Road Trip or Fly? Take the new Wagoneer on a road trip!

Driving vs Flying, MotorTrend Updates Their Long-Term Wagoneer

Ah, the age-old question: Driving or flying? If the destination is within 2 to 4 hours away, driving makes more sense, right? However, what if the place you need to get to is more like 6 or 7 hours away.? Now you’re thinking about flying. Buy why? Planes are constantly delayed, you need to get to the airport at least a couple of hours before your flight even boards, and going through security is either a nightmare or a breeze. It never seems to just stay simple. This was the question in mind of a MotorTrend author when he had to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco, California. He and his wife decided to drive a long-term Jeep Wagoneer from the magazine’s fleet of vehicles. 

Power And Features

The 2024 Jeep Wagoneer is powered by the Hurricane twin-turbocharged inline-6 motor that produces 420 horsepower and 468 lb-ft of torque. The Wagoneer is offered in three trim levels: Wagoneer, Wagoneer Series II, and Wagoneer Series III. With a standard heads-up display, frameless digital gauge cluster, premium McIntosh sound system, a 10.25-inch interactive display for the front passenger, Amazon Fire TV built into the rear 10.1-inch screens, and a total of 75 inches of digital screen area, the Wagoneer can is one sweet place to be. Add in the award-winning Uconnect 5 infotainment system that features wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard and various new convenience and connected services to keep passengers enjoying the ride. Rear passengers also get their own climate controls, along with Relax Mode, which uses the front screens to display soothing videos of the Aurora Borealis and a fireplace fire, among others, while also playing relaxing audio. Any trip will feel like a private jet ride. 

How Was The Drive?

The journalist starts out wondering if he and his wife can make the drive cheaper than they could by flying. Or would it be too cumbersome to drive all the way, sometimes taking back roads from LA to San Francisco? “Much to my delight from behind the wheel, the Wagoneer was nowhere near as ponderous as I expected it to be on the narrow two-lane back roads that wind through farm towns, up and over hills, and across earthen dams. The Jeep’s sheer size and the silence of its cabin can contribute to it feeling disconnected from the outside world as you make miles, but on these interesting stretches, I found myself having more fun than expected. In Sport mode, the Jeep’s 420-hp turbocharged straight-six remains as sweet as ever, with the transmission keeping the smooth-revving engine in its broad powerband. The suspension slightly firms up, too, and dropping the air springs down to the Aero ride height setting reduced body roll. Steering feel never really improves, but the added weight of Sport mode makes the Wagoneer easier to place.”

Gas Is Expensive, Though, Right?

Now that we know it was an enjoyable drive and that the Wagoneer absolutely won the day, how about when it comes to cost? The Wagoneer is an SUV, and California's gas prices are quite costly. Surely, there’s no way that driving a car between two of the most expensive cities in America was cheaper than flying.

What Was The Cost Difference?

“How’d we do from a cost/time perspective? We spent $305.68 on 55.26 gallons of the Jeep’s preferred 89 octane over 957.7 miles and roughly 18 hours of driving, including tooling in and around San Francisco. That works out to $0.32 per mile and 17.3 mpg. The drives to San Francisco and back took us 13.5 hours. But how would a flight compare? Looking at direct flights on Southwest from L.A. to S.F., it would have cost my wife and me between $400 and $460 for two round-trip tickets, with each flight taking about an hour and a half. That time advantage certainly seems to be in the airline’s favor, but including travel time to and from the airport and the need to arrive two hours prior to takeoff, we’re looking at between 11 and 12 hours spent traveling via airline. The flights work out to between $0.50 and $0.58 per mile, with the numbers looking even worse when you consider the fact that doesn’t include local travel in San Francisco, while the Jeep’s $0.32 per mile figure does.”

An SUV That’s One of The Safest

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has given the 2024 Jeep Wagoneer its sought-after Top Safety Pick award, meaning that it has displayed some of the most impressive crash test and safety feature results of any other vehicle on the market. So maybe driving was the better idea, considering the high safety standards that Jeep meets with its vehicles.

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