Jeep Cherokee

Jeep has dropped the organic design used on the Compass, Cherokee, and Renegade in favor of more unified styling across the product range. As a result, the Cherokee finally resembles the better Jeep products, gaining some cachet in the process.

Despite the high 8 inches of ground clearance, front entry is quite easy because of a low doorsill and a large door opening. Likewise, rear entry is easy, thanks to the squared-off door, which creates a wide opening.

The interior takes a step forward, with a simple, tasteful, and interesting design. There are nice details throughout the cabin, especially considering this is a lower trim level with cloth seats. The textured trim is nice, there are contrasting accents, and the cloth accents on the doors and dash add appeal—assuming they prove robust. There are some hard materials, and our testers noted that some plastic bits feel flimsy. Overall, it’s a nice step forward.

The added length allows for a commodious cargo area that is both wide and deep, though not very tall. The rear liftgate is rather upright, making it easier to fit large, boxy items. The Laredo trim doesn’t have a powered liftgate. The real downside is that the handle to close the hatch is awkward, being just a rectangular box with nothing to grip. Again, it’s hard to beat a simple handle that you can wrap your fingers around.

What We Don’t Like

The thick, square-circle (aka “squircle”) steering wheel ruined the whole experience for some Consumer Reports drivers. It’s the one thing drivers must contact, and the shape is just bizarre, making it awkward to use. Sure, squaring off the bottom opens up some leg space for entry. But squaring off the 10 and 2 o’clock positions to aid hand-holds for straight driving makes it strange to rotate the wheel. And, compounded by the rim’s thickness, it favors large hands, especially if you’re wearing gloves. It also blocks the entire view of the volume knob, seat heating, and other controls on the left side of the center screen. As you can tell, we’re not fans of squircle designs appearing on some new vehicles. (Seriously, can we unite around outlawing squircles and piano-black plastic trim?)

On paper, the powertrain sounds promising, with more power than some rivals and an impressive 37 mpg combined EPA rating. From behind the wheel, performance is competent, but it lacks the refinement found in competing vehicles, making it feel generally behind the state of the art. Driven gently, the powertrain is fine, but push it a bit to squirt into traffic, and the engine feels weak, with an unpleasant soundtrack and rev flaring from the continuously variable transmission. Not horrible, but it’s no Honda. Testers noted that handoff from electric-only power (or coasting) and engine-on operation varied, with transitions ranging from abrupt to smooth. Heavy acceleration (think merging) often begins with a slight hesitation, then a hasty response from the engine and eCVT that sends revs soaring. Ultimately, power is adequate.

The electronic exterior door handles are scalloped, creating a seashell-like grip, requiring a light lift to open. The motion is awkward, and our drivers universally panned the design, with some saying their fingers were routinely pinched. It’s hard to beat conventional grab-style handles that you can confidently wrap your fingers around. The interior door release is electric and oddly positioned. With your fingers resting in the recessed area on the door armrest, it’s a far stretch to push the button on the side with your thumb, especially if you have small hands. Plus, it’s hard to see because your outboard leg can block the view. The sizable manual release on the front doors is just a couple of inches away. In an emergency, no instructions are needed to operate that manual release. But it does underscore that a simple, conventional door handle would have been better. Not all innovation is a win.

Our testers found the brake response at low speeds to be non-linear and hard to modulate, with a spongy feel as the pedal was pressed. In regular driving, that issue fades away, and the pedal responds as expected.

What We’ll Keep an Eye On

The first testers to pilot the Cherokee had rather mixed feedback about the driving position and space, underscoring how important it is for buyers to assess comfort on their own. Headroom is quite good, and the armrests are firm though not quite symmetrical. The weird steering wheel has a good telescoping range for dialing in comfort. The one universal constant was complaints about how the center console rubs the driver’s right knee. It’s lightly padded and flexible enough to move as you lean against it, but the pressure is constant for most, which also makes the driver’s space feel confined. A slight carve out in the center console would have avoided this problem.

The low bolsters on the seat base make it easy to enter, and they support a wide, relaxed seating posture—aside from the center console intrusion. It’s a nice alternative to the more dramatically bolstered seats in other vehicles that can squeeze uncomfortably like a Grandma hug. The foam is firm in the seatback. At least the driver has adjustable lumbar support, but the front passenger in the Laredo is stuck with a rather flat seatback. No driver so far has liked the seats.

