Jeep | Jim's Car & Truck Parts

16Aug/110

Grand Cherokee

Grand Cherokee

2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee: it's a Jeep and it's Grand!

We're lastly beginning to get a glimpse of exactly what Chrysler has been up to since snagging a whopping $6.6 billion in federal funding all through the automotive implosion of 2009. Even though General Motors has been busily chugging along like nothing happened, the Pentastar hasn't exactly rolled out a wave of new and refreshed models. There's been an apparent hitch within the Chrysler giddy up, and those loyal to your company's three brands have been forced to settle for little far more than slightly reworked choice packages..!.!. until now. As 2010 comes to a close, the organization is pulling the covers off a range of new models, each as essential to its future success as the last.

At the front of the pack would be the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, a vehicle that is turn out to be synonymous with Chrysler's righting of itself inside public eye thanks to some of the most well-crafted advertisements within the business. In the event you do not know what we're on about, we highly suggest pointing your browser toward YouTube and spending a few minutes watching the company's "The Points We Make, Make Us" spot. Be prepared for an overwhelming sense of patriotic duty, as properly as a burning desire to pick up a hammer and bang some nails.

You've been warned.

Even before Chrysler's run-in with Chapter 11, there have been flickers of hope within the company's fleet. The Dodge Ram packed a single of the greatest interiors inside the segment, and also the previous-generation Grand Cherokee wasn't a horrible place to spend a number of hours. The 2011 Fantastic Cherokee picks up individuals cues and runs with them in all directions, resulting in a motor vehicle that is as capable off street as it is jousting with mid-town visitors. If this may be the new face of Chrysler, we like what we see.

This can be a handsome automobile. Jeep has a prolonged and storied history of brutish designs to pull from, as well as the 2011 Fantastic Cherokee picks through the very best. The familial squared-off fender arches and seven-slot grille join new, glowering headlamps for a appear which is all approximately far more determined than its predecessor. The narrow lights and upright fascia give the Grand Cherokee an aggressive nose that looks all but determined to pull the new Chrysler through the ashes of the old single-handedly. Short overhangs front and rear are plenty functional for taking on your favorite trails, but they also give the SUV the sort of ready-for-anything stance that made buyers fall in love with high-riders to begin with. Inside a world populated by bubble crossovers, the Awesome Cherokee clearly stands apart.

That look continues down the side of the motor vehicle. With blacked-out B- and C-pillars backed up by angular rear bodywork, the design is beautifully modern. For once, the designers at Chrysler do not seem to be completely beholden to retro styling, and that fact pays enormous dividends for that Awesome Cherokee. Light splashes of chrome around the door handles, mirrors and roof rack are much more fine jewelry than bling, and demonstrate a level of restrained taste that we do not see too often from domestic producers. In brief, it is a vehicle that you're proud to drive, and that draws attentive stares no matter where you go.

Chrysler was one particular with the very first domestic companies in recent times to underscore the truth that a automobile doesn't have to wear a luxury badge just to have an superb interior, as well as the 2011 Jeep Awesome Cherokee takes that knowledge to heart. While our tester came equipped with all the feature-heavy Overland package and all of the leather niceties that entails, we're told that lower rung models are no less gorgeous. Deep, real-wood accents are traced with chrome along the door panels and dash, along with the outstanding leather seats wear stylish contrasting piping. The cabin is lined having a host of small details that simply make it apparent that Chrysler's team place in the hours stressing over fit and finish. 5 years ago, we simply wouldn't have thought this level of refinement was feasible from any Chrysler branch, let alone Jeep.

To us, the icing on the cake may be the steering wheel from the Grand Cherokee. Chrysler eventually appears to have realized that the chunky, one-size-fits-all unit of yore wasn't doing anyone any favors, and chucked it in favor of piece that does considerably additional for your overall cohesiveness from the interior. We cannot underscore enough how important a steering wheel is usually to a vehicle's cabin, and Chrysler has completely nailed it with the Grand Cherokee's new tiller.

