0\u201360 acceleration. We believe them.  Track improvements aside, you can&amp;#039;t properly test a Wranger without getting it a little dirty. So we convoyed a group of 2012 Wranglers from Lake Tahoe to the head of the famed Rubicon trail for two days of four wheeling. The heavy snowfall and recent snowmelt made the trail more difficult. Crawling up wet rocks, the Jeeps would slide around, hunt for traction and sometimes slam hard onto their skidplates as a tire would slip from a rock. Each Jeep in our group was a Rubicon model, with locking differentials, a front swaybar disconnect, low gearing and aggressive tires. Still, the progress was slow. We made less than a half a mile per hour as we snaked the Jeeps through incredibly tight boulder fields, powered out of mudholes and waded through doorsill-deep pools of water.  After about 9 hours on the trail, we arrived in our camp at Rubicon Springs. And none of the Wranglers suffered any more damage than a few scraped bumpers. The next day we drove out of camp and through the forest floor. We scurried the Jeeps up the steep and challenging Cadillac Hill (named after a Caddy that somehow found its way onto the trailside). As we crested the hill, in a clearing above the tree line we stopped. Even though this was the middle of July, the end of the trail was still covered in snowdrifts. It was impassable. So the Jeeps went back out the way they came in.  Favorite Detail: The previous-generation Jeep Wrangler TJ had a handy top-of-dash cubby. We&amp;#039;d throw sunglasses, our point-and-shoot camera or even the office parking card up there. But when Jeep introduced the new JK Wrangler in 2007, that dashtop cubby was gone, replaced with a flat, hard surface. Well, for 2012 they brought back that storage space\u2014and made it much larger too. In fact, we drove the whole Rubicon with our camera on the dash within easy reach. It was just like the old days. Driver&amp;#039;s Grievance: As good as the new Pentastar V6 is, we&amp;#039;d still love to see a V8 Hemi Wrangler or even a diesel. A diesel Wrangler would have the ideal torque characteristics for trail-running. And paired to the five-speed automatic, the right turbo-diesel would probably be even quicker on the street than this new V6. The Bottom Line: The Jeep Wrangler has never been a refined road machine. But the new interior, combined with the revised powertrain, has made this 2012 model the most powerful, livable and quietest one yet. And as good as it is on the road, Jeep made sure the Wrangler remains the most capable off-road vehicle you can buy.  So what&amp;#039;s in store for the future? We hear Jeep is considering a pickup based on the Wrangler. However, Jeep executives have hinted that this truck might not come until the next generation Wrangler arrives in a few years. Perhaps we&amp;#039;ll see a diesel then too. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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