RE: Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 revised

[Joecooool]

I just bought the 5.7 Hemi version. It has 360 hp and is pretty peppy. I went with the V8 because I have a boat. I average more than 20 mpg in it most of the time, I live in an area where the top speed is 55 mph. When I'm on the highway doing 80, that drops down to about 18 mpg. The ride is superb and the build quality is really good. Keep in mind that the car was designed by Mercedes and shares the M Class chassis.

And the beautiful thing about living in America is new it only cost 22,500 pounds.

[After_Shock]

Joecooool said:

And the beautiful thing about living in America is new it only cost 22,500 pounds.

5.7 in the middle east is 25,000pounds so not bad value really!

[Stu R]

yonex said:

Pointless really...but it will sell in the US as they like things like this.

Not a dig at you Yonex, but this is what I don't get when trucks like this, the Cayenne Turbo, X5M, ML63AMG etc are discussed. To me, crazy fast SUVs like this are the very definition of a great all rounder even if they are big fat crass things with limited appeal.

It'll take the kids to school, carry your dogs and golf clubs, be a pleasant place to spend a road trip, get through some snotty weather with aplomb, and should you fancy it you've also got an immensely tuneable, reliable car that's got a bloody lovely engine making enough power to embarrass most sports cars, minimal running costs, and a big fat warranty from the factory.

They've even proven themselves pretty useful on track for such big cumbersome beasts - the SRT Jeep and X5M put some frankly ridiculous times down on various tracks during One Lap of America.

Granted they're not for everyone, the looks are pretty marmite and they don't look quite as at home in the UK as the USA, but it's a sensible way to have something utterly ridiculous.

y2blade said:

At least it will/should pass the Moose test now.....
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/07/09/watch-a-jeep-gr...

It passed last year. The only reason it failed the first one is because they messed up the test and overloaded it.

Edited by Stu R on Monday 14th January 15:30

[Jimbeaux]

NDNDNDND said:

If this vast, stupid, badly made, automatic SUV floats Pistonheads' boat, then I think I'd better leave...

So, you would prefer something more sensible, like an even bigger, costlier,etc. Range Rover, etc. again?

[Jimbeaux]

yonex said:

Pointless really...but it will sell in the US as they like things like this.

Do cars always need to have a "point"?

[Art0ir]

Awesome.. shame ground clearance seems to have taken a back seat though.

[Frimley111R]

Interior quality looks far far better than 99% of US cars.

[fourfoldroot]

Not much different from the Jeep Commander Hemi which ended up almost being given away Second hand value seems strongish though.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/07-07-JEEP-COMMANDER-5-7...

[300bhp/ton]

kambites said:

Mildly amusing vehicle, but I can't really see any appeal in the UK.

I suppose the irony is, that plenty in the UK will stull pay out more for a supercharged Range Rover, despite the Brit performing worse. Ok it might be slightly better off road, but how many Brits will take such a vehicle off roading anyhow.

[Limpet]

A mate of mine ran a Hemi version as a demonstrator while working as a sales manager at a Chrysler Jeep dealership.

I remember going in it as a passenger, and just laughing out loud the first time he floored it. Stupidly, scarily quick for such a big, tall vehicle.

Did about 18 mpg in normal driving, but you could halve that if you used the performance too frequently.

[Motorrad]

If you don't like this then fk off to mumsnet......

[300bhp/ton]

Frimley111R said:

Interior quality looks far far better than 99% of US cars.

[300bhp/ton]

Fastra said:

WOW!
Very, very similar to.....

Do you need spec savers? BTW The Jeep pre-dates the Evoque I believe. But then that's nothing new as LR have been copying Jeep since 1948!

[Stu R]

300bhp/ton said:

Frimley111R said:

Interior quality looks far far better than 99% of US cars.

While I appreciate the rolleyes for what's quite a tired cliche these days, he's not wrong. It is.

[Amirhussain]

I love these big performance suvs

[pits]

Stu R said:

300bhp/ton said:

Frimley111R said:

Interior quality looks far far better than 99% of US cars.

While I appreciate the rolleyes for what's quite a tired cliche these days, he's not wrong. It is.

Yep, had a 51 plate baby Cherokee, have to admit the interior was shoddy at best.

The shiniest leather seats known to man (comfortable though)

Window switches were the same as the central locking switches, which wasn't an issue as such but they placed the
window switches (in my mind) upside down on the centre console in an awkward position. What usually happened is you would open the rear windows first before the fronts. Now the big problem was that the they put central locking switches on the door card where a window switch would be. So to open a window in the front was usually, lock car, unlock car, open offside rear window, close offside rear window, open offside front window....got close window, lock car, rinse repeat.

The trip computer annoyed me, it did everything in miles as you would expect, then the temperature in Fahrenheit, but if you switched it to KM it would read in Celsius

But the dash board was third worldy, it was thin cheap plastic, knock on it and sounded hollow, and it was all a bit flimsy



What topped it off for me though was when I sat in maybe an 08 Dodge Viper, and noticed that the interior controls were basically lifted from the Jeep, and a myriad of cheap thin brittle plastic and countless screws all over the dashboard


Actually in that picture you can see what I am on about with the switches to some degree, same switches in the Jeep, windows in the centre console, and if you look by the door handle, same switch to lock the door, now imagine the door lock more conveniently placed by the grab handle, in thumbs reach.


Compare it with close 20 years prior, an interior from an E34, you could probably make out one screw in the centre console cubby hold thing, and a nice padded leather dash, not some cheap nasty plastic.






Does look good though, I just hope they sort out their dealer network as well, took ours in for a fault on the rear end, they took the diff apart, couldn't find a problem anywhere on the rear end, put it back together, it then leaked oil, charged £1500 for the privilege of telling us it isn't broken....6 months later the car threw itself off the road as the diff shat itself (diff with no problems) and totally destroyed the back end, can't find a picture but it locked solid threw the car down an embankment ripped the prop out which jammed into the ground snapping all the suspension mounts off the nearside rear spun around shoving it into a tree stump on offside rear, further smashing it to bits.

Traced it back to a bearing that UK price was around £1million pounds, the US price with shipping was $60, they destroy you on part prices over here they add around 500% to the total American price.

[4x4x4]

'That’ll mean it’ll hit 60 in a frankly astonishing sub-five seconds, before it runs out of ...' petrol ?

[WorAl]

Fastra said:

WOW!
Very, very similar to.....

Very similar as in, has 4 wheels and is red? Or very similar as in, looks nothing like it and is half as big again?

[EdM]

saw a lot of these in Dubai whilst doing a tour of duty out there for my last company...and they were popular...seeing them giving it 'some beans' frequently on the Dubai to Abu Dhabi road they were properly quick ...whilst I personally bought a Cayenne V8...technically superior in just about every way ...I totally got the appeal of the SRT Jeep and wanted one for its utter madness and proper performance let alone for a 4x4...for purely emotive reasons..

[Fire99]

pits said:

Compare it with close 20 years prior, an interior from an E34, you could probably make out one screw in the centre console cubby hold thing, and a nice padded leather dash, not some cheap nasty plastic.

The thing is when I had my E28 6-Series, the materials and build felt a huge leap up from more modest manufacturers (Ford, VW, Vauxhall etc) My E34 felt heavily built too. However, I'm not sure that 'gap' exists these days with all manufacturers being more careful with their profit margins.