The latest fifth-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee is vastly superior to any Grand Cherokee that has gone before it. It's better to drive, higher in quality and comes with plenty of technology on board. In truth, many British buyers who are simply looking for a luxurious family car will probably be better served by one of the more conventional European SUV rivals, but for those wanting to mix those luxury-car credentials with some genuine off-road ability, the big Jeep might well suit. Then again, so will a Range Rover Sport, and the Jeep is hardly a cheap choice...
Pros:
- Comfy on the road, capable off it
- High quality interior
- Lots of technology available
Cons:
- Still unclear how much of that technology is provided as standard
- Not cheap to buy
- No seven-seater option
Jeep Grand Cherokee Review
- What is the Jeep Grand Cherokee?
- How Practical is it?
- What’s it Like to Drive?
- Technology and Equipment
- Three things to know
- Which one to buy?
- Running costs
- Reliability
- Verdict
What is the Jeep Grand Cherokee?
America’s answer to the Range Rover Sport, that’s what. It’s a large SUV that’s designed to be comfortable, refined and sophisticated on the road, yet virtually unstoppable when you turn off the road and attempt to drive across a river and up a rocky ravine.
The Grand Cherokee has existed since 1992, and this all-new version is the fifth iteration of the formula. It’s a very popular car in its native USA, but in the UK, it’s not been such a common sight traditionally, as rivals from companies such Land Rover, Mercedes, Audi and BMW have catered better for domestic tastes. The latest version, however, is a lot more compelling than its predecessors in a variety of ways.
The new Grand Cherokee is available in the UK exclusively with a plug-in hybrid drivetrain, so there’s no purely petrol or CRD diesel engine on offer. Range Rover Sport aside, it competes with road-focussed luxury family SUVs such as the BMW X5 and Mercedes GLE, as well as slightly more rugged offerings from less premium brands, including the Toyota Highlander and Volkswagen Touareg. The styling is typically Jeep, though, with a signature seven-slot grille, a contrasting roof and huge alloy wheels.
Along with the rest of the brands that used to be part of the Fiat Chrysler alliance, Jeep now forms part of manufacturing powerhouse Stellantis, which was formed when the Fiat Group merged with Peugeot, Citroen and Opel.
How Practical is it?
Practicality rating: 4/5 stars
You’d expect a car this huge to be practical, and the Grand Cherokee doesn’t disappoint. The boot is, predictably, a whopper at 580 litres, and there’s plenty more space beyond that if you leave the fabric load cover off and keep on piling items on top. The load area has a nice square shape and the opening is massive, and there’s barely any load lip to negotiate when packing. There’s even underfloor storage for charging cables and a full-size spare wheel.
The rear seats fold down in a 60/40 split for when you want to maximise cargo space, and the backrest lie perfectly flat and level when you do so. However, if you’re expecting this enormous SUV to offer the option of seven seats, you’ll be disappointed, because it doesn’t. It’s also strange that the switch to close the powered tailgate is inside the boot rather than on the tailgate like it normally is.
In the rear seats, Jeep claims class-leading legroom, and there is indeed plenty of space for long-limbed passengers to get comfortable. It’s also reasonably comfortable when carrying three in the back, thanks mostly to the width of the cabin, but also because the middle seat is almost as wide as those either side. There is a transmission tunnel running down the middle of the floor, but because it’s low and wide, it doesn’t feel too awkward for whoever is in the middle seat to sit with their feet on top of it.
What’s it Like to Drive?
Driving rating: 3/5 stars
The Jeep Grand Cherokee 4XE’s plug-in hybrid drivetrain teams a turbocharged 2.0-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine with a couple of electric motors, a lithium-ion battery pack and an eight-speed automatic transmission. All that gives you 380 metric horsepower and 462lb ft of torque.
As you’d expect, the powertrain can run in a variety of modes. Hybrid mode blends battery power and petrol power as the system sees fit for best efficiency and performance, and it’s in this mode that the car posts its maximum performance figure of 0-62mph in 6.3 seconds. Sure enough, when you pin the accelerator, it feels every bit that quick; hurtling forwards at such a rate in something quite so huge can result in excitement and nervousness in equal measure. And importantly, the gearbox does a good job of reacting to what you’re asking of the throttle pedal at any given time, so it feels like there’s always strong pace there when you need it.
