Toyota Fortuner VS Jeep Wrangler

On-road, the Fortuner offers up a pretty standard driving experience for a ute-based wagon. It’s on the HiLux ladder-frame chassis, and it has a firm ride, bordering on harsh. Having said that, you do get used to it soon enough and the Fortuner's coil-spring suspension set-up takes most of the sting out of surface irregularities, except for the more severe dips and bumps.

The Fortuner’s driving position offers plenty of visibility – although the A-pillars are bulky and the third-row seats block vision to the rear when they’re folded up to the sides of the cabin.

This 4WD wagon is generally quiet, although there’s noticeable wind-rush noise around the wing mirrors and engine noise builds to a diesel shriek when you use a heavy right boot as is regularly required.

Steering – reach- and rake-adjustable – is adequately light and sharp, and the Fortuner, with its 11.6m turning circle, is reasonably nimble in suburban areas.

Acceleration, from a standing-start or for overtaking, is laggy but available power and torque come in handy during general driving, making the Fortuner more agreeable all-round than previous versions.

The six-speed auto is generally right for the job, but it downshifts harshly, especially when going up or down long, gradually sloping highway stretches. That happens enough for it to be on the wrong side of annoying.

Some aspects of the Fortuner’s driver-assist tech is annoying: active cruise control is too abrupt and pre-emptive, consistently miscalculating the space between the Fortuner and the vehicle in front as accurately as most of its rivals. This clunky application of tech to real-world scenarios works against the Fortuner. 

While driving a lightly corrugated and rutted dirt track o the way to our set-piece off-road tests, the Fortuner’s ladder-frame chassis yielded a stiff, firm ride, bashing and bouncing over any and all surface imperfections. Airing down the Yokohama Geolandar ATs (265/65R17) from 38 psi (pounds per square inch) to 26 psi takes some sting out of the ride.

The Fortuner is a very capable 4WD with standard off-road measurements, including ground clearance (216mm), approach angle (29 degrees), departure angle (25 degrees) and rampover angle (23.5 degrees). It has a listed wading depth of 700mm.

The Fortuner’s switchable part-time 4WD system has two-wheel drive (H2), and high- (H4) and low-range (L4) four-wheel drive. There’s ample low-end torque on offer – on tap across a broad rev range – for controlled low-speed 4WDing and the unfussed turbo-diesel engine keeps the Fortuner ticking along, without any hassle. 

Engine braking is good, keeping the Fortuner to a sustained and composed momentum on downhill runs.

The off-road traction control system is an effective set-up, limiting wheel-spin and sending much-needed torque to the tyres with some useable traction, with the aim to keep the vehicle moving along at a safe, controlled pace.

Besides that, the driver always has the option of engaging the rear diff lock for more traction action.

Wheel travel is decent for a wagon like this and if you can get the full suspension flex, and drop any mid-air tyres to the dirt for more traction, chances are you’ll be able to get moving along safely soon enough.

So, the mechanicals are fine – its 4WD set-up is very effective – but the Fortuner doesn’t have a whole lot of ground clearance (a claimed 216mm, standard for a contemporary 4WD wagon) and the side steps are prone to hitting on the edges of steep and deep ruts, but those factors are easily overcome through considered driving and tyres that are better suited to off-roading. 

The standard Yokohama Geolandar AT tyres are somewhat of a flaw in the Fortuner’s off-roading set-up. Sure, they’re technically all-terrains, but I reckon a better bet for you – if you’re planning to drive anything beyond formed trails – is to invest in a set of more aggressive all-terrains with greater sidewall bite. 

If you’re planning to use your Fortuner to tow anything, keep in mind that it has a 750kg unbraked towing capacity and 3100kg braked towing capacity. Remember: to be on the safe side, avoid going loading up to anywhere near those capacity figures.

Payload is 615kg (easily reached when you factor in people, pets, camping gear and more), gross vehicle is (GVM) is 2800kg, and gross combined mass (GCM) is 5900kg.

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).