Car Review: Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland

I had the Jeep for a week recently while I was in Alabama.
Sadly, I was only able to put on about 60 miles. Here is a rough map of my travels:

The weather was 75-80F and sunny each day.

Now, before I get started I should warn you we own a 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee and we love it. It won't die, and we love that as well. Here it is all dressed up for winter:

So with that said, I'm going to be looking into the nooks and crannies to see if this could be our next vehicle some day or, to find out if the Fiat blood line has ruined our beloved beast.

Ok, with that out of the way let's move on shall we?

Here is the new version in all it's overland trim glory.

You can see the new version has a much more aggressive stance, and is overall a larger vehicle.

Upon entering the vehicle, I was instantly impressed with the interior... WOW just doesn't seem to cover the initial build quality.

Even before I got in the door sort of stunned me... wood??? in a jeep???

Very well appointed dash, and a wood trimmed heated steering wheel as well!

Automatic lights, just like on my Pontiac.

The front seats have three levels of heat and two of cooling!! 

Lots of glass above, you can choose to have it covered as well to keep the sun out.

Here are the controls for the roof, lift gate, and reading lights.

The GPS / radio is about the only thing that seems a little out of date to me. I'm thinking it's one or two iterations behind the rest of the vehicle. Don't get me wrong, it works, it's just not up to speed with the rest of the Jeep.

So the interior is getting absolutely no complaints from me.

It's comfortable, spacious, well thought out, and refined in a way no other jeep has been for years.

The only, and I mean only possible downside would be for someone who is afraid of computers. There's a LOAD of settings you can change in the jeep, even if the seat moves when you shut the engine off so it's easier to get out! So it's a bit much if your not somewhat techno savvy.

In the back, plenty of room, and some nice touches as well

Like a power outlet seen below

push button lift-gate

and a built in self charging LED flashlight.

Passingers in the back won't be ignored either.

Plenty of space, some wood trim for them as well,

Heated seats in the rear, and your own vents, as well as an available 110 AC outlet! 

The exterior leaves nothing to be desired!

Performance wise:

This one had a V6 power plant, I was a little nervous that it wouldn't be quite enough for comfortably moving so much metal around. I was happily mistaken. The new version is very peppy, and packs plenty of punch to do the job. In fact more than once I looked down and was surprised to see that I was going much quicker than I had thought.

The other thing that was an instant surprise to me was just how quiet the interior of this Jeep is. I actually ran a few conference calls from it rather than my hotel room as it was so comfy and quiet. I have NEVER opted to work out of my rental rather than my hotel room before!

Gas mileage:

This is a tough week to do this on, with only 60 miles to test, I wasn't able to get what I would call a true reading on the jeep, however I managed an 18MPG overall. I would LOVE to see a diesel version offered!

At the end of the week I found myself wishing I had further to go than I did. Jeep has really done something here... I'd love to see that something spread to the rest of the brand, and the rest of the US auto makers over all.