Jeep Grand Cherokee 3.0 V6 CRD Limited Price as tested £36,795
Automotive Car |Jeep Grand Cherokee 3.0 V6 CRD Limited Price as tested £36,795| When the first of the previous-generation Jeep Grand Cherokees arrived at our office for testing in August 2005, one tester wrote in his notes: “I don’t know what they were thinking of.” Five months later, when we named and shamed the worst car we’d driven all year, the Jeep got it without a single dissenting voice. It was crude, cramped, overpriced and over here. Were its mediocrity not so prejudicial to its creator’s health, it would have been laughable.
Jeep Grand cherokee
But perhaps in time we’ll regard it as its equivalent of the Mk4 Ford Escort, a car so bad that it actually became a force for good, stinging the firm out of its complacency and into action. Ford’s next two cars were the Mondeo and Focus and it has never looked back.
We usually save this bit for the verdict, but there is something you should know now: the new Grand Cherokee is almost indescribably better than the old one. It has taken a seven-league-boot leap in the right direction. Here, the cheaper of just two models, both using the same 3.0-litre V6 diesel, lines up for scrutiny.
Whereas the old Grand Cherokee used a Jeep chassis and a Mercedes engine, this one has turned the concept on its head by borrowing the platform from the next Mercedes M-class and powering it by its own engine, or at least one produced for Fiat, the majority shareholder in Jeep’s parent, Chrysler.
Jeep Grand cherokee
It is tempting to park the credit for all the manifest improvements enjoyed by this Jeep at Mercedes’ door, but the fact is that it’s still perfectly possible to make a pig’s breakfast out of someone else’s perfectly good platform, as Volvo has demonstrated on and off for some years. Even so, the simple stat that this Grand Cherokee is – and this is not a misprint – 146 per cent more structurally rigid than the last gives some idea of how far up the engineering ladder Jeep has been able to climb. Why does this matter?
Without a stiff chassis, your suspension can’t work so the car will neither ride nor handle and your NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) will run out of control. A run around the block in the old Grand Cherokee would illustrate this point nicely.
The engine is interesting. Built by VM Motori and apparently developed by Fiat, it has not only exactly the same 2987cc capacity as Mercedes’ 3.0-litre V6 but precisely the same bore and stroke, too, so we’re guessing not too much re-engineering of the platform was needed to make it fit. But this apparently new and state-of-the-art engine has been hobbled by the need to run through a five-speed automatic transmission. Given that, its emissions and economy figures are even more impressive than is initially apparent.
Jeep has not followed its softer rivals in ditching the low-ratio transfer box, but height-adjustable air suspension – essential for anything more than the lightest of off-roading – doesn’t feature on the entry-level model. Manually locking differentials aren’t available, either. Nevertheless, different off-roading modes are selectable via a rotary ‘Selec-Terrain’ dial. And if you think that this sounds like Jeep is taking a leaf out of Land Rover’s ‘Terrain Response’ book, we do, too.
Jeep-GrandCheroke
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