Can Jeep’s Grand Cherokee Take On The Best German Small SUVs?
Is the CUV taking over the traditional 5-place SUV’s place in the market and where does Grand Cherokee fit?
All three of these vehicles make mid-300 horsepower in very different ways. The Mercedes sports a 2.0-liter four cylinder, Porsche uses a turbocharged V6, and the Jeep utilizes a properly SUV-like American V8. All of these vehicles will fit five adults in relative comfort. All of these vehicles are priced similarly. All of these vehicles are marketed as capable SUVs, but really only one of them can even deign to travel where there are no roads. Depending on what you need a vehicle to do, does the Jeep still make sense?
Most SUV buyers don’t need to haul a boat or go off-roading. They’re more likely to take these on a trip to the mall or to drop a few kids off at school. If you have any intention of getting a little mud on the tires, you likely will skip the Mercedes GLA, as it’s little more than a glorified hot hatchback with a peaky turbocharged small-bore engine. The Porsche Macan has enough balls to get off road and can be optioned with height-adjustable air suspension, but it definitely has a more sports car feel than anything else in the five-seater segment.
In this episode of Everyday Driver, the hosts compare one of their own daily driven Jeeps with these two small German hatches. Both of the Europeans get relatively high marks from this review but are relatively light on utility, which is literally the Sport Utility Vehicle’s middle name.
Jeep essentially created the SUV segment, and they still make a really great one if what you need is a traditional truck to haul truck-things. The sad reality is that buyers are moving away from traditional SUVs in droves toward these compacts. What do you think? Is the Jeep still king?
[Source: EverydayDriver on YouTube]
