2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland Review

Cars.com Auto Review. Mike Hanley: Hi! I am Mike Hanley with cars.com I am here with the much anticipated 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV. It's been fully redesigned for the 2011 model year and it gains much improved on road driving refinement, but not to the expensive it's impressive off road capability. The Grand Cherokee styling is all new, but it manages to maintain a design connection with its predecessor which is a tough thing to do. It's more aggressive overall but has familiar Jeep styling cues like a seven slot grill and these headlights give it that more aggressive design. Buyers get a choice of either 290 horse power, 3.6 liter V6 engine or a 360 horse power 5.7 liter V8 in the Grand Cherokee. Now the V6 is an all new engine for Chrysler, but it's teamed with this heavy vehicle, the Grand Cherokee in 4X4 form with the V6 is nearly 5000 pounds so that makes the V6 work pretty hard when driving it. The Grand Cherokee gets an all new four wheel independent suspension and Jeep has done a really nice job tuning it for on road driving refinement. It really does drive a lot like a crossover vehicle even though it's a capable SUV. Now the Grand Cherokee also introduces a new system, it's called Select Terrain and it's a lot like Land Rover's terrain response system and it let's you control the vehicle's 4X4 systems by just a dial in the middle of the center consoles so you can change it from on road driving to snow or any of the other modes it offers. Grand Cherokee also introduces quadra lift an optional air suspension that gives you up to 10.7 inches of ground clearance and that's quite a bit more than the regular suspension offers which is on 8.6. One that the previous Grand Cherokee that was lacking was it's interior quality which really wasn't up to the level of the competition, but Jeep has addressed that for the most part in the new Grand Cherokee and you can see the results in this top of the line over linked trim level. It comes with this stitch leather dashboard, real wood trim that looks good and overall panel fit that's a big improvement over the old model. Not everything is great though. There is still too much silver trim here that doesn't look especially good and some of the buttons have kind of a rickety feel to them, but overall there is lot of good stuff going on in the cabin. The Grand Cherokee's load floor is kind of a high, so shorter people may have to lift taller to get it over that, but if you get the optional quadra lift suspension you can lower the right height 1.5 inches to make it easier. Now this space measures 35 cubic feet and it's enough for a couple golf bags and to expand cargo area to the maximum 68.7 cubic feet you just drop the second row of seats. The Grand Cherokee was part of the booming SUV segment in the 90s but times have changed a lot since then, and some of it's competitors like the Chevy Trailblazer and GMC Envoy are now gone and others like the Ford Explorer are changing from truck base to unibody designs. The Grand Cherokee is changing though too and it offers much more refined on road driving dynamics that should appeal to crossover shoppers while retaining the off road credibility that Jeep enthusiasts demand. For more car related news go to cars.com or our blog kickingtires.net.