The Cherokee’s back seat clearly benefits from the SUV’s growth, giving it an advantage over some rivals. Feedback from initial passengers was mixed. Some found the seatback more comfortable than those up front, while others felt it was flat and firm. But all considered it to be spacious, with good legroom and headroom.

It can be hard to find the desired gear in a rush, sharing concerns we had with a similar rotary gear selector setup in the Wagoneer S. The touch-capacitive strip for climate controls can be difficult to use compared with physical buttons, with testers reporting that their initial selection often didn’t take, requiring multiple attempts to make adjustments. Compounding the usability challenge is that the temperature is indicated in small text in the top corners of the infotainment system, far away from where your gaze is directed to navigate that seamless horizontal control strip.

Small, thin onscreen fonts look sophisticated, but they’re hard to read when driving. The driver can’t see the volume knob or the adjacent controls at all due to their position and the thick steering wheel. The tuning knob is in plain sight, but it’s a far reach, effectively designating the passenger as DJ, unless you use the steering wheel controls. The screen is cluttered with icons, making it a challenge to interpret while driving. We found both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay were quick to pair—a performance that’s always appreciated.

The view out is decent, aided by large side windows. Even looking over the right shoulder reveals a reasonable view. But the windshield pillars are thick, especially at their base, causing some forward-angle blind spots, and the rear-most pillars are thick, as is typical in SUVs.

This is the key to the whole vehicle. Without stellar fuel economy, the case for the Cherokee falls apart. Initial observations are falling well short of the EPA ratings. While that’s often the case when the team is experiencing a new model, we’ve logged over 1,300 miles so far and aren’t seeing 30 mpg. Our formal, regimented fuel-economy tests will reveal how it performs on our city course and at highway speeds. The Cherokee does have a high target to meet or beat, with Honda and Subaru hybrids measured at 35 and 34 mpg overall, respectively, in our tests. Given that the last Toyota RAV4 hybrid achieved 37 mpg in our tests, it’s reasonable to expect similar results from the redesigned model. Time and testing will tell how competitive the Cherokee is in the real world.

Wind, road, and engine noise strike us as being well controlled, but it’s more noticeable than in some peer vehicles. On the highway, the engine drones like steady cruising is an imposition. Cold starts sound a bit rough, and the engine audibly protests when pushed.

The adequate handling is marred by the steering and steering wheel experience. The steering feels light on center, with a wide deadzone—a setup often associated with off-roaders (where you don’t want your hands rattled over rocks) and old-time American sedans. As the wheel is turned, the resistance increases, though feedback remains vague. The steering wheel itself, as chronicled above, spoils the handling experience and even makes simple parking maneuvers awkward. Our plea: Keep steering wheels round.

We’re a bit confused by the suspension because the ride can feel jittery at times, with more feedback than the norm for the class on the highway. There’s a general softness, yet the busy body on undulating roads causes more passenger movement than desired. We’ll delve deeper into this during testing, using our ride evaluation course at the track. But suffice to say, a bit more suspension fine-tuning is warranted.

The Jeep brand is ranked 24th among 26 brands in our latest new car reliability rankings. An all-new model with the first powertrain of its kind for the automaker gives us pause at being a first-year customer. We’d be cautious in this scenario with any automaker, but Stellantis doesn’t have a strong track record of rolling out fresh engineering. Smart money is on waiting to see what our reliability survey data reveals before buying one. (We have a couple of ongoing infotainment system error messages, including one that says our Uconnect Box needs service. This is purely an anecdote, of course, but it still got our attention.)

Jeep’s Active Driving Assist hands-free driving system with adaptive cruise control comes standard, along with automatic emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection, blind spot warning, rear cross traffic warning, rear parking sensors with reverse automatic emergency braking, a driver alertness monitor, and audible and visual alerts for potential collisions at intersections.

Additional camera views are available as options, including a 360-degree camera, a digital rearview mirror, a front tire-to-curb view, and a blind-spot view that appears when you activate the turn signal. Rain-sensing windshield wipers are standard, and a windshield wiper deicer is available.