The four wheels needed no coaxing to climb moderate inclines, and it even descended the declines in a more controlled fashion than the gasoline version did. It’s no Jeep Wrangler, but it is still a smart off-road choice. I switched the rear transfer case to low gear, put the transmission in 1st and took my foot off the pedals. I drove the Jeep Liberty CRD on a private off-road course, where another benefit of diesel power was evident: the ability to climb over obstacles without breaking a sweat. The automatic transmission has five gears, but I noticed when accelerating onto the interstate that the stallion went a bit lame.
In practice, the Liberty CRD lurched off the line like a stallion.
This is not a bad thing for the stop-and-go nature of U.S.
#Jeep liberty bashbar manual#
*Four-speed automatic six-speed manual is 18 mpg cityĬlearly, the diesel has more torque than horsepower, and gobs more torque than even the larger- displacement V-6. Take a look at the ratings below for the Liberty’s diesel and gasoline engines. So what exactly is good about diesels? Torque is good, and diesels have plenty of it. The reality is that many Americans have been exposed to modern executions of diesel power by sharing the road with Mercedes and Volkswagen diesel models. But seriously, if diesel engines are to stand a chance of making inroads in North America, people need to recognize that the Liberty CRD is hardly the best that technology has to offer. Now, I wouldn’t be so harsh if … if the Liberty weren’t. It’s not an engine so much as a gem tumbler. The turbocharged 2.8-liter inline-four-cylinder starts like the diesels of yore, with a raucous clatter that dies down only somewhat as the engine warms up. Unfortunately, the Jeep Liberty’s is not one of them. What they don’t realize is that there are actually many very smooth, quiet, refined and potent diesel car engines in the world now. Thanks to trucks, old-school engines and General Motors’ catastrophic attempt in the late 1970s and ’80s to convert gasoline engines into diesels, Americans generally are turned off by the very idea. I got into the Jeep Liberty thinking all these notions were overstated and out of date.
People complain that diesel fuel is too hard to find, too messy to dispense and not substantially cheaper than gas. Diesels have a bad reputation in the U.S., where they’re perceived as dirty, smelly, cacophonous and underpowered. I’m a diesel fan, in part because of a fascination with biodiesel - the alternative fuel on which I’m most bullish. The Jeep Liberty has changed little recently, so I’m concentrating on the diesel aspect in this report. In this country, diesel engines have long come in heavy duty pickup trucks, and more recently in the Ford Excursion and Hummer H1 SUVs, but the only companies to sell diesel passenger cars in recent times have been Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen. Diesel engines are about 20 percent more efficient than comparable gasoline types, so they burn less fuel. At a time when price per gallon is as volatile as fuel itself, interest has returned to diesel technology, which turns our attention to the diesel version of Jeep’s compact sport utility vehicle, the quick-selling Liberty CRD (technically either the Jeep Liberty Sport or Limited 4×4 trim level with optional equipment).
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