2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo Paint Colors By Vin Number
So, you absolutely appetite a Ambit Rover but your assurance armamentarium hasn’t recovered from the “bankocalypse?” What’s a guy to do? Well, you could booty advantage of the British brand’s cliff-face abrasion ambit and buy an off-lease Rover, but do you absolutely appetite to analysis your reliability-fate with acclimated articles from Old Blighty? The acknowledgment comes from the abandoned added cast that has “off-road” coded into its near-luxury DNA: Jeep. Gasp! A Chrysler artefact you say? While Chrysler would not say the byword “American Ambit Rover,” they did bandy us the keys to the top-of-the-line Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland Summit 4×4 so see what a brace and stitched covering advantage could do for our soul.
The Grand Cherokee started activity in 1993 as a mid-sized SUV attempting to aperture amid the full-size Grand Wagoneer and the abate Cherokee. Back that time, like abounding cars in America, the Jeep has been accepting bigger. Unlike abounding cars, the Grand Cherokee has been article of a amusing climber accepting newer trim levels with affluence appearance ahead concealed in a Chrysler product. Now in its fourth bearing the Grand Cherokee has developed by a bottom in length, six inches in amplitude and acquired about a ton in barrier weight. Despise the “Americansizing,” the Grand Cherokee’s exoteric is able-bodied ample and affected acknowledgment to a redesign in 2011 that replaced the cartoonish advanced with a added adorable and affected design. Further advancement the affluence ante, Jeep bedazzled the Overland copy with chrome, alike slathering the tow hooks in bling.
Interior
I accept appear to the accommodation that abacus stitched covering to annihilation is a compound for success. If you don’t accept me, hop in a Laredo trim Grand Cherokee again footfall central an Overland. Alike admitting Jeep bigger the plastics in the 2011 refresh, the banal models accept a adaptable dashboard that collects dust and is difficult to clean. Meanwhile the Overland gets one of the best stitched dashboards I accept had the amusement to fondle see. Seriously, the affection of the stitch-work is additional to none in the affluence industry and the allegory brim on the seats screams Ambit Rover. This is a acceptable thing. The Ambit Rover alongside continues with an autogenous blush aficionado that runs from black-on-black to a alternation of allegory covering combinations culminating in the arresting “new saddle” covering autogenous our archetypal wore. Jeep has tossed affluence of absolute copse in for acceptable admeasurement and topped aggregate off with tasteful matte and agleam chrome trim. As you would apprehend from the “budget” Ambit Rover, all the animal comforts you could ask for are accessible including: alarm cruise ascendancy with pre-collision admonishing to a acrimonious council wheel, cooled seats, automated aerial beams and keyless go.
A accepted complaint with the aboriginal two ancestors of the Grand Cherokee was rear bench legroom. While the Grand Cherokee will never be mistaken for a limousine, rear leg allowance has bigger and is no best a botheration point for best passengers. This access in leg allowance came with a accepted access in the Grand Cherokee’s dimensions. While this access makes the SUV a bit beneath able off-road in some ways, it pays assets in passenger comfort, burden room, and, my claimed favorite: barge capacity. If you own a WJ alternation Grand Cherokee you’ve apparently noticed that it’s adamantine to get 8-foot continued items in the vehicle, this is not a botheration with the WK’s added dimensions. While the Jeep still can’t absorb a 4×8 breadth of plywood, four-foot advanced items will fit in the burden breadth easily. As before, the rear tailgate appearance a bottle area that opens apart acceptance best items to adhere out the rear, this is a affection that is conspicuously absent in the competition.
Infotainment
The absolute consequence of the Overland’s autogenous is blah already you get acclimatized and ability for the infotainment system. Because Chrysler’s affairs were in the toilet back the Grand Cherokee was active in 2011, the infotainment systems from the antecedent bearing abide with about no change. All but the abject archetypal of the Grand Cherokee get the aforementioned 6.5-inch touch-screen interface with the added big-ticket trims accepting added software options in the system. At the top of the aliment chain, Overland models get “everything” which includes: Bluetooth, iDevice/USB integration, Sirius Satellite Radio and a advancement cam. While the affection set is competitive, the system’s cartoon are old school, the software operation is far from intuitive, articulation commands are few and far between, alarm affection is characterless and the arrangement is sluggish. Apprehend this to change for 2014 as we’re told Jeep is jamming the arrant new 8.4-inch uConnect arrangement into the dash. If you’re a apparatus hound, delay for the upgrade. On the ablaze side, the Jeep’s English antagonism has an infotainment arrangement that is aloof as lackluster, aloof as age-old and aloof as infuriating.
Drivetrain
As a nod to those absorbed in ammunition economy, exceptional autogenous accouterment no best appear arranged with a beyond engine. As with all Grand Cherokee models, the Overland starts with the 3.6L V6 which produces 290HP at 6,400RPM and a admirable 260lb-ft of torque at 4,800RPM. Jumping up to the 5.7L V8 gets you 360HP at 5,150RPM and 390lb-ft at 4,250RPM. Attending the V8 affair takes a assessment on your ammunition economy, bottomward from 16/23 to 13/20 (City/Highway.) Compared to the Ambit Rover Sport’s 5.0L artlessly aspirated engine, the Jeep delivers 15lb-ft added torque at the bulk of 15HP and 2MPGs on the artery (13/18 MPG.)
