DRIVEN: Is The 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee Going To Blow Everyone's Doors Off OR Has Everyone Moved On?

Wow, nice retro styling..

The looks are growing on me, slowly but surely. They still have a way to go before they can drag me away from the Enclave.

Well it wouldn't be to hard if you planned on off roading, but for most people the Enclave will work just fine.

Nice job Jeep and thank you for making a SUV that is an SUV and is off-road capable.

Looks nice, I think it'll do fine.

In response to 001 stated feelings about it being past it's prime I tend to agree in the sense that it's not THE hot vehicle it once was back in the days. You know, back when Arnold was Termin' and Sly wasn't sure if he was Rambo, Demolition Man or Judge Dredd. Now those days may be long gone but just like people will still pay to see a 60 year old Sly movie(can you say "The Expendables")there is also still a market for the GranCher and you can't argue the quality has gone up (which is way more than can be said for the recent Sly movies by the way.)

Hear hear!

Dang... this car has a status of a Land Rover in terms of looks. The taillights could use some higher quality lamps, but I'm sure after market suppliers can offer some decent replacements.

I was able to take a test drive of the new 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee at Belmont Park in New York. My initial impressions were both good and kind of scary! The interior was amazing with comfortable seats that felt like they came out of a Mercedes ML. The interior materials felt very high quality and had fewer hard plastics. The Switchgear was simple and easy to use and the car had a decent ride. They compared it to the Honda Pilot, Chevy Equinox and strangely the Lexus RX350 and had those vehicle there at the event to drive. The Chevy's ride was not as good and it felt kind of cheaply made with a bad interior, the Honda's motor had torque steer even though it had AWD but had better handeling then the Jeep....then the Lexus was pretty much the bench mark, it was not as good looking as the jeep but felt faster, handeled Waaay better and had MUCH better brakes.

Now the scary....The Brakes were kind of spongy and not very strong around the auto-cross track. They were small 2 piston front and 1 piston rear calipers for a 4750 pound SUV and were really tired where the other cars had better fade resistance. They really should have put larger brakes on the truck or at least larger calipers...I know the Jeep Engineer that designed the Wrangler's brakes with even a 1 piston caliper and a 12.6 inch rotor that have way better feel even with my 35 inch "off road designed" good year wrangler MT/R tires. The handling also had a lot more under-steer then the competitors and even more so then my wrangler. This proves that they can make solid front and rear axles handle and it is not the design but how much heart they put into it when they are engineering the systems! Also they took it up a little hill that had little to no off road visibility and it was hard figuring out where the tires were on the truck making it utterly
impossible for rock crawling without a spotter. I understand most jeep customers for the Grand Cherokee won't take it off road, but if it's going to be "trail rated" it should have better capability to see where you are going, not just the ability to go there!!!
Bottom line...good truck not great truck for the money!

I can't wait until the new Ford Explorer is out....

Moved On? The car just went on sale. Although I suppose we can write articles about how the first generation X5 is selling strong on used car lots everywhere.

Next time you attempt to write about a new car, try to write about the car and not the opinion.

New Jeep is sexy but the jury is still out on its performance.