Wheeling with lots of excess weight on your Jeep is like lugging the significant other’s dumpster-size suitcase through the airport for a weekend getaway. She may think she needs all of it, but you know she can get by with a lot less. People do it every day. Your Jeep can get by with less weight, too. In fact, if you can decrease the weight of your Jeep you’ll generally improve on- and off-road performance, capability, durability, and fuel economy.
I remember one 4x4 event several years ago where some scales were made available to weigh our Jeeps. Back then if your Jeep was anywhere near 5,000 pounds, you were laughed into embarrassment to the point that you promptly headed out to the parking lot and proceeded to cut off some of the chub. But what we really paid attention to was the balance of the weight front to rear. You would think that the front of a Jeep would weight significantly more since that’s where the engine is, and on most of the Jeeps and 4x4s we weighed that night the front end consisted of at least 60 percent of the total weight. However, at this particular event there was a 4-Wheel & Off-Road project Jeep that didn’t seem to climb ledges very well. It secretly became known as the rock humper. Anytime it pulled up to a ledge the front end would unweight and the rear would just sit and hop at the bottom. It looked like a stumpy, overly excited bulldog meeting the leg of a new house guest. We tossed it on the scales and found that this individual had somehow managed to put more than 60 percent of his Jeep’s weight in the rear, and it had a cast-iron V-8 under the hood!
Today, many heavily modified Wrangler Unlimited Jeeps weight up to and in excess of 7,000 pounds. That’s the same as a 1-ton truck! Except the Wrangler is typically being pushed around by an anemic V-6 instead of the healthy V-8 or large diesel engine commonly found in a 1-ton. The heavy weight and low power output are obviously not the best combination for on- or off-road performance.
A few months ago I had the chance to get behind the wheel of the Mopar Underground Porkchop and the 6.4L V-8 Hemi-powered Renegade. They were both two-door JKs, yet they were very different vehicles. Porkchop had nearly all of its unnecessary weight removed and many of the necessary heavier components had been put on a diet. It was 850 pounds lighter than a stock Wrangler, yet this one had 35-inch tires and other trail-worthy modifications. Things such as doors, carpet, and so on were torn out. It was stripped down to the bare bones and retained the original V-6 engine. Among other things, the axles, wheels, tires, and seats were chosen based on their weight. Stylistically it was really similar to a much older Jeep. On the other hand, the Renegade was a celebration of excess. It was stuffed with features like a plush leather interior, a 470hp V-8, heavy-duty axles, and so on.
In all truthfulness, Porkchop was more fun to drive than the Renegade. It was light and nimble and handled crisply. From behind the wheel it felt like you were piloting a small flat stone being skipped across a smooth lake. It felt fast even though it really wasn’t. Of course the Renegade was much more powerful, but all that power came at a huge disadvantage—its weight. The Renegade leaned around corners and dove through the bumps like a porpoise. When you hit rough spots too quickly, it bottomed out harshly. It felt heavy and weighted like a slow and lumbering fishing ship on a surging sea.
In the end, I think every Jeep could benefit from some pork-chopping. Do you really need 3⁄16-inch-thick steel body armor? A 200-pound bumper? Load range D tires? You can try using this thinking on your significant other the next time she’s packing her bags for vacation. But my advice would be to just go ahead and lug the oversized suitcase and focus on where you can make changes. Unlike removing excess from your Jeep, the short-term benefits of a lighter suitcase are far outweighed by the long-term results of such a conversation.