Jeep Wrangler JL - Throttle Control and Rev limiter - How to climb

[Abhishek Chikara]

Hello. I had a question from yesterday’s drive and would appreciate any guidance from the seniors. While going up the big dune (where we went up, made a left and came down two times), my car was losing momentum in 2nd gear so I stayed in 1st gear. Due to lack of experience, I had my foot pressed on the pedal at all times. As a result, I would hit the rev limiter, engine would cut the power, revs would drop down to 5ish thousand but since my foot stayed planted, as soon as power was back, I would again hit the limiter and the process repeated. As a result, it was a jerky ride up with power cutting in and out.

I am sure what I did was not right and maybe a better approach, in hindisght, would've been to feather the throttle on the way up but wanted to get your thoughts on the same. Thanks. 

[Zubail]

10 minutes ago, Abhishek Chikara said:

Hello. I had a question from yesterday’s drive and would appreciate any guidance from the seniors. While going up the big dune (where we went up, made a left and came down two times), my car was losing momentum in 2nd gear so I stayed in 1st gear. Due to lack of experience, I had my foot pressed on the pedal at all times. As a result, I would hit the rev limiter, engine would cut the power, revs would drop down to 5ish thousand but since my foot stayed planted, as soon as power was back, I would again hit the limiter and the process repeated. As a result, it was a jerky ride up with power cutting in and out.

I am sure what I did was not right and maybe a better approach, in hindisght, would've been to feather the throttle on the way up but wanted to get your thoughts on the same. Thanks. 

It depends on the car, I remember once was going on big dune and in the middle of it was loosing power, then realized I was on 3rd gear, I limited to 2nd - it was amazing!

Yesterday I did on 2nd, but also tried on 1st, so yesterday I learned, that for my car 1st gear only if smth bigger will be, but that kiid of dunes on 2nd gear is fine.
As @Fredericsaid to me on one of my first drives, each car is a different animal, and how to manage it - you have to practice. 

[Abhishek Chikara]

15 minutes ago, Zubail said:

It depends on the car, I remember once was going on big dune and in the middle of it was loosing power, then realized I was on 3rd gear, I limited to 2nd - it was amazing!

Yesterday I did on 2nd, but also tried on 1st, so yesterday I learned, that for my car 1st gear only if smth bigger will be, but that kiid of dunes on 2nd gear is fine.
As @Fredericsaid to me on one of my first drives, each car is a different animal, and how to manage it - you have to practice. 

Great. Thanks Zubail. Appreciate your reply.

[Zed]

19 minutes ago, Abhishek Chikara said:

Hello. I had a question from yesterday’s drive and would appreciate any guidance from the seniors. While going up the big dune (where we went up, made a left and came down two times), my car was losing momentum in 2nd gear so I stayed in 1st gear. Due to lack of experience, I had my foot pressed on the pedal at all times. As a result, I would hit the rev limiter, engine would cut the power, revs would drop down to 5ish thousand but since my foot stayed planted, as soon as power was back, I would again hit the limiter and the process repeated. As a result, it was a jerky ride up with power cutting in and out.

I am sure what I did was not right and maybe a better approach, in hindisght, would've been to feather the throttle on the way up but wanted to get your thoughts on the same. Thanks. 

@Abhishek Chikara i'm sure once you reach Fewbie you'll have found your answer 😊 very hard to describe but the short answer is: practice makes perfect 👍🏻

[Frederic]

49 minutes ago, Abhishek Chikara said:

Hello. I had a question from yesterday’s drive and would appreciate any guidance from the seniors. While going up the big dune (where we went up, made a left and came down two times), my car was losing momentum in 2nd gear so I stayed in 1st gear. Due to lack of experience, I had my foot pressed on the pedal at all times. As a result, I would hit the rev limiter, engine would cut the power, revs would drop down to 5ish thousand but since my foot stayed planted, as soon as power was back, I would again hit the limiter and the process repeated. As a result, it was a jerky ride up with power cutting in and out.

I am sure what I did was not right and maybe a better approach, in hindisght, would've been to feather the throttle on the way up but wanted to get your thoughts on the same. Thanks. 

@Looper@Gary F@Benjamin any inputs on this ? Doesn’t the Jeep stay on rev limiter while flooring in first gear ? Or do you guys play with the throttle to keep it just before it hits the limiter ?

My trooper has no limit . 😜

[Emanuel]

36 minutes ago, Zubail said:

It depends on the car, I remember once was going on big dune and in the middle of it was loosing power, then realized I was on 3rd gear, I limited to 2nd - it was amazing!

Yesterday I did on 2nd, but also tried on 1st, so yesterday I learned, that for my car 1st gear only if smth bigger will be, but that kiid of dunes on 2nd gear is fine.
As @Fredericsaid to me on one of my first drives, each car is a different animal, and how to manage it - you have to practice. 

Great question and the subject of many discussions on the sand and here in the forums. 

