Jeep's 2014 Grand Cherokee is comfortable on-road and highly capable off-road, driven straight from the showroom. The software component of Uconnect Access is very good. We like the usability of its interface, and really dig the 4:3 touchscreen compared to the wide displays more typical of infotainment systems. It's slow to boot, unfortunately. Though, once Uconnect Access was up, responsiveness was good.
We’re glad Jeep didn’t transition to capacitive buttons, unlike Ford and Cadillac. We can’t say this often enough, but we love those physical controls. Touchscreen displays are nice for secondary input, but they simply cannot match the feedback that buttons and knobs give you. Kudos to Jeep for maintaining a good balance between modern technology and the old-school stuff we don't want to see go away.
As far as driving aids go, we were disappointed by the adaptive cruise control system. It’s a nice option to have, but as the technology goes mainstream, luxury vehicles should all have a low-speed follow function. There’s no reason why a Subaru boasts full-speed-range cruise, while this $52,000+ Jeep requires manual driver input at speeds under 20 MPH. The rest of the Advanced Technology Group is nice though, and the $1700 addition isn't bad compared to what other manufacturers are charging for similar functionality.
Jeep's top-end powertrain is quite a bit of fun. If you can afford the Hemi V8's gas bill, you're rewarded with great acceleration, too. Given a choice, we'd either step down to the 3.0-liter V6 diesel or go for broke with the 6.4-liter Hemi in the SRT8. I'm personally a big fan of the Quadra-Lift air suspension as well. I was never fond of air suspension systems before, but having the flexibility and convenience of raising and lowering the SUV with the press of a button changed my mind.
Growing up, I had a Fisher-Price Power Wheels Jeep. The plain red one, back before they got cheap with the plastic and replaced the faux lights with stickers. As a result, I've always had a soft spot for Jeep's Wrangler. However, after driving the Wrangler during NWAPA Mudfest 2013, I decided that wasn't the SUV for me. I still like the idea of a four-door off-road vehicle, but the lack of amenities doesn't suit my adult tastes.
After spending a week with Jeep's 2014 Grand Cherokee, this is the type of SUV I could see myself daily driving. It’s not extravagant or audacious like a Range Rover, but it stays true to the Jeep heritage while adding a number of technological niceties. It’s a vehicle my wife could take the kids to a play date in during the week, while I take them to the mountains on the weekend. Crossovers from BMW, Audi, VW, and even Lexus offer smoother, more car-like rides. However, the Jeep does double-duty as soccer mom-mobile and off-road champion. And that's why we like it so much; it's the Swiss Army knife of SUVs.
- Meet Jeep's Refreshed 2014 Grand Cherokee
- Chrysler's Uconnect Infotainment System: Better Than Before
- Inside Of Uconnect Access: TI's OMAP-DM3730
- Music Features And Rear Seat Amenities
- Using The Phone, Navigation, And Microsoft Bing Features
- A Seven-Inch LCD Gauge Cluster
- Driving Aid Technologies
- Chrysler's 5.7 L Hemi And Air Suspension
- Jeep's Off-Road Adventure II Package
- Benchmark Results
- 2014 Grand Cherokee: Not A Tech Marvel, But Capable Off-Road


I drove it in Far cry 2
We do not have a track to test 0-60 on while maintaining consistency, nor do we have accurate equipment to test such feats. Speed limit here is 60 and most people do 70-80 weaving in and out of traffic
I don't have enough Antec 1200s to test, but that's a pretty good idea for testing methods
I do not wear polarized glasses so I can't really tell you - mine are just transitions. I don't see them being a problem though. You could always just turn up the brightness on the LCD. It gets very bright.
Slalom test, you say? Hope it does better than its predecessor;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaYFLb8WMGM
We have 6 pages dedicated to the tech inside the car that traditional publications just gloss over...
We have 6 pages dedicated to the tech inside the car that traditional publications just gloss over...
Okay, sorry got a little ahead of myself. I was just saying when I think car reviews in general I just mean there are other sources I would go to. I tend not to look at the tech in cars. I actually prefer to see how well things like the motor and transmission are built over how fast boot times are for a camera.
We have 6 pages dedicated to the tech inside the car that traditional publications just gloss over...
Okay, sorry got a little ahead of myself. I was just saying when I think car reviews in general I just mean there are other sources I would go to. I tend not to look at the tech in cars. I actually prefer to see how well things like the motor and transmission are built over how fast boot times are for a camera.
Yea but there's just so much tech in cars nowadays, hard to avoid when car shopping. At this point in the industry all new cars will be reliable without any major issues as in the past, at least mechanically. Its the electronics you have to worry about. Its also hard to get a plain stripped down car nowadays as well.
We have 6 pages dedicated to the tech inside the car that traditional publications just gloss over...
