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2020 Jeep Gladiator: diesel ruled out

Despite diesel being the most popular choice among ute buyers in Australia, it has been ruled out for Gladiator in our market.


The Jeep Gladiator ute will only have V6 petrol power for the foreseeable future, after executives ruled out the option of a diesel.

Even though diesel is the most popular option for pick-ups sold in Australia, Jeep has officially killed hopes of a diesel-powered Gladiator coming to Australia, citing a lack of availability in right-hand drive.

Instead, the Gladiator range in Australia will only be offered with the one option under the bonnet: a 3.6-litre 'Pentastar' V6, that uses regular unleaded petrol to make 209kW @ 6400rpm and 347Nm @ 4100rpm. This runs through an eight-speed ZF automatic gearbox, with no option of a manual transmission.

This puts the Gladiator at odds with the rest of the 4X4 ute segment, where diesel sales absolutely dominate. While the 5.7-litre Hemi-powered Ram 1500 has made some small in-roads since launching in 2018, petrol-powered 4X4 utes make barely a blip on the Australian radar.

This also puts the Gladiator at odds with the Wrangler Rubicon locally, which is offered with a 147kW/450Nm 2.2-litre turbodiesel alongside the same petrol V6.

It's also different to the Jeep Gladiator in left-hand drive guise, where a 3.0-litre diesel V6 is soon to land in US showrooms. That same engine is also employed in the Wrangler Unlimited for US market, where it makes 193kW and 599Nm.

For reference, that's more torque than Volkswagen Amarok V6 580, which is touted as Australia-most powerful diesel 4X4 ute.

In Australia, that same diesel V6 engine is found (with varying outputs) under the bonnet of Jeep's Grand Cherokee, Maserati's Levante and Ram's 1500 EcoDiesel.

Jeep says how important the Australian market is to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which is the first to receive right-hook Gladiators from the plant in Toldeo, Ohio.

Jeep admits that most Wrangler Rubicon buyers opt for petrol power under the bonnet, with a 70/30 split in sales.


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Sam Purcell

Sam Purcell has been writing about cars, four-wheel driving and camping since 2013, and obsessed with anything that goes brum-brum longer than he can remember. Sam joined the team at CarAdvice/Drive as the off-road Editor in 2018, after cutting his teeth at Unsealed 4X4 and Pat Callinan’s 4X4 Adventures.

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