The IT Nerd

Let’s wrap up the review of the Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit. There’s one loose end that I want to address. In part two of this review, I spoke of the ECO mode and how turning it off made this SUV comes to life. There’s also a sport mode. Simply double tap the gear shift and the SUV lowers, the accelerator response sharpens, the transmission mapping changes, and you now have a very fast and responsive SUV. So much so that if you love to carve corners on back roads, you’ll love being in this SUV. It was fun and I can see how you could get speeding tickets and demerit points in a hurry if you’re not careful. Oh, I don’t know if it was just me, but the engine note which is largely muted becomes more present. It also becomes intoxicating.

One thing that I found annoying in stop and go traffic was this: I’d tap the accelerator and I’d glide forward. But there’d be be a “thunk” sound and I’d feel a bit of a lurch forward as it the SUV had problems deciding what gear it needed to be in. I’m not sure what’s responsible for this. But I think that Chrysler needs to look at this as it’s about the only negative thing I had to say about the Grand Cherokee. One thing that annoyed my wife, and she insisted that I add to the review was how high off the ground the SUV was. For her, wearing a skirt and getting in and out of the SUV is “interesting.” Plus using the proximity card to enter the garage in our condo required her to put the SUV into park, remove her seatbelt and lean out the window while opening the door. Not ideal from her standpoint. I guess that’s one of the side effects of being 5 foot 6 in a very large vehicle.

How about the final fuel mileage? I averaged 12.9 L/100 KM in mixed city and highway driving. I believe that could have gone lower, but a trip into the stop and go traffic hell known as downtown Toronto put an end to that. Still, given that this is a big and heavy SUV, it was still impressive. If I compare it to the front wheel drive Ford Explorer with Ecoboost that I drove last year, it drank 1 L/100 KM more in fuel. But I’ll point out that the Ford was only motivating two wheels and had a lot less horsepower and torque. That makes the results that I got in the Grand Cherokee which had all four wheels going and had way more horsepower and torque even more impressive.

So would I buy one? Yes. Here’s why:

• The fuel usage is something that I could live with which is something that I have never been able to say about any other SUV of this size.
• It handles shockingly well which is something that I have never been able to say about any other SUV of this size.
• It has a ton of cargo space.
• It has class leading off road features. Some of which I can see myself using during ski season.
• The technology is top shelf and easy to use.
• The craftsmanship of the interior is top shelf and very impressive.

While what I was driving goes for just under $63K, you can get into a Grand Cherokee for just under $40K. Or you can go straight to the SRT version starting at $63K which comes with a 6.4L V8 HEMI. Thus, you’ll likely be able find something that fits your budget, or your need for power.

If the goal was to have the Jeep Grand Cherokee be the leader in this class, I say mission accomplished. I have to say that the Grand Cherokee Summit can safely be considered to be class leading in every respect. Anybody else who is in this class should be afraid. Very afraid.

This entry was posted on June 17, 2013 at 8:28 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.