Like I said, our 4 was good for what it was. Yes, it was severely under powered for moving such a semi-big vehicle. It took awhile to get going, but once up in the RPM's, it moved pretty good. Just took awhile to get there. Lol. We took it on many trips, loaded with 5 passengers and luggage inside and in the roof carrier. I can honestly say, empty or fully loaded (sometimes overloaded) it felt the same and mileage never varied that much. The only thing I could not stand was off the line acceleration. You punched it and it eventually got there. Lol. I had to do some serious driving changes when we got the 2013 with the 3.6. If I punched it on this one like I did in the 09, I'd burn the front tires off (provided I turned the traction control off first). The 2.4 is a very capable and dependable engine, just know its limitations. It's not a burn out, screamer engine. It is more of a work horse in my humble opinion.