On the downside, the petrol engine does get quite noisy when you want to get a wriggle on. It’s not loud as such, but the noise sounds a little bit thrashy and unbecoming of a luxury car. All the more reason to keep your battery topped up so that you can run the car in all-electric EV mode, when it’s lovely and quiet. With more moderate throttle inputs, the Grand Cherokee 4XE will run purely on the electric motors right up to motorway speeds, and it’ll do that for up to 31 miles on a full charge, according to WLTP figures (so expect more like 25 miles of EV range in the real world).
There’s also an eSave mode, which uses the petrol engine to drive the car, saving your battery power for more efficient urban journeys later on, or there’s a regenerative braking mode for topping up your battery on the move.
There’s plenty of clever dynamic technology aside from the PHEV drivetrain, too. The Grand Cherokee comes as standard with Quadra-lift air suspension with adaptive damping on all four corners, and this automatically adjusts according to the road conditions. There’s also a very sophisticated, multi-layered four-wheel-drive system. You choose from a selection of driving modes: Auto and Sport are the more road-biased modes, while the off-road focussed ones include Rock, Snow, and Mud and Sand. And according to which you select, the system electronically coordinates the behaviour of the four-wheel drive torque split, the braking, the steering, the suspension, the throttle, the gearshift mapping, the active transfer case, the electric limited slip differential, the stability control, the ABS, and goodness only knows what else.
The upshot of all this is that there are two clear sides to the Grand Cherokee’s dynamic remit: on-road luxury and off-road unstoppability. And on the first score, it does a sterling job. It smothers lumps and bumps in a really smooth, fuss-free manner, and the suspension also feels quite controlled, so the body’s not still bouncing up and down halfway up the road. That makes this an impressively comfy car on most kinds of road.
You wouldn’t expect a car like this to deliver particularly sharp handling so it’s utterly forgivable that it doesn’t, but by the same token, there’s not an undue amount of body roll in corners, either, so it doesn’t feel clumsy. That said, the sheer size of the Grand Cherokee will make you think very carefully about how you’re placing it on the road.
What might come as a pleasant surprise is the steering. It’s not the last word in feedback or sharpness, but it has a nice hefty weight to it, it’s reasonably responsive and it’s very accurate, so flinging the steering wheel about is a pleasure, not a chore.
Technology and Equipment
Technology and Equipment rating: 4/5 stars
We know that the trim levels available will include the Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited, the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk, the Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland and the Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve, but as yet, we don’t know which items of equipment will be included with which trim.
Do expect to be dazzled by screens, though, thanks to the latest Uconnect 5 infotainment system, which supports wireless Apple Carplay/Android Auto, Amazon Alexa, and various other connected services. There’s a 10.25-inch digital instrument panel right in front of you, and a 10.1-inch central touchscreen infotainment screen in the middle of the dashboard. Go for the higher trims, and you’ll also get a 10.25-inch head-up display size that beams information onto the windscreen in front of you, while the front passenger has their own 10.25-inch screen on the dashboard, on which they can look at navigation or the various camera views around the car.
The infotainment system isn’t the easiest to get to grips with, and the graphics and the screen transitions can be a little ponderous.
Three things to know
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The Jeep Grand Cherokee is an expensive car, and for the money it costs, you’ll also be wanting it to feel appropriately luxurious. To that end, you get leather seats (and in the Summit Reserve range-topper, attractive walnut wood finishes), along with some properly plush and tactile materials. There are one or two other surfaces dotted around that aren’t quite so posh, but they’re few and far between and they certainly don’t ruin the feeling of quality and luxury.
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Jeep boasts that the Grand Cherokee can be specified with up to 110 advanced safety and security features, including things like night vision cameras, adaptive cruise control and level two self-driving capability. However, because the specification levels haven’t yet been announced, it’s not yet clear which systems come with which trim level. The car has already been awarded the full five-star rating in Euro NCAP crash tests, though, and that result applies to all trim levels.