Okay, sorry got a little ahead of myself. I was just saying when I think car reviews in general I just mean there are other sources I would go to. I tend not to look at the tech in cars. I actually prefer to see how well things like the motor and transmission are built over how fast boot times are for a camera.
Yea but there's just so much tech in cars nowadays, hard to avoid when car shopping. At this point in the industry all new cars will be reliable without any major issues as in the past, at least mechanically. Its the electronics you have to worry about. Its also hard to get a plain stripped down car nowadays as well.
Do you think the tech in cars will shift more so to the engines? If it does I could see a lot going wrong, but it is honestly inevitable. I just do not see sport cars getting a speed boost from technology, but I know it is possible.
We do not have a track to test 0-60 on while maintaining consistency, nor do we have accurate equipment to test such feats. Speed limit here is 60 and most people do 70-80 weaving in and out of traffic
Duly noted. I did not know exactly where you tested the vehicle. I am a big gearhead and nearly all of the reviews I read are by groups with their own tracks, skidpads, slalom courses, etc. or at least access to them. I don't blame you for not doing testing beyond "how was it to drive this vehicle?" on public roads.
My daily driver is an F-150 with the twincam 5.0 V8. The truck weighs around three tons, more in the winter as I have 500 lbs of sandbags in the back for traction. You get used to the fuel mileage. I run E85 in mine as it is about a buck a gallon less than 87 octane swill but runs like a champ in the 10.5:1 compression V8 (it's 105 octane and my avatar is a picture of an octane sticker from an E85 pump.) Fuel mileage does go down a little bit though and I consider anything over 14 mpg to be "good." It's the "smiles per gallon" that really counts, as a buddy told me. You can't get as many smiles per gallon out of a piddly little four-cylinder engine econobox as a big V8 powered truck so it is more than worth it
I don't think I would even be thinking of the Pandora app if I had an SRT8 Jeep GC at my disposal. I'd put on a helmet and be heading for the nearest drag strip to legally and safely wring her out good
My favorite car magazine, Car and Driver, which I have subscribed to before I even had a license, uses number of beer cases as their space metric. I figured computer cases would be more appropriate for this audience. If you don't have enough cases to fill the area, you can always just use a larger case. My current machine uses a Chenming ATX-801F which is a double-wide early-1990s era case about the size of a large dorm fridge and is designed to swallow a quad-socket SWTX board with no modifications needed. My old Ford Escape could fit six of them. It was a fight between hitting GVWR and the rear cargo area being filled as an ATX-801F is 75 lbs empty and about twice that when filled with four heavy heatsinks, 15 3.5" disks and redundant kilowatt PSUs.
Yea but there's just so much tech in cars nowadays, hard to avoid when car shopping. At this point in the industry all new cars will be reliable without any major issues as in the past, at least mechanically. Its the electronics you have to worry about. Its also hard to get a plain stripped down car nowadays as well.
I absolutely second that one. I grew up around the time period when the cars went from completely mechanical to the beginning of electronic controls. The first car I remember riding in was my dad's '81 F100 with a 1 bbl 300 six and a three-on-the-tree manual. (That was a memorable vehicle and I have a very soft spot for the '80-86 bullnose Fords as a result. I will be restoring a bullnose F-350 in the next few years as a result :thumbsup) The first car I drove was a '91 Chrysler minivan with EFI and an electronically controlled (and awful!) slushbox but everything else was mechanical. My current vehicle is an '11 F-150 ECSB where everything is electronic- electronic power steering, PCM controlled trans and semi-indirect EFI engine, 4-wheel disc ABS, there is a big LCD in my IP, and shoot, and even the throttle is a fly-by-wire design (debuted in the 1994.5 Powerstroke diesel.) About the only thing that is still mechanical is the parking brake! The problem is that the electronics infiltrate everything and in the case of newer engines, it is increasingly encrypted and VERY difficult to work with without expensive specialized equipment. I am not afraid of computers as I am obviously a mod here on a computer enthusiast website and run quad socket Gentoo Linux compile-everything-from-scratch machine as my "daily driver" but sheesh, as an engineering major, sometimes we have gone overboard with the electronic gewgaws and introduced a lot more possible points of faiure. For me, I bought my truck off the lot and essentially got my 4x4 ECSB V8 XLT for what Ford asks for a 4x2 RCLB base model V6 truck. I got the electronic stuff and the extended cab for free and for a lot less than if I ordered a stripped down V8 ECSB or ECLB for. I have mixed feelings. It runs well now and probably will for the next decade but if anything goes wrong, it will take an expensive code puller to figure out what is wrong vs. just a simple mechanical symptom diagnosis. I intend to keep my truck for a long time as I predict V8s will become rare as hens' teeth. The EPA and their asinine CAFE standards will guarantee that. As as engineer, simpler is better for the most part due to simplicity and less to possibly fail. I'd keep my NA V8 over a highly turbocharged V6 ANY DAY. I also predict that even the 5.0 twincam V8 is a dead man walking due to the EPA unless we elect sane folks to rein in these unelected regulatory agencies and get rid of the ill-advised CAFE standards. (Anthropomorphic global warming has not been proven, let alone CO2 == global warming and reduction of CO2 emissions can ameliorate the issue.)