Completely agree with @Zubail and concur that @Frederic has mentioned this a lot in the past. From my experience, my previous Pajero, 3.5L 2013, would not stop or lose power in 1st. She'd keep going, which was great. The White Rhino, 3.8L 2020 does lose power at the very top and I've learned on taller dunes to ease off the gas just a bit to prevent that from happening.

[Benje_Junior]

1 hour ago, Abhishek Chikara said:

Hello. I had a question from yesterday’s drive and would appreciate any guidance from the seniors. While going up the big dune (where we went up, made a left and came down two times), my car was losing momentum in 2nd gear so I stayed in 1st gear. Due to lack of experience, I had my foot pressed on the pedal at all times. As a result, I would hit the rev limiter, engine would cut the power, revs would drop down to 5ish thousand but since my foot stayed planted, as soon as power was back, I would again hit the limiter and the process repeated. As a result, it was a jerky ride up with power cutting in and out.

I am sure what I did was not right and maybe a better approach, in hindisght, would've been to feather the throttle on the way up but wanted to get your thoughts on the same. Thanks. 

@Abhishek Chikara Jeep's handle relatively funny when it comes to climbing especially in different dune environments. 

The first thing that could be contributing to this rev limiter doing that would potentially be traction control or electronic stability control (more likely) kicking in when you begin to climb. So, when you're in 4H make sure to press and hold the traction control button for 10 seconds shortly after you'll get a charm sound which means TC and ETC are both off (in my early days this was contributing a lot to my issues in climbs I was just turning off TC)

Now if you have already done that and your engine is still limiting your revs try using Tiptronic manual on all the large climbs you'll want to be in 1st gear until 5000 rpms change to second (remember to let off the throttle anytime you change gears, it makes a large difference when you lay back down on the power) once you begin to drop in second gear switch back to first repeating the same foot-work. (Sometimes in the jeeps the gear change acts a little off if you just lay on the accelerator my take is some software preventing throttle within the change of gears but I'm unsure) 

If you're still facing the same problem, there are two things you can do. Either you're in 4H auto and the computer is learning this more aggressive driving style (high likelihood) so more drives = computer adapts better to your command in the future. or you can try using 4H part-time. (FYI 4 auto is 4 wheels turning based on computer processing where to send the power 4 part-time is 4 wheels spinning all the time) my recommendation is to stay in 4H auto though. 

Overall, I've faced your issue before, and I think you can eliminate that rev cut by using both tiptronic gears and correct foot-work into your climbs to maximize momentum and rev issues. on a side-note practice on flat-ground to figure out which RPM and gear gives you the most initial torque that will also make a world of a difference by changing your gears within the right RPM threshold. 

Keep an eye on coolant temp 110 degrees is overheating 

[Zubail]

Never new JeeP is sooo complicated 

[Frederic]

7 minutes ago, Benjamin said:

@Abhishek Chikara Jeep's handle relatively funny when it comes to climbing especially in different dune environments. 

The first thing that could be contributing to this rev limiter doing that would potentially be traction control or electronic stability control (more likely) kicking in when you begin to climb. So, when you're in 4H make sure to press and hold the traction control button for 10 seconds shortly after you'll get a charm sound which means TC and ETC are both off (in my early days this was contributing a lot to my issues in climbs I was just turning off TC)

Now if you have already done that and your engine is still limiting your revs try using Tiptronic manual on all the large climbs you'll want to be in 1st gear until 5000 rpms change to second (remember to let off the throttle anytime you change gears, it makes a large difference when you lay back down on the power) once you begin to drop in second gear switch back to first repeating the same foot-work. (Sometimes in the jeeps the gear change acts a little off if you just lay on the accelerator my take is some software preventing throttle within the change of gears but I'm unsure) 

If you're still facing the same problem, there are two things you can do. Either you're in 4H auto and the computer is learning this more aggressive driving style (high likelihood) so more drives = computer adapts better to your command in the future. or you can try using 4H part-time. (FYI 4 auto is 4 wheels turning based on computer processing where to send the power 4 part-time is 4 wheels spinning all the time) my recommendation is to stay in 4H auto though. 

Overall, I've faced your issue before, and I think you can eliminate that rev cut by using both tiptronic gears and correct foot-work into your climbs to maximize momentum and rev issues. on a side-note practice on flat-ground to figure out which RPM and gear gives you the most initial torque that will also make a world of a difference by changing your gears within the right RPM threshold. 

Keep an eye on coolant temp 110 degrees is overheating 

POST OF THE YEAR. So perfectly elaborated!!

[Benje_Junior]

3 minutes ago, Zubail said:

Never new JeeP is sooo complicated 

Lots of different techniques for many situations. tbh any car may perform better using that technique just like correct trail-braking in the sand! 

 

4 minutes ago, Frederic said:

POST OF THE YEAR. So perfectly elaborated!!

haha Thank you @Frederic!!