Having driven most variants of the Wrangler by now, we’d argue that the Jeep Wrangler 4xe is the best Jeep Wrangler you can buy — or at least the most fun to drive. With 375 horsepower, the 4xe is the most powerful Wrangler that isn’t the Hemi V8-powered Wrangler 392; still, it manages to match the Wrangler 392’s 470 lb-ft of torque. Plus, being a plug-in hybrid, it also delivers 21 miles of EV-only range, so many people will be able to commute and run errands without using a drop of gasoline.
Do we have you convinced yet? No? Well, what if we told you that the Jeep Wrangler 4xe is the cheapest Wrangler to lease, despite a starting price of nearly $50,000?
CarsDirect is currently discovering some phenomenal lease deals on the Wrangler 4xe. Jeep offers a Sahara version in California, with an MSRP of $52,230, for $249 per month over 36 months with $3,999 down. (We got $262 with $3,999 down in Michigan.) Average that out, and you come to around $360 per month.
From a Wrangler perspective, that’s around $60 per month less than rates CarsDirect found for a bare-bones Wrangler Sport S combustion model. That’s in spite of the fact that the Sport S model goes for more than $10,000 less than the Wrangler 4xe Sahara. That lease deal is so great, it should attract buyers who didn’t know they were in the market for a Wrangler or a hybrid.
Why are Wrangler 4xe lease rates so low? It’s not entirely transparent. But the Wrangler already has a very high predicted residual value, which reduces the lease cost. And as a PHEV, it’s also eligible for the $7,500 federal tax credit, which Jeep may be just rolling on to the customer to reduce the lease rates.
The offers are set to end June 1st, but if the Wrangler 4xe figures are the result of residual values and federal tax credits, there’s no reason Jeep would not have similar deals in place in June.
And yes, buying a car is traditionally better in the long run than leasing. But with the automotive industry needing to sort out a lot of change over the next few years and a ton of cool electric cars coming down the pike, punting an eventual purchase decision down the road a bit by leasing a super-cool PHEV now is a very compelling option.