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Audiophiles will want to check out the range-topping Summit Reserve trim, because this version comes with a McIntosh sound system that features no fewer than 19 custom-designed speakers, including a 25cm subwoofer, a 17-channel amplifier and 950 watts of power.
Which one to buy?
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For off-road ability: The Trailhawk version is the hardcore off-roader of the flock, and comes with extra hardware such as disconnecting sway bars and knobbly off-road tyres to give it enhanced off-road capabilities. It’s very good in the sticky stuff as a result, although still don’t expect it to be able to do what a Wrangler can do. The Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve, meanwhile, is the most luxurious example of the breed.
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In terms of size and ethos, the Grand Cherokee’s closest rival is probably the Range Rover Sport, in that it’s a large five-seat luxury SUV that still has quite a bit of capability when you take it off-road. The Land Rover Discovery also feels fairly close in ethos, although that car’s seven seats give it a slightly different focus.
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If you want to play about with the whole luxury-versus-ruggedness ratio, and want something that’s going to push things more towards that latter rather than the former, then you’ll probably be considering a Land Rover Defender. Take one of those off the beaten track, and there are very few SUVs that’ll be able to follow.
Running costs
Running Costs rating: 2/5 stars
The Grand Cherokee is not a cheap car to buy. Prices start from around £70,000 and rise to around £85,000. How that compares with rivals depends on what you see the Grand Cherokees rivals being: it’s a fairly unique offering so direct rivals are a little tricky to pin down. You can buy a Land Rover Defender 110 for less, or about the same if you go for the P400e plug-in hybrid version, while a Range Rover Sport P400e will cost you a bit more.
It's a little difficult to predict how well the Grand Cherokee will hold on to its value, but if historical performance is anything to go by, it’s likely that it’ll suffer heavier depreciation than its Land Rover-built counterparts. Bear in mind, too, that this will likely have a slightly detrimental effect on monthly finance payments for new car buyers.
Having said all that, the plug-in hybrid drivetrain does give you the potential to achieve very low running costs, provided you use it in the right manner. For best effect, plug in regularly to keep the batteries topped up, keep your journeys short enough that they can be done exclusively on the electric-only range of up to 31 miles, and keep your throttle inputs gentle enough that the petrol engine doesn’t kick in. Do bear in mind that every time it does, it’ll be dragging around not only the enormous body of the Grand Cherokee, but also all that heavy hybrid and off-roading gubbins, and that will make it all the more thirsty. It’s made a little less thirsty by the fact that the four-wheel-drive system uncouples the front wheels when four-wheel drive isn’t needed, and only reconnects them when slippage is detected, but that will still only do so much to cut fuel consumption.
Reliability
Like always with a brand new product, it’s impossible to accurately predict how reliable the Grand Cherokee will be, because there’s simply not enough data available. The firm’s previous performances in reliability surveys might provide a little bit of insight, but to be fair, Jeep will be hoping that the Grand Cherokee doesn’t follow previous patterns. In the 2022 What Car? Reliability Survey, the brand came rock-bottom of the 32 carmakers included in the survey, which is a pretty dismal showing. It should be noted, though, that this performance was based pretty much solely on the Renegade SUV, which is a very different car to the Grand Cherokee, and the biggest rival for Grand Cherokee customers, that being Land Rover, only placed one berth higher.
Verdict
Overall rating: 3/5 stars
It’s fair to say that previous Jeep Grand Cherokees have failed to dazzle when compared to more mainstream European rivals, but even though it’s still not a class-leader, the latest fifth generation version gets much closer to the front-runners than ever before, and so becomes a lot more compelling as a result.
It’s a huge improvement over its predecessors in terms of on-road dynamic polish, interior quality and the technology on board, and like it always did, it also provides generous interior space, good practicality, plenty of equipment, and impressive off-road ability. The plug-in hybrid drivetrain gives it an interesting selling point that will be appealing to the right kind of buyer. You’ll still need deep pockets to buy and run one, mind.
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