According to the great folks over at the TFLoffroad channel on YouTube, the 2022 Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer will become available at dealerships across the nation this very month. So, better decide if one needs a mall crawler, a family hauler, or a weekend getaway vehicle.
Fortunately, when Jeep started the development process for the 2022 Wagoneer / Grand Wagoneer the company took all that into account. After all, they just had to peek over at the competition – Chevy Tahoe, Ford Expedition, Nissan Armada, Toyota Sequoia – and come up with ideas for combinations. This is probably why the Wagoneer is adept at all that and some more.
This time around, the TFLoffroad team had the first driving opportunity to test the mettle of the Wagoneer (a white Grand Wagoneer also makes an appearance – probably as a towing “guest star”). They did it somewhere around New York, not their usual home base of operations from Colorado. And it was all thanks to an official Jeep event.
Which shouldn’t be too interesting for regular folk because of all the marketing talk. But the guys skipped that part and jumped inside a black Wagoneer for a little bit of off-roading. Seriously, the full-size, body-on-frame truck-based SUV is also adept at rock crawling. Quite literally, thanks to a little, specially prepared course. And the fact that it’s equipped, among other things, with the Advanced Off-Road Group, an eight-speed auto, as well as the 5.7-liter Hemi V8 with E-Torque.
The TFLoffroad host hopes a Wagoneer will soon reach their Colorado home for more serious trailering, but for now, it’s enough for a first opinion. And, according to the fan base, it’s quite capable of tackling soft courses... while the harder ones would probably turn into the odd experience of “uncomfortably hammer(ing) a skateboard over a bunch of rocks.” Yes, the Wagoneer has an optional air suspension, a 48-to-one crawl ratio, as well as around 10-inch (25.4 cm) of ground clearance.
But it’s also pretty obvious that it lacks the suspension travel needed to approach tougher terrain. Still, that’s not a big impediment for the Wagoneer – as it’s capable of going forward even with one or two wheels up in the air...
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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