Our Jeep came packing the much-celebrated new Phoenix 3.6-liter V6 under the hood. With 290 horsepower and 260 pound-feet of torque, the brand new engine is a few millennia ahead of your engine it replaces. In the course of our First Drive, we felt like the six-pot didn't have quite plenty of gusto to shuffle close to the 5,000 pound Fantastic Cherokee in a dignified fashion, but after a full week with all the new engine, we're changing our tune. A little. The V6 handles day-to-day driving duties with out any actual issues, and will even summon up ample courage for interstate passes on command. It is smooth, though if you're expecting to dart out in to the left lane, brace for loads of revs from the wee sixer.

Chrysler mated the Phoenix using a five-speed automatic transmission that, while a great deal smooth, appears to become the weak spot from the driveline. The EPA hasn't been type on the Fantastic Cherokee V6, slotting our tester at 16 mpg city and 22 mpg highway. Throughout mixed driving, we saw close to 19, so the feds figures are spot on. Throwing an extra cog in to the transmission would go a lengthy way toward squeezing an extra mpg or two out from the SUV. Of course, losing a pound or hundred wouldn't hurt points, either.

Nestled behind that transmission is what Jeep calls its Quadra-Trac II four-wheel-drive process. Having a bevy of settings (including ride-height adjustments) for nearly every sort of off-road or slippery driving condition, the method is supposed to become to trails what a stand mixer is always to baking – necessary.

Regrettably, our time using the Awesome Cherokee was abbreviated by a last-minute trip, so we weren't able to put the Grand Cherokee by way of its paces from the red clay of East Tennessee. Not that it really is going to become asked to conquer the Sahara on a regular basis by average owners.

We can say with some authority that the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee is as mild mannered although soft roading as one particular could probably anticipate from of a automobile which is still much more an SUV than it is actual body-on-frame competitors. Chrysler has done a fantastic job with all the suspension, providing a ride that soaks up breaks in pavement devoid of succumbing to wallow or excessive entire body roll. Don't get us wrong, this isn't your momma's crossover, and as such, you cannot expect to hustle it as a result of a series of twists devoid of appropriate amounts of understeer, but for a car or truck that we're told can maintain pace using a Wrangler once the tarmac evaporates, it really is an fantastic driver.

Most domestic manufacturers appear to have lastly gotten the memo that quiet means high quality on the vast majority of buyers out there, and as such, the Fantastic Cherokee's cabin insulates you and yours from agitations like wind, road and engine noise. Really wind that 3.6-liter V6 up, though, and you'll hear it sweating through the engine bay.

Jeep is asking close to $30,215 for your base, two-wheel-drive version of the 2011 Grand Cherokee, although our practically top-of-the-line tester hits the wallet for a far more heady $43,695 with destination. Of course, which is with just about each option the company could possibly cram in to the truck with the exception from the mighty 5.7-liter V8. Speaking of that eight-pot, we've got to wonder if we'd opt for the a lot more potent powerplant were it our name on the dotted line. At close to two mpg less in each city and highway driving with an additional 70 horsepower, we'd definitely consider it. The sad actuality is that the brand new V6 – or far more accurately, the transmission – just does not provide ample in the way of fuel economy to warrant the hit in horsepower. There's some word that Chrysler will be bolting the Fiat Multiair technique onto the Phoenix with significant increases in horsepower sometime soon. If that is the case, sign us up. Otherwise, we'll take the five.7-liter, please.

Chrysler really has performed some thing impressive with the 2011 Grand Cherokee. The firm is plainly operating that has a dearth of resources compared to both Ford and Basic Motors, but has managed to turn out a product capable of keeping pace, if not besting comparable metal, from individuals two at the same time. Here's hoping the Pentastar can pull off similar feats of engineering and accounting wizardry with the rest of its fleet.

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Grand Cherokee Treffen Oberwart 20.6.2009