Now lets get inside. You literally have to climb into the Wrangler. While there is a foot board to assist you, it is quite high as well. Being a short person, I had to catch hold of the steering wheel to pull myself in. The front seats are large and comfortable. You can see ‘Sahara’ inscribed onto the front head rests. The front seats get manual adjust for both reach and height. Now you would expect the interiors of a Jeep to be quite crude but that is not the case. There is an all black dashboard made of hard plastic with doses of silver for contrast. Fit and finish is not in the league of its German counterparts but is still very decent. The circular AC vents come with the Jeep logo embossed on the outer ring. They can be turned in any direction and can also shut completely. The instrument cluster gets chrome rings and is simple and easy to read. Note that it is shows speed in both KPH and MPH.
The steering wheel is chunky and feels nice to hold. The horn pad is a bit hard though and takes an effort to use. I also felt that the horn could have sounded better. Its quite go with the size of this machine. The steering wheel gets manual adjust but misses out on telescopic adjustment, something which I feel should have been included. The pedals are placed quite deep in the foot well and the accelerator pedal is at a much lower level than the brake pedal. You have to really pull your seat forward to get a good position so that your leg can reach the throttle pedal if you are a driver with average height or lower. Absence of a dead pedal is sorely missed. The switches for power windows are located on the dashboard centre console reason being as mentioned above that you can remove the doors if and when you wish. The rear power window switches are mounted at the back side of the central armrest which make them a little inconvenient to operate. To the top left of your AT gear console is the 4×4 gear stalk. The Wrangler comes with other creature comforts as well. The climate control AC works very well and cooled the cabin of the jeep quickly on a hot afternoon. You also get an Alpine audio system with AUX, USB and Bluetooth connectivity. A sub woofer is mounted in the boot and two tweeters find place on the dashboard. Speakers are mounted on the roof to prevent damage in case you are water wading. Sound quality from the stock ICE is good.
The glove box, though not wide enough, has good depth and can store quite a bit. There are two cup holders in the front and two for the rear passengers as well. There is also an additional space on top of the dashboard which is useful to keep change or even your phone for that matter. Getting into the rear is a difficult task because of the smaller rear doors that I mentioned earlier, which in turn gives you a much smaller aperture to get in. Once inside, you notice that you sit rather upright which can be a little uncomfortable but keep in mind that this is an offroader and not a luxury SUV. However my rear passengers did not complain during the drive. The rear seats get three head rests which hamper your rear vision. Also there is no rear view camera. The tough roll cage on the inside goes all the way from the front till the boot. Front seat belts are height adjustable. The rear seatbelts are bolted to the roll cage. The boot is big and can swallow a lot of luggage and you also have the option of dropping the rear seats which frees up more space. The fuel cap has to be opened via the key. There is no lever inside to flip it open. Did I mention it is all old school?
Contd…