Do you think the tech in cars will shift more so to the engines? If it does I could see a lot going wrong, but it is honestly inevitable. I just do not see sport cars getting a speed boost from technology, but I know it is possible.
The biggest thing predicted with electronics in engines is Google's automated cars.Those things as well as any other "autonomous" technology is not going to fly due to security and liability reasons. The first one to cause a serious injury or fatality due to a one-in-a-million failurewill make trial lawyers salivate with the payout (likely billions of dollars.) You are going to have to drive your car. Modern cars can drive well at at well over current speed limits. (A similar F-150 to mine has been shown on YouTube more than pegging the 120 mph speedometer despite the fastest speed limit in the U.S. being 85 mph.) Technology won't improve things. What will improve driving is you paying attention to driving. Period.
Do you think the tech in cars will shift more so to the engines? If it does I could see a lot going wrong, but it is honestly inevitable. I just do not see sport cars getting a speed boost from technology, but I know it is possible.
It already has. We have drive-by-wire systems, driving assistance technologies that can tap into the engine management systems to assist in collision prevention. The engine management systems benefit from newer developments for faster reading/monitoring (ie sports cars) or enable technologies such as cylinder deactivation or start/stop technology. All of those rely majorly on a vehicle's electronics system.
I mean look at the Nissan GT-R, its a marvelous performance machine only made possible with technology. The vehicle ECU monitors every aspect of the vehicle and alters everything accordingly. You also see vehicles have adaptive suspension technologies that can adapt to road conditions, which is tech-based.
I can go on and on about all the tech systems but I hope you get the idea of why we're trying to cover it all.
I do see tech improving fuel economy of vehicles. There's only so much you can do mechanically but with the aid of new electronics and even electric motors, we will see new improvements in the future. Mazda has their i-eLoop that captures wasted energy from braking and stores it into a capacitor to run vehicle accessories at idle, which is made possible by technological developents. It also yields about a 1-2mpg increase on a pure gasoline vehicle too.
Duly noted. I did not know exactly where you tested the vehicle. I am a big gearhead and nearly all of the reviews I read are by groups with their own tracks, skidpads, slalom courses, etc. or at least access to them. I don't blame you for not doing testing beyond "how was it to drive this vehicle?" on public roads.
I usually spend a week with a vehicle doing my normal driving and taking my family out in it. There's the occasional off-road adventure with cars that have that ability.
I do not have access to any of those tracks, unfortunately.
My daily driver is an F-150 with the twincam 5.0 V8. The truck weighs around three tons, more in the winter as I have 500 lbs of sandbags in the back for traction. You get used to the fuel mileage. I run E85 in mine as it is about a buck a gallon less than 87 octane swill but runs like a champ in the 10.5:1 compression V8 (it's 105 octane and my avatar is a picture of an octane sticker from an E85 pump.) Fuel mileage does go down a little bit though and I consider anything over 14 mpg to be "good." It's the "smiles per gallon" that really counts, as a buddy told me. You can't get as many smiles per gallon out of a piddly little four-cylinder engine econobox as a big V8 powered truck so it is more than worth it
I'm used to the 19MPG my 2000 BMW 528i (E39) wagon gets when I have fun with it. The occasional econobox or electric vehicle spoils me though.
I don't think I would even be thinking of the Pandora app if I had an SRT8 Jeep GC at my disposal. I'd put on a helmet and be heading for the nearest drag strip to legally and safely wring her out good
The vehicles are still owned by the companies and they have strict no track policies unless with prior consent, which is harder to get.
My favorite car magazine, Car and Driver, which I have subscribed to before I even had a license, uses number of beer cases as their space metric. I figured computer cases would be more appropriate for this audience. If you don't have enough cases to fill the area, you can always just use a larger case. My current machine uses a Chenming ATX-801F which is a double-wide early-1990s era case about the size of a large dorm fridge and is designed to swallow a quad-socket SWTX board with no modifications needed. My old Ford Escape could fit six of them. It was a fight between hitting GVWR and the rear cargo area being filled as an ATX-801F is 75 lbs empty and about twice that when filled with four heavy heatsinks, 15 3.5" disks and redundant kilowatt PSUs.
I don't think I have the strength or energy to load the back of a car with 75lb cases
My 2011 Grand Cherokee still going strong with no repairs yet other than a couple cracked skid plates. I I know it's not old but I've taken this thing through some serious crap and have been surprised with what it actually goes through with some good tires on it.