From the February 1984 issue of Car and Driver.
Now that our friends at AMC have gone to all that trouble developing and introducing the new downsized line of XJ Wagoneers and Cherokees, the big old boxy Wagoneer—called the Grand Wagoneer these days—is selling better than ever. What is one to say? Probably the best thing to do is not to say anything until the end of the year and see if total sales of the old Wagoneers and the new Wagoneers and Cherokees are markedly increased from total sales of similar Jeep vehicles in years gone by, and then we’ll know whether the AMC strategy was the proper one. We’re guessing that they’ve guessed correctly. We won’t be surprised if Jeep sales go right off scale in the next twelve months, since the new XJ and the old Wagoneer are pretty strong marketing medicine.
The old Wagoneer is a four-wheel-drive vehicle for people who have no Walker Evans fantasies, no secret lusting to leave the wife and kids and go run the Baja 1000. It is quiet and comfortable, for the most part, and it goes over the rocks and rills with a kind of dignified composure. It does not sit twelve feet in the air, nor does it frighten livestock and small children with sound and fury in its passage. It is more like an older American station wagon with four-wheel drive than a truck.
The new Wagoneer is much the same, only smaller, lighter, and considerably more up to date. To be specific, almost two feet shorter, five inches narrower, and half a ton lighter. The more up-to-date part includes a better structure—both lighter and stiffer—improved seats, and an all-new instrument panel that includes the essential instruments and controls in a properly designed and unified whole and completely abandons the add-it-on, cut-and-try look of earlier Wagoneers and Cherokees.
AMC’s French connection was clearly a help in the realization of this new product line, both financially and philosophically. A look at a downsized Wagoneer, say, our five-door test wagon, reveals lines that are far more international than Detroit in their inspiration, and wheels that are pushed clear out toward the vehicle’s four corners in a manner reminiscent of all the great French road cars—an approach that greatly enhances the vehicle’s interior space, improves the ride, and, through reduced overhang, makes for better approach and departure angles. For appearances’ sake, we’d like to see the roof about an inch and a half higher on all XJ models. This would also increase headroom and bulk carrying capability, but we’d really do it just because it’d make the machines look a little better proportioned, a little more robust.
There are two Wagoneer models and three Cherokee models in the XJ lineup. Wagoneers are differentiated from Cherokees by a specific, more formal grille design and by the availability of wood-grain vinyl trim on the Wagoneer Limited model. Also, once inside, the customer will find that Wagoneers are considerably more luxurious than Cherokees, going so far as to offer leather upholstery, dopey-looking whitewall tires, and a “soft ride” option. The soft-ride option should be avoided. All models feature a busy ride, with noticeable rocking motions over broken pavement, railway crossings, et cetera, but the Wagoneer’s soft-ride package, with its lower spring and damping rates, really accentuates what is only minor unpleasantness in the Cherokee.
It has been suggested, even in this magazine, that the XJ sportwagons are AMC’s answer to the Ford Bronco II and General Motors’ S-10 Blazer and S-15 Jimmy, but that’s not exactly the case. The XJ series bears much more direct kinship to vehicles like the Subaru and Toyota Tercel 4wd wagons, and even the British Range Rover, than the more trucklike Broncos and Blazers. Certainly consumers will perceive the Wagoneer and Cherokee as alternatives to the American mini-truck-based off-roaders, and rightly so, but AMC did not set out to build mini-trucks. They call them “sportwagons,” and that’s just what they are.
How much sport you want from your wagon will determine which of the two available four-wheel-drive systems you order. Command-Trac is the newer design. It is a fairly light and simple “part-time” system that can be shifted in and out of four-wheel drive on the fly. Since Command-Trac lacks a center differential, AMC recommends that the four-wheel-drive mode only be used on loose or slippery surfaces to avoid driveline wrap-up.
The alternative system is called Selec-Trac, and this is the classic “full-time” arrangement that AMC has offered in Eagles and Jeeps for three years. Its limited-slip center differential allows four-wheel-drive operation over any surface—hard or soft, wet or dry, rough or smooth—with no threat to driveline durability.
Both systems offer low and high ranges in four-wheel drive. Prospective buyers should be aware that the term “full-time four-wheel drive” is a misnomer in this context, because either the Command-Trac or the Selec-Trac system can be shifted into a fuel-saving two-wheel-drive mode, where all unnecessary shafts and differentials are disconnected temporarily to reduce friction and fuel consumption. “Full-time four-wheel drive” simply means that the Selec-Trac system is capable of full-time 4wd operation, if that’s how the driver wants to use it.
Our Wagoneer Limited was equipped with AMC’s new 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine, a Chrysler TorqueFlite automatic transmission, and Selec-Trac four-wheel drive. Like many four-bangers hooked to automatics, this arrangement led to a fair amount of engine and driveline noise outside the vehicle. We’ve subsequently enjoyed a Cherokee with four cylinders and a five-speed manual transmission, and this is altogether quieter and better. AMC offers a four-speed transmission as standard equipment on the Cherokee, and offers a Chevrolet 2.8-liter 60-degree V-6 as an option across the board, but we’d expect five-speeds and automatics to be the transmissions of choice among Cherokee and Wagoneer buyers (the five-speed is standard on Wagoneers) and we don’t feel that the V-6 offers enough extra performance to offset its extra weight and increased fuel consumption.
