Holden Acadia VS Jeep Wrangler

If you’re a fan of SUVs because they can make you feel like you’re a hundred feet tall wearing a Transformers suit, then you’re going to like driving the Acadia. Yup, it looks like a truck and feels like one when you’re looking out over that high, broad bonnet.

The dashboard is also tall, and this combined with the truck-like bonnet meant I had to raise my seat higher than the setting I’d normally use, just to see clearly over. Even then visibility isn’t great thanks to long and wide A-Pillars framing the windscreen.

There are other ergonomic issues you’ll face in this cabin. I found the centre console armrest way too high and my elbow kept hitting it as I turned the steering wheel it also made changing the drive modes on the rotating dial in front of it awkward using your left hand to scratch your left armpit. Made you do it, didn’t I?

The indicator and wiper stalks are also positioned at a high angle and on the highest wiper setting I had to take my hand off the wheel to turn them off. If my hands aren’t big enough to reach them while holding the steering wheel, there’s no way Donald Trump could.

So how does the Acadia drive? Well there are two very different feeling Acadias in the range. There’s the one Holden brought to Australia to test rigorously around its test track and Australian roads, tuning the adaptive suspension to offer a comfortable ride that suits our conditions – it’s the LTZ-V.

Then there’s the LT and LTZ, which didn’t get the full Holden suspension work-over. Sure, Holden went to the US and helped develop a suspension system for these two grades, but they had to make a compromise and agree on a tune that would make the American drivers happy, too. In the US drivers prefer a softer, more cushioned ride, while in Australia we tend to like a firmer sportier one with better handling.

That means the LT and LTZ just don’t handle as well as the LTZ-V. Not only do those lower grades have a softer ride that feels almost like you’re bouncing on a space hopper at times, they also don’t have the great adaptive suspension of the top grade LTZ-V. The adaptive suspension can not only be set in a sport setting, for better handling but is constantly adjusting itself to the driving style.

On the highway all grades cruise beautifully, like battleships ploughing through the miles of road – this is where they are really in their element. You’ll also find them all comfortable for suburban adventures, too – even on patchy streets with bad surfaces the ride is composed and compliant.

But when I took the LT with AWD along a fantastic bit of familiar road with a great surface and plenty of twists, I could feel that suspension doing everything it could to rein in the body roll, but not winning. This is a 2.0-tonne and tall SUV and I don’t expect it to behave like a sports car, but Mazda’s CX-9 feels more agile with quicker steering and better handling than the Acadia.

The LTZ-V has an exceptional ride – almost limo like with adaptive suspension ironing out the road ahead.

Even as a passenger in the second row the journey was comfy and serene, the cabin well insulated, although those rear seats are unsupportive and in the corners I felt myself sliding around back there. And that’s the thing, even in the corners the Aussie-developed LTZ-V still struggled to control its heft, and when pushed more the tyres began to chirp in the bends. The LTZ-V wears Continental ContiCrossContact high performance all-terrain tyres (235, 55 R20) if you’re wondering.

Still I didn’t feel the Acadia lacked grunt, the V6 is smooth and there was an instant connection between the accelerator pedal and the acceleration that you don’t get with the turbo-charged CX-9.

The thing is you really need to get the Acadia up to 5000rpm to really get good oomph – and that’s going to harm your fuel economy.

Choosing a front-wheel drive variant will save you a bit of money at the pump, and while the all-wheel drive adds some reassuring traction on wet roads and gravel, it’s not essential. Front and all-wheel drive Acadias had identical comfort levels in terms of ride.

The two-door Rubicon is rather ordinary to drive on sealed surfaces, but it isn’t anywhere near as diabolical as some people would have you believe.

This is a purpose-built off-roader with a wide wheel track and low centre of gravity, so it feels solid on bitumen and dirt in equal measure.

However, you do have to drive it with full focus and give yourself time to get used to some if its more quirky aspects if you aren’t already familiar with them. There is plenty of play in the steering, lots of on-road floatiness and body roll, and this Rubicon – tipping the scales at 1977kg tare weight (listed) and measuring 4334mm long (with a 2459mm wheelbase), 1894mm wide and 1879mm high – can be an unpredictable unit.

You need to micro-manage this shorty 4WD at all times. It’s like driving a go-kart, but more fun and – bonus – it’s street legal.

If you’re steering it, this short-wheelbase Rubicon demands your constant attention – but that’s a fun characteristic I appreciate and that it shares with only a few other vehicles such as the Suzuki Jimny and Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series.

