Car Review: Jeep Compass

I had this Jeep recently on a trip to New Orleans.
I drove about 135 miles in the 2012 4cyl, 2.4L 4WD CVT automatic Jeep Compass. The weather was great, about 75-80 all week.
We had some rain, but not much.
Here is a rough map of my travels that week:

So, I was excited by the thought of a small Jeep, with better gas mileage, and hopefully an interior and handling just as refined as the Grand Cherokee I had a few weeks prior. I was.... well... not going to be all that impressed. Immediately upon driving out of the rental facility and hitting 70 on the highway, I was sort of appalled at the amount of road noise I was hearing. Now to be fair, I had high expectations, and no test equipment. However, I was so shocked, that I now have an app for measuring sound and will include idle, and highway speed measurements in upcoming tests.

The instrument panel isn't bad per-say, plenty of info on hand. I know in a more optioned out version more info will be displayed on the left under the speedometer.

The center console is clean and tidy. The climate controls have a good high-end feel. The radio does seem a bit old to me though. This brings me to one of the point's I'm not sold on yet. CVT. I know it's the way of the future for smaller vehicles, and some day perhaps all of them. But... But... I miss my shift points. When I'm on the on-ramp and my vehicle simply hums (read whines) a steady, constant, droning noise, I don't "feel" the acceleration. I know it's there because I can see the speedometer, however it just feels wrong. Someone did a commercial touting this as a good thing because you won't spill your coffee, OK, clever, and good, but I still miss the shift points.

Seen above is the lower center stack with two poorly placed storage nooks. The one below the emergency break shouldn't need any explanation. The other is also a well for your hand as you engage / disengage the 4-wheel lock. It looks well placed in this photo, however what you can't see is the arm rest towering over the space rendering it again useless.

The passenger has a nice storage space directly in front of them.

You can also see an in door storage area here. It could be better setup to accept bottles, but it does work.

Pictured here is a redeeming quality of the little Ute. Plenty of space in this guy. and with a little push, you get loads more by folding the rear seats down. It truly does haul well.

I did have some passengers during the week, and heard zero complaints about the seats or amount of room.

OK, now let's talk style. I LOVE the front end, it's tough looking and sprightly. The side view is also looking good, however for some reason, even after the face-lift given recently the tail just doesn't do it for me. I realize this is a highly subjective area to "test", but it is after all my blog. I think it has something to do with the way it seems to squat; getting wider as you go down. The taillight placement does nothing to help remedy this situation.

I was able to squeak out 20 MPG overall which is good, but still falls short of competitors.

So in summary:

The good: Front end looks great, along with some improved touch points in the cabin. Plenty of room for a small Ute. 

The bad: Noise level, MPG, that tail still looks a little off to me.

Three of five from me. I know after seeing the Grand Cherokee that they can do better.