The IT Nerd

What you’re looking at is the 3.6L Pentastar V6. If you read part 2 of my Grand Caravan Crew Plus review, you’ll recall that the Pentastar V6 has a lot going for it:

• It was one of Ward’s ’10 Best Engines’ for 2011. Only the best engines get onto this list which should tell you how good this engine is because it’s in the same company as Audi and BMW who also made this list
• It has 290 hp and 260 lb-ft of torque
• It will take 87 octane gas or E85 gas
• It will tow up to 6,200 lbs

This engine is paired to a 8 speed automatic transmission. No that’s not a misprint. To add to that, it’s made by famed transmission company ZF who makes transmissions for BMW and Mercedes Benz among others. All of that is good on paper. Which is why when I picked it up, I was surprised by how lethargic it was. I pressed the accelerator and it was slow to get up to speed and was in no great hurry to get anywhere. It was usable, but not to the level that I expected from a V6. I really found that weird and I lived with it for about five minutes and figured that I was going to tell you to avoid this engine and get the optional V8 HEMI engine or diesel engine. That is, until I found a button on the dash called ECO that was activated. Upon turning it off, the personality of this SUV radically changed. It was quick to get up to speed and always had power to spare. Clearly with ECO turned on, the performance was blunted to save gas. That means that if you want neck snapping performance, you want it off. Of course your fuel bill will skyrocket accordingly.

Having said that, fuel economy is where this SUV shines. I am averaging 12.6L/100 KM in mixed city and highway driving. Though I will note that on the highway I can get down to the single digits if I am driving with fuel economy in mind and I have ECO turned on. This is excellent given how big (and presumably heavy) the Grand Cherokee is.

Now I will note that if this V6 isn’t enough power for you, you have two options:

• You can get a 5.7L V8 HEMI engine that puts out 360 hp and 390 lb-ft of torque and can tow 7,200 lbs
• If fuel economy is your priority, there’s a 3.0L diesel engine that puts out 240 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque and can tow 7,200 lbs

The Grand Cherokee is largely quiet and only when you push the engine do you hear it. Also outside noise is kept to a minimum which is what you expect from a SUV of this type. The handling is really what got my attention though. I expected this to drive like a truck. However I found it to be light on it’s feet and able to turn very sharply. An example of this was at a Starbucks drive through that I frequent. It’s a very tight environment with not a lot of room to manoeuvre. But you’d never know it in the Grand Cherokee. It was able to make two very tight left hand turns as if it were a much smaller vehicle. Not only that, but I found lane changes didn’t require a lot of input and U turns were very tight. I was impressed. If you want a SUV that handles exceptionally well, this is the one to get. As an added bonus, you get a transmission that you can barely tell when it’s shifting unless you are going really slowly. Plus the Grand Cherokee never feels like it’s in the wrong gear. One nice touch, it has metal paddle shifters that are behind the steering wheel that work at any time. Visibility is good out the back and to the sides, though I will note the “C” pillar is big and can obstruct your view depending on how you have your seat set up. I’ll also note that the mirrors are huge and you almost don’t need the blind spot monitoring system.

Now for those of you who want to take this off road rather than use this as an urban assault vehicle, Jeep has you covered. In typical Jeep fashion, the Grand Cherokee has all sort of class leading off road capability including:

This entry was posted on June 12, 2013 at 8:40 am and is filed under Products with tags Chrysler, Jeep. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.