It's a 1.5 petrol. The early fuel economy is pretty staggering, especially since I typically see a 5-10% improvement after the first 6K miles or so.
It's a bit gutless compared to the 4.0, but I really hated the ECU mapping on the 4.0. You can really tell it's a 70's engine that's been dragged into the 21st century. Too responsive and jerky off idle, but then gutless in the lower-mid range, really strong at 1500, but then out of breath not long after.
The little Suzi needs revs but it's so smooth and linear by comparison. AVO do a turbo kit that's not too expensive or I'm thinking of an E-Charger for maximum low end.
I had my '05 TJ from new and only did 20k miles in it. The problem was always by the time I'd get to the off roading, I'd be all beat up from the trip and then still had all the rough stuff ahead of me.
We don't get much rain here so I can live without M/T's. I'm more leaning towards having a set of street tyres and a set of A/T's. Live axles make jacking as swapping tyres pretty easy.
Some owners of lifted, modified Jimnys (the biggest legal tyre size here is only 29-30") report only about 20mpg, so there's no such thing as a free lunch I guess.
The main issue I have is it don't have a rear LSD like the TJ did, it's got TC based LSD on all fours by that really waits for you to get stuck before it helps out out
Makes for very jerky progress in axle twisters.
https://youtu.be/vApUZM5l2JY?t=1835