However, as fun as it is, this kind of fully engaged driving experience – requiring laser-focus concentration to keep a vehicle on target – asks a lot of the driver and does become tiring (nay, exhausting) after long stints on the road or off of it.

Beyond that though, this Rubicon, with a track-tight turning circle of 10m, is a nicely manoeuvrable vehicle around town (for swift turnarounds and easy parking) in the suburbs and even along overgrown bush tracks – but more about that soon.

Wrangler fans who have bemoaned the loss of the Pentastar V6 needn’t have worried. The new four-cylinder engine delivers a gutsy punch of acceleration when needed and is nicely matched to the eight-speed auto. It’s also smoother, more refined and less noisy than before.

The solid-axle Rubicon has a suspension set-up – including coil springs at every corner – that soaks up most bumps in the road, and that makes for impressive levels of driver and passenger comfort.

This little purpose-built rock-crawler is solidly built and it can get noisy when you’re inside of it as it rumbles along a road or track – no surprise because it does have a boxy body, big wing mirrors and chunky mud-terrain tyres. Part of the experience, part of the fun, I reckon.

So, how does it go off-road? Bloody well, as usual.

The Rubicon is a genuine 4WD with a dual-range transfer case, a ladder chassis, solid axles, well-established 4WD heritage and its boosted by driver-assist tech. It’s immediately more at home taking on low-speed 4WDing than it is negotiating suburban traffic, shopping centre car parks or city streets.

I’ve driven Rubicons in pretty much every kind of challenging off-road situation – sand, steep rain-slick rocky hills, deep mud holes, swollen water crossings – and they’ve never disappointed. 

These Jeeps are some of the few modern-day 4WDs engineered with an off-road focus that offers few concessions to anything other than dirt-track fun – the only vehicles in the same realm are the aforementioned Jimny, 70 Series, and even the likes of the Ford Ranger Raptor and Ineos Grenadier.

Steering in the chopped Rubicon retains a nice weight and feel to it during 4WDing, staying precise as needed, offering the driver a great sense of sustained control through even severe terrain.

Its planted stance gives the Rubicon a distinct composure and its suspension – with a coil spring at each corner – helped it to take the sting out of every dirt-road corrugation on the way to my unofficial 4WD testing and proving ground.

As mentioned earlier, anyone worried about the V6 being dropped should calm down. The new engine is a lively and punchy unit – even livelier than the V6 – and offers up ample smoothly-delivered torque across a wide spread of revs, ideal for high- and low-range 4WDing.

When you switch to 4L and drop the revs, it’s easy to squeeze the most out of this new engine. Considered driving is necessary as is slow and steady throttle, but that's easily achieved in this Rubicon and it was never overworked even when the terrain became very challenging.

This Jeep has a well-calibrated off-road traction control system but if you need even more terrain-grabbing magic, it has front and rear diff locks, and a front sway-bar disconnect system, which helps to unlock even more articulation, and let those tyres stretch to the ground for all-important traction.

The Rubicon also has Selec-Speed Control (an adjustable low-speed cruise control for 4WDing that can be set between 1.0-8.0km/h), and Off-Road+, which adjusts throttle and traction control, among other systems, to best suit the terrain.

What’s also handy about the Rubicon is that, via the off-road pages on the multimedia screen, you can monitor your 4x4 system, as well as vehicle steering angle, pitch and roll, and the status of the diff locks and the swaybar disconnect system.

The two-door Rubicon has a listed 257mm of ground clearance and 760mm wading depth. While I didn’t experience any water crossings that deep this time, I did do plenty of driving on coastal sand, just inland from a beach, and there were deep rutted sections, so I saw clear evidence of its running clearance.

When it comes to approach, departure and ramp-over angles, the higher the number the better and the short-wheelbase Rubicon checks out with listed measurements of 44, 37, 27.8 degrees respectively, and this small 4WD climbs up and over even steep rocky hills with sharp crests, without ever being in danger of scraping the earth with its front, under-carriage or its back end. 

The Rubicon rides on BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain KM2 (255/75R17) tyres – real muddies – and those are strapped to 17-inch alloys. These are good tyres and the 17-inch set-up is good for off-roading.

The shorty Rubicon is not a big vehicle and so its Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM, 2404kg) and Gross Combined Mass (GCM, 3751kg) are not massive figures.

It’s not renowned as a towing platform of note but it pays to know that its tongue download is 150kg, towing capacity is 750kg (unbraked) and 1497kg (braked).