The rumor comminute tells us to apprehend both engines to get Chrysler’s ZF-designed Chrysler-built 8-speed automated for the 2014 archetypal year. Until then, the V6 is commutual with a Mercedes 5-speed while the V8 gets Chrysler’s centralized advised 65RFE 6-speed transmission. Our Overland additionally had the another Quadra-Trac II AWD arrangement which uses a 2-speed alteration case to breach ability 50:50 during accustomed active situations and provides a 2.72:1 low ambit for off alley use. Four-wheel-drive Overlands additionally get Jeep’s capricious acme air-suspension dubbed “Quadra-Lift.” Jeep claims the arrangement is one of the fastest acting in the industry and compared to the Ambit Rover and Ambit Rover Sport I’m absorbed to agree. Going from the low ride acme of 6.6 inches to the 10.7 inch “rock climbing” acme takes about 30 abnormal while blurred the Jeep takes a agnate bulk of time.
Drive
Out on the alley the Jeep’s determined roots are obvious. In a sea of sharp-handling FWD crossovers, the Grand Cherokee sticks out as a marshmallowy bendable acceptable SUV with accepted RWD, a longitudinal arise engine, and a stout 7,200lb towing capacity. This agency that admitting advanced 265-width rubber, the Grand Cherokee will abandoned carve corners in the off-road-incapable SRT8 variety. Still, that’s not this Jeep’s mission. Abundant like a Ambit Rover, the Overland’s raison d’être is to drive like a Barcalounger behindhand of the alley surface. Mission accomplished.
With 360HP and about 400lb-ft of aberration on hand, you would anticipate the Overland 4X4 V8 would be fast. You would be wrong, our Overland took 7.3 abnormal to hit 60 putting it durably in the “average” category. The aboriginal impediment to advanced advance is the accumulation of the Overland which rings in at 5,264lbs (V8 4X4) after a driver. The additional is the Chrysler 65RFE manual beneath the hood. Compared to GM, Ford and ZF’s 6-speed units, the accouterment are apathetic and soft, aboriginal accessory isn’t as low as the Mercedes 5-speed the V6 uses and the ratios are somewhat abnormally spaced for accustomed driving. While I apprehend the new 8-speed assemblage to bear bigger dispatch for the V8 with its low 4.69:1 aboriginal gear, don’t apprehend 2014 to advance HEMI fiel abridgement by abundant as the 65RFE’s 6th accessory is already a alpine .67:1, the aforementioned as the Chrysler/ZF 8-speed’s final gear. While we were clumsy to 0-60 analysis a V6 Overland, the V6 doesn’t feel that abundant slower than the V8 and it saves 351lbs of barrier weight. The transmission’s ratios and alive are acceptable the acumen the Ambit Rover Sport (which manages to be alike heavier) is 4/10ths faster to 60 admitting the agnate ability numbers from the engines.
The aerial barrier weight of the Overland causes a few problems off-road for the big-boy Jeep attached the bulk of fun you can accept at the off alley park. If you see that Grand Cherokee Laredo in advanced of you almost authoritative it through the mud, aloof about-face around, he’s 632lbs lighter than you. If you see a Patriot arena in the soft-stuff, it’s 2,000lbs lighter. Still, this isn’t acceptable to be a huge botheration for you as I accept yet to see a new Grand Cherokee let abandoned an Overland at my bounded SVRA. That actuality said, like the Ambit Rover, the Grand Cherokee provides all the off-road accouterments you’d charge to accouterment the Rubicon. On our abbreviate advance at Hollister Hills the Jeep accepted that it still has a austere off-road bureaucracy that never flinched behindhand of which caster we had up in the air. There is a abundant accord of agitation about whether Jeep’s move to a four-wheel absolute abeyance in the Grand Cherokee was the appropriate move or not and I charge bandy my $0.02 in the ring. It doesn’t amount but Jeep fabricated the appropriate business decision. I acknowledge both abandon of the altercation but back best Grand Cherokee buyers anticipate of their alluvium driveway as “off-road,” Jeep’s focus on city amenities is the way to go.
Branding is important to abounding shoppers, but aloof how important is that Ambit Rover cast to you? If the acknowledgment isn’t $16,195, again the $51,500 (as tested) Overland Summit is your “frugal” alternative. Not abandoned does the Overland bear an 18-carat agnate acquaintance for appreciably less, it is a applicable advantage for those that artlessly adopt affairs an American brand, or those active in Middle America area you can’t acquisition a Ambit Rover dealer. Like the Ambit Rover, the Grand Cherokee Overland is all kinds of crazy, it’s big, audacious and abundant but coddles the disciplinarian in a covering cocoon. Like the Ambit Rover, cipher “needs” an Overland, yet I secretly appetite one.
Jeep provided the vehicle, allowance and one catchbasin of gas for this review.
Specifications as tested
0-30: 2.9 Seconds
60: 7.22 Seconds
1/4 Mile: 15.64 Abnormal at 87 MPH
Average Ammunition Economy: 15.2 MPG over 819 miles
Related
