ALWYN VILJOEN did not like Americans much, until he drove the 2014
Grand Cherokee VTR8.
FULL disclosure first: I have always hated Detroit muscle cars for
their shoddy handling and I don’t like what America has done to airport security
since 9/11.
My perception of the Land of the Free is that its citizens are
anything but — and talking of butts, have you seen the size of some of
them!?
So it was with the hazy idea that anything American has to be big,
slow and wasteful that I took my first drive in the new Jeep Grand Cherokee VTR8
up the to the Drakensberg.
I came back a changed man, now knowing that while a lot of Yanks
sure are big, including the Grand Cherokee, that does not translate into slow or
wasteful. At one point on the highway, the average consumption in the big Jeep
was 8,6l/100 km. That is 11 km on each litre, twice as far as I get in my ageing
Land Cruiser on the same road.
Sure, the clever Yank cruises on only four of its cylinders on the
highway. And by tapping the standard paddleshifters to keep the standard
eight-speed auto in its top gear, anyone can get fantastic mileage.
But check this: after various stops on the back road to Winterton,
the average was still a very good 9,1 l/100 km.
This from their not exactly new 5,7-litre V8 that makes 259 kW at
5 200 rpm and 520 Nm at 4 200 rpm.
Like most guys who had experience of the automotive dreadfulness
that was Made-in-the-USA in the 1980s, I was also totally unprepared for what
awaits inside the Cherokee.
I expected wall-to-wall, ill-fitting plastic nastiness. Instead the
cabin has real, open-pore wood trim; a couple of cows worth of real leather; and
an 8,4-inch touchscreen with satnav.
Everything fits together too. Gone are the days when the Jeep
Wrangler’s handbook advised the owner to gently hammer the removable roof back
on.
This SUV is as luxurious as the Vogue or Merc M-Class, with the
difference that in the Cherokee, the luxuries come standard with the
price.
And to get the level of luxury that is standard in SRT8, like seats
with built-in ventilation to prevent your backside from sweating, you will have
to start paying closer to a million rands in these competing 4x4s.
Jeep offers the 2014 Grand Cherokee in the same four models as the
2013: three petrol and one diesel.
The 3,0-litre V6 diesel, which Chrysler and Fiat’s media manager
Richard Slowman told us makes up roughly half of all Cherokee sales, is expected
later this year. Among the bunch, my lotto winnings will go to the 3,6-litre
Pentastar V6, (210 kW @6 350 rpm and 347 Nm of torque at 4 300 rpm).
Like the other engines, it is matched to a proven electronic
mapping system that adapts to driving conditions to keep the rev needle in the
green band for better fuel consumption. In the SRT, a 19-speaker, 825-watt
Harman Kardon surround sound audio system makes even that hop-hip stuff the
youngsters listen to sound mawé. The off-road ability of the
previous and current new, new Cherokees is long proven.
 |
| The new 8,4-inch touchscreen is the biggest in the business and is as user friendly as a digital device can be. |
There is only one thing. At its maximum ride height of 280 mm, the
Quadra-Lift air suspension system will make knocking sounds.
Fear not, for as the man at Garden City Motors explained to me, if
it does not knock, that’s when you worry. (Information gathered on a launch
sponsored by the manufacturer.)
Prices
3.6 Limited:
R584 000
3.6 Overland:
R646 990
5.7 Overland:
R679 990
SRT8:
R879 990
3.0-litre
CRD: tbc
