The beauty of the Jeep Wrangler is that it can tackle light off-roading, right out of the box, for around $27,000. The downside is, if you want to do any rock crawling, serious mudding or tackle a few desert dunes, you’ll need to add suspension components and strengthening upgrades that will double the price you paid at the dealer. An easier route would be picking up the new Polaris RZR XP Turbo S for $27,500 and have something even more capable when the terrain starts to fight back.
If you want a vehicle to go grocery shopping, commute in or be allowed on must public roads, sure, the Jeep makes way more sense. But if your sole purpose to buy a Jeep is to spend money turning it into a weekend off-roading toy, you’re going to be embarrassed the moment you pull up to the trails and a Turbo S whistles past you at full speed.
Not only does the Turbo S have 168 horsepower and only around 1,800 lbs to pull, but it also has 32-inch tires and 25-inches of ground clearance. Helping to keep it everything plastic side up is Polaris’s new Dynamix Active Suspension, which works in a similar manner to most active suspension systems you can get on modern sports cars. The suspension constantly adjusts, taking readings and measurements 100 times a second, to keep you on the road and out of the brush.
So, before you go investing in a Jeep Wrangler to turn in to the ultimate off-roader, take a second to consider the RZR as a more affordable alternative. Plus, it’s off-roading — it’ll also be way cheaper to fix when you inevitably take some damage.
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