Aren't all jeep Wranglers ( sans the J8 ) built in north America and then shipped over to Europe anyways? Diesel's and all?
Yes, all Jeep Wranglers excluding the J8 are built in Toledo Ohio either for domestic consumption or for export. Like you, this really pisses me off. We are manufacturing the damn things here, the latest 2.8 meets EuroV and when the original 2.8 was offered several years ago in the Liberty Jeep couldn't keep up with demand. It all points to what should be a no brainer decision certify them and release them here for domestic consumption. If anything to bump up your CAFE baseline. Even if certification ran into the low million range it would still be worth it potentially over the long term as that motor could be dropped in a number of things to increase fleet efficiency and offer users choice.
I know that with the stop/start tech (available on the manual models no less)and the high efficiency design of the latest 2.8, I am VERY interested.
Chryco is known for oddball decisions at times though. Look at this years JK for example. They finally appoint it a better than substandard interior and allow you to deck it out with things like heated leather, but then don't offer that package in a monotone version aka black leather/black interior, instead we get this two tone version of black and saddle brown. However when you look at the export models black leather/black interior is available. Again, same factory producing all models and clearly materials are being procurred and are on hand even with JIT manufactoring, so why not offer the option to customers. Same thing goes with the painted hard tops. Seems like that would have been a sensible ala carte option to offer folks instead of limiting it to the Sahara trim line.
Oh well, here is to the 2012 model year... may Fiat/Chrysler take care of terrible ball joints, tie rod ends, steering shafts, steering boxes, and finally see fit to dump in a decent power plant even though every other model in their lineup has seen it this year!