At the front with the pack could be the 2011 Jeep Awesome Cherokee, a vehicle which is turn out to be synonymous with Chrysler's righting of itself from the public eye thanks to some in the most well-crafted advertisements in the business. If you don't know what we're on about, we highly suggest pointing your browser toward YouTube and spending a number of minutes watching the company's "The Things We Make, Make Us" spot. Be prepared for an overwhelming sense of patriotic duty, as effectively 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 had been flickers of hope within the company's fleet. The Dodge Ram packed 1 from the very best interiors within the segment, as well as the previous-generation Grand Cherokee wasn't a horrible place to spend a number of hours. The 2011 Grand Cherokee picks up individuals cues and runs with them in all directions, resulting inside a automobile that's as capable off road as it is jousting with mid-town visitors. If this is the new face of Chrysler, we like what we see.
This can be a handsome car. Jeep has a lengthy and storied history of brutish designs to pull from, as well as the 2011 Awesome Cherokee picks from the very best. The familial squared-off fender arches and seven-slot grille join new, glowering headlamps for a appear that's all around more determined than its predecessor. The narrow lights and upright fascia give the Fantastic Cherokee an aggressive nose that looks all but determined to pull the brand new Chrysler through the ashes from the old single-handedly. Brief 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. In a world populated by bubble crossovers, the Fantastic Cherokee clearly stands apart.
That look continues down the side with the automobile. With blacked-out B- and C-pillars backed up by angular rear bodywork, the design is beautifully modern. For once, the designers at Chrysler don't seem to be totally beholden to retro styling, and that reality pays large dividends for that Grand Cherokee. Light splashes of chrome around the door handles, mirrors and roof rack are additional fine jewelry than bling, and demonstrate a degree of restrained taste that we don't see too often from domestic producers. In short, it can be a vehicle that you are proud to drive, and that draws attentive stares no matter where you go.
Chrysler was 1 of your very first domestic organizations in recent times to underscore the reality that a car or truck does not have to put on a luxury badge just to have an outstanding interior, and the 2011 Jeep Awesome Cherokee takes that knowledge to heart. Whilst our tester came equipped together with the feature-heavy Overland package and all with 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 fantastic leather seats wear stylish contrasting piping. The cabin is lined using a host of small details that merely make it apparent that Chrysler's team put within the hours stressing over fit and finish. Five years ago, we simply wouldn't have thought this level of refinement was achievable from any Chrysler branch, let alone Jeep.
To us, the icing on the cake could be the steering wheel inside Grand Cherokee. Chrysler last but not least seems to have realized that the chunky, one-size-fits-all unit of yore wasn't doing anybody any favors, and chucked it in favor of piece that does considerably additional for the overall cohesiveness of the interior. We cannot underscore adequate how essential a steering wheel is to a vehicle's cabin, and Chrysler has absolutely nailed it together 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 new engine is often a handful of millennia ahead from the engine it replaces. All through our 1st Drive, we felt like the six-pot didn't have quite enough gusto to shuffle all around the five,000 pound Grand Cherokee in a dignified fashion, but after a full week together with the new engine, we're changing our tune. A small. The V6 handles day-to-day driving duties with no any real issues, and will even summon up sufficient courage for interstate passes on command. It's smooth, although if you are expecting to dart out into the left lane, brace for plenty of revs from the wee sixer.
Chrysler mated the Phoenix having a five-speed automatic transmission that, while a lot smooth, seems to be the weak spot in the driveline. The EPA hasn't been type to the Grand Cherokee V6, slotting our tester at 16 mpg city and 22 mpg highway. For the duration of mixed driving, we saw around 19, so the feds figures are spot on. Throwing an extra cog in to the transmission would go a lengthy way toward squeezing an additional mpg or two out with the SUV. Obviously, losing a pound or hundred would not hurt items, either.
Nestled behind that transmission is what Jeep calls its Quadra-Trac II four-wheel-drive technique. That has a bevy of settings (including ride-height adjustments) for nearly just about every kind of off-road or slippery driving condition, the technique is supposed to become to trails what a stand mixer is to baking – essential.
Regrettably, our time aided by the Fantastic Cherokee was abbreviated by a last-minute trip, so we weren't able to put the Awesome Cherokee through its paces within the red clay of East Tennessee. Not that it really is going to be asked to conquer the Sahara on a regular basis by average owners.
We can say with some authority that the 2011 Jeep Fantastic Cherokee is as mild mannered while soft roading as 1 could possibly anticipate from of a automobile that is still much more an SUV than it can be actual body-on-frame competitors. Chrysler has done a fantastic job using the suspension, providing a ride that soaks up breaks in pavement without succumbing to wallow or excessive body roll. Don't get us wrong, this isn't your momma's crossover, and as such, you can't expect to hustle it through a series of twists devoid of appropriate amounts of understeer, but for a automobile that we're told can maintain pace which has a Wrangler once the tarmac evaporates, it really is an outstanding driver.
Most domestic manufacturers seem to have eventually gotten the memo that quiet means quality towards the vast majority of buyers out there, and as such, the Awesome 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 from the engine bay.
Jeep is asking all around $30,215 for your base, two-wheel-drive version of your 2011 Grand Cherokee, although our nearly top-of-the-line tester hits the wallet for a more heady $43,695 with destination. Naturally, that's with practically every single option the firm could probably cram in to the truck aided by the exception of your mighty 5.7-liter V8. Speaking of that eight-pot, we've got to wonder if we'd opt for that much more potent powerplant have been it our name on the dotted line. At around two mpg much less in each city and highway driving with an additional 70 horsepower, we'd definitely take into account it. The sad reality is that the new V6 – or additional accurately, the transmission – just doesn't offer sufficient within the way of fuel economy to warrant the hit in horsepower. There's some word that Chrysler will probably be bolting the Fiat Multiair program onto the Phoenix with substantial increases in horsepower sometime soon. If that is the case, sign us up. Otherwise, we'll take the 5.7-liter, please.
Chrysler truly has performed something impressive with all the 2011 Fantastic Cherokee. The organization is plainly operating using a dearth of resources compared to both Ford and General Motors, but has managed to turn out a product capable of keeping pace, if not besting comparable metal, from those two at the same time. Here's hoping the Pentastar can pull off similar feats of engineering and accounting wizardry aided by the rest of its fleet.
