Instrumented Test
From the April 2014 Issue of Car and Driver
No doubt the folks at Jeep want you to think of every new Cherokee as a Trailhawk model. Armed with a two-speed transfer case, a one-inch suspension lift, skid plates, three bright-red tow hooks, and Firestone all-terrain tires, the Trailhawk is the rock-crawling mascot for this otherwise soft-roading shopping trolley. You can see the Trailhawk in television commercials, splashing through a muddy trough and bobbling over boulders, burnishing this new Cherokee’s image and upholding Jeep’s sacred reputation.
The Jeep pictured on these pages is not a Trailhawk. It is a Cherokee Limited, a crossover much closer to what people will—and should—buy from their local dealers. The approach angle, wading depth, and crawl ratio of this unibody, transverse-engine ute are unlikely to factor into anyone’s commute or errands. This is Fiat Chrysler’s Ford Escape, its Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4. It’s the competent, family-friendly compact crossover that’s been absent from every Chrysler-group showroom for the past decade.
Not that Jeep hasn’t tried to master this segment before. The 2014 Jeep Cherokee packs the intent of the Patriot and Compass into a package closer in size to the larger, outmoded Liberty. Rest assured that the Cherokee is a contemporary machine, unlike any of those three Jeeps conceived during the darkest days of the Daimler era.
If you have eyes, you’ve noticed that this Cherokee, code-named KL, makes no design references, other than with the grille, to the iconic, rectilinear XJ Cherokee. This does not bother us. That the two share a name is nothing more than a shrewd decision on the part of the marketing department. So ignore the vocal throng upset that this Cherokee doesn’t look like a cardboard box. If you want your brand-new vehicle to pack the simplicity and styling of a 13-year-old model, you should make haste to the nearest Mahindra truck dealership, which is probably in New Delhi. Even if it’s a fleeting fashion statement, the Cherokee beats the anonymity that is typical with family crossovers.
Right: Jeep, and Fiat Chrysler for that matter, deserves more credit for its user-friendly interfaces. But skip the $2155 Tech package.
At $30,990, the four-wheel-drive Limited model starts $500 higher than the Trailhawk and trades capability for creature comfort. Instead of the off-roader’s low-range four-wheel drive, locking rear differential, and V-6 engine, the top trim features standard navigation, leather, remote start, a backup camera, and heated front seats and steering wheel. In our test vehicle, the standard 2.4-liter four-cylinder was replaced by the V-6 for $1495. On top of that, our Limited was festooned with high-intensity-discharge headlamps, ventilated seats, a towing package, an upgraded navigation unit, and more, for a total—and totally ludicrous—price of $37,525.
The $2155 Technology Group is pure fat, a driver-assistance suite to prevent unintentional off-roading by the inattentive. It includes adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, forward-collision warning, lane-departure warning, and an electronic dance festival’s worth of beeps and flashing lights. There’s even a self-parking system that will steer you into parallel or perpendicular spaces and, if you let it, the pile of snow plowed onto the parking-lot berm.