AMC’s new four-cylinder engine is a little honey. It was developed as a truck engine and run against a 1000-hour durability schedule, as opposed to the more customary 250-hour schedule. This does not mean that it’s “trucky” in its performance, unless 132 pound-feet of torque at 2800 rpm is considered trucky. What it means is that the 2.5-liter four should be just as durable as the 2.8-liter V-6. The four-cylinder shares casting techniques and bore centers with AMC’s 4.2-liter straight-six, thoroughly revised in 1981, and this saved a great deal of money in the process of development. It is also a computer-aided design, which not only saved AMC money but saved a lot of time as well. It is a short-stroke design—shorter than the six from which it sprang—and it features larger valves and new pistons, for a compression ratio of 9.2:1. It also has its own comprehensive electronic controls, including a knock sensor that measures knock cylinder by cylinder and retards any knocking cylinder independently of the others. AMC does not publish horsepower figures, but this engine seems to produce something on the order of 105 honest horsepressure and features a wide, flat torque curve that’s plenty useful off-road, if a tad short of breath on the highway.
The overall impression gained from a few weeks with one of the AMC sportwagons is a very pleasant one. The interior is well laid out and comfortable, visibility is good, and the structure is solid; i.e., free from creaks and rattles, with a minimum of wind noise. The front seats are simply modifications of the excellent bucket seats from the Renault Alliance and Encore (without the unique Renault rocking tilt adjustment). They are reasonably comfortable, adjustable for both legroom and backrest angle, but they lack headrests and their underleg support is too short for persons of average height (we’re told that headrests were omitted to keep the interior from feeling too small).
Performance is a mix of the very good and the merely adequate. A four-cylinder Wagoneer isn’t going to burst anybody’s blood vessels coming off the line, and if you opt for the five-speed manual you’ll find yourself reaching way down into the intermediate ratios for passing or climbing hills. Yet normal, non-banzai performance is perfectly okay. Driven the way most folks drive, the four-cylinder XJ gets the job done. Roadholding is excellent. We saw 0.72 g on the skidpad with Michelin all-weather tires, and this puts the Wagoneer right in among most sedans—better than several, including the Mercedes-Benz 190E we tested in the November ’83 issue. Handling is compromised, however, by rather numb steering and a tendency to run wide on corners with chatter bumps. Given perfectly smooth roads, no complaint, but bad pavements reveal bad habits in the XJ. Similarly, the Wagoneer’s ride is just fine on smooth pavement, only suffering when the concrete or asphalt starts to break up. On a long stretch of bad road the side-to-side rocking motion is almost as annoying as the fore-and-aft pitching of an S-10 Blazer or S-15 Jimmy in the same situation.
Off-road, all these reservations disappear. The ride and handling, the traction, are absolutely first-class. The XJ will do whatever a Bronco or a Blazer will do, and it’ll do it more comfortably and with a lot less fuss. The XJ has better ground clearance, a better ride, and more wheel travel than its most obvious competitors, and it’s a genuine delight in heavy going, truly a low-buck Range Rover. We’re so impressed that we’ve already obtained a five-door Cherokee Chief with a four-cylinder engine, Command-Trac, and a five-speed manual gearbox for a 30,000-mile test.
If we were to buy a vehicle of this type, we’d probably go for one of the XJ sportwagons, one with five doors. The truck-based S-10 Blazer and Bronco II are a little too short on luggage space and a little too demanding on long trips, by comparison. The interior appointments in either the Cherokee Chief or the Wagoneer are better than those of the truck-based competition, and the handsome instrument panel, well-done small controls and switches, newly integrated fresh-air system, and excellent Mitsubishi radio/cassette player all add up to a multipurpose car with which most people could live very happily for a long time and many miles.
Five doors really help. A Cherokee three-door is okay, especially with the swing-away spare-tire option to clean up the cargo area, but the two extra doors—narrow as the rear doors admittedly are—make the difference. Anybody who’s spent a long weekend clambering into and out of a truck-based off-roader’s rear seat would give a lot for those two rear doors, probably more than AMC charges. Is the Wagoneer Limited worth its premium price? Probably not. Leather upholstery, wood-grain vinyl, and whitewall tires don’t count for much in our deliberations. Our long-term Cherokee Chief strikes us as a better deal, especially when one can order a Cherokee with all of the Wagoneer’s important functional extras anyway. The next 30,000 miles will tell the story, but for now, we’re really impressed with AMC’s new XJ family of vehicles.
Specifications
Specifications
1984 Jeep Wagoneer Limited
Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear/4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door wagon
PRICE
As Tested: $17,076
ENGINE
pushrod inline-4, iron block and head
Displacement: 150 in3, 2464 cm3
Power: 105 hp @ 5000 rpm
Torque: 132 lb-ft @ 2800 rpm
TRANSMISSION
3-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: live axle/live axle
Brakes, F/R: 11.0-in vented disc/10.0-in drum
Tires: Michelin XA4
205/74R-15
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 101.4 in
Length: 165.3 in
Width: 70.5 in
Height: 64.1 in
Passenger Volume, F/R: 51/41 ft3
Cargo Volume: 35 ft3
Curb Weight: 3320 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 15.7 sec
1/4-Mile: 20.0 sec @ 68 mph
90 mph: 78.3 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 7.8 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 12.4 sec
Top Speed: 91 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 205 ft
Roadholding, 282-ft Skidpad: 0.72 g
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 15 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Combined/City/Highway: 24/21/29 mpg
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED