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We all have to grow up sometime.<\/p>\n
Like the college grad who trades his AC\/DC T-shirt and jeans for a button-down shirt and slacks on his first day at the office, the 2019 Jeep Cherokee has gone respectable.<\/p>\n
The brand\u2019s wild child debuted back in 2013 with a shark nose, three tiers of lights and its license plate hanging below its bum. Polite society was shocked\u00a0\u2013 and couldn\u2019t stop ogling it. The Cherokee\u00a0eclipsed\u00a0200,000 in sales in 2015<\/a>\u00a0and took the crown as Jeep’s best-selling vehicle. Big brother Grand Cherokee was so proud.<\/p>\n But as the novelty wore off, sales steadily declined to under 170,000\u00a0last year. Time for a wardrobe upgrade \u00a0\u2013\u00a0 but happily, not a lifestyle change.<\/p>\n Beneath its mature, upright\u00a0seven-slot waterfall grille (just like big brother!), proper headlights (running lights and headlights under one cover) and tidy rear end (plate on tailgate, shirt tucked in), the Cherokee is still a tattooed, nature-loving four-wheeler that wants nothing more than to go off-roading.<\/p>\n And by off-roading, I mean navigating Detroit streets without fear.<\/p>\n The 2019 Cherokee arrived in my driveway after another Detroit winter from hell. Make that from the Arctic. A brutal winter and delayed spring\u00a0wreaked havoc on the region’s feeble roads. One crater swallowed a wheel on a Genesis G80; my teeth barely survived a recent week in a hard-sprung Nissan GT-R.<\/p>\n That means you\u00a0don\u2019t have to go to Moab<\/a>\u00a0to appreciate the Cherokee\u2019s ruggedness. There are stretches\u00a0of pavement I try to avoid:\u00a0the Lodge service drive, Mound Road, Lone Pine. I use to think wealthy neighborhoods in Oakland County were unpaved to slow folks down; now I know it\u2019s because dirt is smoother than Michigan pavement.<\/p>\n But the Jeep doesn\u2019t care. Riding on thick-sidewall tires\u00a0and a unibody chassis hewn from Thor\u2019s hammer, my Jeep Overland shrugged off bad pavement like Deadpool absorbs bullets.<\/p>\n I\u2019m pretty sure the Cherokee could\u2019ve handled the wet, gravel and sand beach I got stuck in last year in little brother Compass Trailhawk. Jeep\u2019s trail-rated Trailhawk trim (and countless ads of Jeeps scaling cliff faces) is a temptation to take on Mother Nature.\u00a0I found myself charging around the beaches of Lake Michigan in the Compass\u00a0\u2013 until I decided to stop and take a picture.<\/p>\n The Cherokee Trailhawk, however, comes with a standard locking rear-differential borrowed from the\u00a0Wrangler. My Jeep friends tell me this would have been my ticket out (that, and never stop in sand).<\/p>\n My Overland tester was not equipped with a locker. Which begs the question: Why pay $41,000 for a compact Jeep \u2013 over, say,\u00a0the $35,000\u00a0Honda CR-V<\/a>\u00a0or Mazda CX5 \u2013\u00a0I tested last year if not equipped with the best 4×4 system?<\/p>\n The Japanese entries are equipped with all-wheel drive systems suitable for our ox-cart roads even if they don\u2019t come with Jeep\u2019s multiple terrain settings. Like Jeep\u2019s optional Technology Group,\u00a0they also come packaged with the latest electronics \u2013 blind-spot assist, adaptive cruise-control, automatic headlights \u2013 which shame more expensive premium sedans (looking at you, $67,000\u00a0BMW X4<\/a>).<\/p>\n The competitors are also more nimble. The Mazda is downright sporty and the\u00a0lightweight Honda shares a 1.5-liter turbo-4<\/a>\u00a0and platform with the athletic Honda Accord.<\/p>\n Jeep boasts beefier engine numbers to complement its beefy, off-road vibe. The Cherokee debuts a premium\u00a0turbo 2.0-liter with a healthy 290 pound-feet of torque (compared to Honda\u2019s 176), but my tester sported the tried-and-true, 3.2-liter, 271-horse V-6. Nitpickers will naysay its 22 mpg (versus CRV\u2019s 29), but only the Cherokee V-6\u2019s 239 pound-feet of torque will tow a class-leading 4,500 pounds.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, it is paired with the tried-and-less-true Jeep nine-speed transmission which grumped and hiccupped through its daily chores. I\u2019m a fan of high-ratio trannies in\u00a0competitors like the nine-speed GMC Terrain<\/a>, but Jeep\u2019s effort has been trouble from the start.<\/p>\n \u201c(Cherokees) have transmissions that suffer from hard shifts, odd shift points and sudden shutdowns,\u201d reported\u00a0jeepproblems.com<\/a>\u00a0back in 2016 \u2013 and though the new generation promises better reliability on that shutdown bugaboo, the quirky shift behavior remains.<\/p>\n\u00a0The Compass sunk \u2013 not far, but enough \u00a0\u2013 \u00a0into the sand and I couldn\u2019t get\u00a0out. I tried Sand, Mud, Rock, Snow and Mars\u00a0traction modes (OK, I made the last one up). I tried traction control Off and On. The only thing that worked was flagging a nearby Ford F-150 to tow me out.<\/div>\n