Jeeping in deepest Africa | The San Diego Union-Tribune

Jeeping in deepest Africa | The San Diego Union-Tribune

Jeeping in deepest Africa

Liberty's media debut offers potent turbodiesel, oodles of animals

By Jerry Garrett
SPECIAL TO THE UNION-TRIBUNE

November 6, 2004

VICTORIA FALLS, Zambia ¨C It took Dr. David Livingstone two years to travel 10 miles down the Zambezi River to the site where he discovered Victoria Falls in 1855.

Livingstone needed a Jeep. We did the same trip in little more than two hours in a convoy of new Jeep Liberty SUVs.

The occasion wasn't a National Geographic exploration or an eco-challenge but the international media launch of the 2005 Liberty.

Jeep enthusiasts don't need much of an excuse to go play in the dirt.

After a 24-hour flight from Los Angeles to Johannesburg, and then a 90-minute hop to the airport in Livingstone, Zambia, we were greeted by snorting hippopotami at our hotel, the Royal Livingstone, adjacent to the roaring, mile-long falls here ¨C one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

There, 30 new Africa-spec (i.e., right-hand-drive) Jeep Liberty vehicles awaited us.

There are two fairly noteworthy things about the new Liberty. One involves the freshening that is expected ¨C or at least hoped ¨C to give people additional motivation to buy one over the next two or three model years until its replacement is ready.

The second reason is the more significant, and it has more to do with the powerplant than the vehicle itself.

2005 Jeep Liberty

Body style: Five-passenger, unibody 4-door SUV

Drive system: Part-time Command-Trac 4WD (optional Selec-Trac full-time 4WD)

Engine: 2.4-liter DOHC inline 16-valve, 4-cylinder (optional 3.7-liter, SOHC, V-6; optional 2.8-liter turbocharged common rail 4-cylinder diesel)

Horsepower: 147 at 5200 rpm (V-6, 204 at 5200; diesel, 163 at 3800)

Torque: 159 foot-pounds at 4000 rpm (V-6, 226 at 3700; diesel, 295 at 1800)

Transmission: 4-speed automatic with overdrive, or 5-speed manual

Acceleration: 0 to 60 mph, 13.6 seconds (V-6, 10.5; diesel, 13.3)

EPA fuel economy estimates: 18 mpg city, 22 highway, unleaded regular (V-6, 17/21; diesel, 21/27 estimated)

Fuel capacity: 19.5 gallons

PRICING

MSRP: $21,595-$25,720; turbodiesel, $25,125-$27,355

Where assembled: Toledo, Ohio

PLUSES: A lifestyle vehicle that goes just about anywhere a Jeep can go.

MINUSES: Low, slow, cramped and heavy. Diesel only has 45-state availability initially. Jeep, or rather its parent, DaimlerChrysler, is giving the Liberty the honor of debuting the 2.8-liter turbodiesel in America. This is an event as significant as the low-key introduction a couple of years back of a new powerplant option for the Dodge Ram 2500 heavy-duty pickup.

Remember the Hemi?

This appears to be the same corporate tactic, of establishing a beachhead for a new product, and fanning out the invasion forces from there. The Hemi, of course, has become a phenomenon in the auto industry.

The question at the time was: What other vehicle might DaimlerChrysler want to put the Hemi in? The question has since become: What vehicle wouldn't you want a Hemi in?

The same kind of dynamic may be taking shape here; no one is predicting this new common-rail diesel, nicknamed KJ internally, will become a pop-culture icon, although the Cummins diesel actually has a higher take rate than the Hemi in the heavy-duty Ram pickups.

But DaimlerChrysler is banking a lot on making a success of diesels, as its contribution to the burgeoning alternate fuel vehicle market.

For California and those Northeastern states with similar air quality regulations, the Liberty diesel will be a "late availability," most likely by the 2006 model year.

So how does the KJ diesel perform?

Leaving the hotel, en route to Sesheke, 140 desolate miles away, at the border crossing into Namibia, it's obvious this 163-horsepower mill is a better engine for the Liberty (as it would also be for a Wrangler) than either its base 2.4-liter 4-cylinder or up-rated 3.7-liter V-6 gasoline engines.

Although it's a glacial 13.5 seconds zero to 60, the diesel enjoys close to a third better fuel mileage and torque than the 3.7.

That kind of fuel mileage is important in an area like this, where a "gas station" might consist of one 25-liter plastic jug of fuel ¨C probably diesel ¨C at a remote roadside stand.

Before arriving at Sesheke, we passed through Kazungula, where an outpost established by Livingstone stills exists. A school, church and hospital staffed by volunteer American doctors provide for the educational, spiritual and medical needs of the area's impoverished native tribesmen.

JERRY GARRETT Sharing the road in Elephant Valley. The natives have the right of way. Jerry Garrett photo A gaggle of Libertys treks through the world's largest zoo.
Later, we crossed the border into Namibia's Caprivi strip ¨C a cherry stem of land between the Zambezi and Chobe rivers that gives the country its only access to these fertile river valleys. This 6,000-square-mile area is, in effect, the world's largest zoo, with the planet's greatest concentration of big game and a population of more than 70,000 elephants.

From the border, it is an additional 55 miles south to lunch at Muchenje Lodge, over the border into Botswana now, where we encounter our first off-road section.

This wildlife viewpoint overlooks the Chobe River Valley, and the rocky climb up to it reminds us that the Liberty is still a scale-buster at 4,326 pounds. At times it seems to have the ground clearance of a '49 Mercury ¨C more articulation in the driveline than the suspension.

In the 2007 Liberty's replacement, getting the curb weight down and the torsional rigidity up will be major objectives.

After lunch, we ventured into the Chobe National Park, for an off-road excursion through Elephant Valley. We aren't disappointed, as small herds of elephants wandered across the road in front of and behind us at will.

Part of the park is quarantined with an animal-borne anthrax epidemic, so we gladly remained in our air-conditioned vehicles. Upon leaving the park, our vehicles are disinfected.

We camped overnight at Elephant Valley Lodge, a collection of tents mounted on stilts for protection from varmints. The encampment is also surrounded by a high-voltage, four-strand electric fence, powerful enough to discourage even the hungriest and largest predators from entering and noshing on us.

The next day dawned bright and clear, and temperatures immediately zoomed from the 40s to high 90s. The day is a long one, spent bouncing on the Liberty's heavily taxed suspension through the Chobe park and the Kasane Forest Reserve in search of more big game. Again, we were not disappointed.

We were, however, a bit disappointed in the Liberty.

Our Mercedes-sourced six-speed manual transmission kept jumping out of gear; despite that problem, we are disappointed to learn this superior gearbox won't be coming to America, at least not in the Liberty. U.S. drivers must make do with a five-speed manual or an automatic.

The seats ¨C another area where the new Liberty has been improved ¨C are larger and more sculpted. But they are still far from comfortable for a long, hard drive.

The interior could also use a visit from the ergonomics police. Grab handles on the A pillars aren't enough; overhead grips are also needed, especially for off-road comfort. The front footwells are still so limited that there's barely enough room for a clutch pedal, when the manual transmission is installed, much less your feet.

A tester of the Liberty once wrote that after a few hours trying to co-exist with the huge transmission tunnel, and adjacent transfer case bulge, he felt like gnawing off his own right foot.

Our wanderings through the park yielded up-close and personal encounters with elephant herds, giraffes, Cape buffalo, impalas, gazelles, kudu, warthogs, crocodiles and two dozen other critters (not including the scorpion in our camp shower or snake in the toilet).

We were interested in testing the new, optional roof-mounted spotlights and integrated front bumper fog lights (part of the new Renegade trim package) in a night drive, but our hosts resisted. They feared that even if we avoided being eaten, we might inadvertently wander into troubled Zimbabwe, the border of which was only a few feet away. Foreign journalists who enter the country are imprisoned without trial. OK, never mind!

The next day we recrossed the Zambezi on a small, antiquated car ferry and returned to Zambia for the l-o-o-n-g flight home.

Would we recommend the Liberty, based on our experience here? A qualified yes, if it fits your lifestyle, luggage and passenger needs. This trip was a powerful reminder that included in the price of any Jeep is admission into a select club. A club that does things you can only do in a Jeep.

Jerry Garrett is a freelance motorjournalist and contributing editor to Car and Driver magazine.

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