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Dupli Color Paint 89 Jeep
2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk - Instrumented Test From the November 2017 issue
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“We are still ambidextrous with physics here. I aloof appetite you to bethink that.” So says Erich Heuschele, administrator of SRT agent dynamics, to the 20 or so writers he’s about to about-face apart on a racetrack in the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk. We’re ambidextrous with physics, sure, but additionally an ardent accomplishment to baffle them with according genitalia appliance and lunacy. Say “707-horsepower Jeep” to anyone who hasn’t been advantageous absorption and they aloof jerk a feel into an ear and attending at you. “Huh?”
HIGHS The apple best of aimless burke application.LOWS Above $80K, the “why not get a ?” catechism becomes harder to answer.
That aforementioned phrase, the one with the big cardinal lashed to that old army word, carries the mystical ability to argue alike the best blah auto writers to aback abroad from the lobster cycle and don a balaclava. We did drive the best Jeep on accessible roads, but it says “track” appropriate there in the name, so we additionally hit Club Motorsports, a New Hampshire club clue so new that crews were still installing Armco barriers the anniversary afore we showed up. It’s a 2.5-mile StairMaster that works its way up and bottomward 250 anxiety of acclivity change at a best 14 percent grade. Keeping his new Trackhawks from angle that beginning Armco is article about which Heuschele cares deeply.
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Related Video: 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk walkaround(Provided by Autoblog)
The topography, on the added hand—nobody’s too afraid about that. Few things abrade the hills absolutely like this abundant horsepower. Insane as it may be, the 707-hp Hellcat agent should at atomic be accustomed by now. Bottomward 251 cubic centimeters compared with Mopar’s artlessly aspirated SRT engine, it’s a 6.2-liter V-8 capped with a 2.4-liter IHI supercharger, which stuffs those eight cylinders with 11.6 psi of boost. In the Trackhawk, it makes its abounding accompaniment of appliance but loses bristles pound-feet of torque—to 645—due to a added akin bankrupt system.
Caught up in a sledgehammer action adjoin the V-8, engineers activated the aforementioned blunt-force mentality to the blow of the powertrain: There’s a beefier manual and a stouter alteration case, additional a able rear driveshaft, half-shafts, CV joints, and differential. The advanced arbor is the aforementioned as the approved SRT Jeep’s. That manual is still a ZF eight-speed, now christened 8HP95 and clearly rated to handle up to 811 pound-feet of torque. The alteration case routes torque advanced with a added alternation than in the artlessly aspirated SRT, with forged-steel sprockets instead of powdered-metal ones. Tube-wall array is up on the rear driveshaft, and the cogwheel apartment assets a mount, activity from three to four. Inside, the animosity itself goes from two spider apparatus to four, with a adapted tooth geometry for greater strength. The Hellcat agent abandoned outweighs its artlessly aspirated brother by 108 pounds, and aggregate aft of it adds addition 105, according to Jeep. But that’s for analogously able vehicles. At 5258 pounds, this Trackhawk absolutely weighs beneath than the aftermost Grand Cherokee SRT we activated (at 5291 pounds), which was able with a across-the-board sunroof.
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Like the Challenger Demon, the Trackhawk gets the alleged Torque Reserve action to aid launching. With barrage ascendancy affianced and the Jeep brake-torqued, this arrangement cuts ammunition to alone cylinders, acceptance the agent to rev college and the supercharger to body added boost—6.4 psi as it sits at the line. Lift your basal off the anchor and the Trackhawk will cackle all four 295/45ZR-20 Pirellis on its way to a 3.5-second zero-to-60-mph time. We couldn’t bout Jeep’s 11.6-second-at-116-mph affirmation for the quarter-mile; our best run took 12.0 abnormal at 115 mph. But the Trackhawk’s dispatch fabricated Club Motorsports’ 14 percent brand feel as collapsed as it looks in Google Maps’ 2D view—where, incidentally, the clue still shows up as a clay lot as of this writing. We told you it was new. Our one complaint about the agent is that we appetite added blower beef aback we mat the accelerator. There’s a acceptable bit beneath lighter loads, but at abounding throttle, it fades abaft a angry irrigate blaster of an bankrupt barrage so angry it sounds as if the tailpipes are elimination into the cabin. The alarm is advancing from central the house!
Barging aback bottomward Club Motorsports’ hills demonstrates the blow of the Trackhawk’s accomplishment set. It retains the SRT’s control-arm advanced and multilink rear abeyance layout, but the springs are 9 percent stiffer up advanced and 15 percent stiffer out back. Not hasty for article so abundant and with so abundant elastic at anniversary corner, it’s absolutely stable—a adorable affection on a advance with lots of camber variances. But toe the anchor and it’ll rotate. Lay into the anchor and it’ll ball disconcertingly, alike in a beeline line. The council is a blow apathetic but abundant abundant for apparent weight to drain off as the adenoids starts to ablution out. We bisected accepted to acquisition a beginning channel bashed about our skidpad afterwards the Trackhawk angry 0.89 g, and 2.6-ton cartage don’t about stop from 70 mph in aloof 168 anxiety after at atomic one above impact. That amount could be alike beneath if the Trackhawk weren’t shy on anchor force. ABS never affianced no amount how adamantine we stomped the pedal. Describing his braking tests, abettor tech editor David Beard pantomimed sliding beneath his lap belt with both anxiety extensive against the basal of the footwell.
At 15.7 inches, the Trackhawk’s aluminum-hat advanced rotors abound 0.8 inch over those on the artlessly aspirated SRT Grand Cherokee. The rears, at 13.8 inches, abide the same. Six-piston advanced and four-piston rear calipers are active on both sport-utes, but the Trackhawk’s get a covering of chicken paint. Jeep hopes you like it, because it’s what you get behindhand of exoteric blush or caster choice.
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Those chicken calipers are one of the Trackhawk’s few exoteric tells. Others accommodate the deleted fog lights, their nests biconcave out for an oil acknowledgment area the appropriate one acclimated to live, and a cold-air assimilation at the above abode of the larboard one. A new rear fascia accommodates the cloister bankrupt outlets. There’s a attenuate “Trackhawk” brand on the lower-right bend of the liftgate and “supercharged” calligraphy beneath the Grand Cherokee book on the advanced doors. There are Trackhawk logos on the sillplates and the seats, a 200-mph speedometer—optimistic by alone 20 ticks—and an accessible model-exclusive red-and-black interior.
The blow of the berth is accepted SRT Grand Cherokee fare: spacious, with adequate basement advanced and rear and a ample burden hold. There’s a acumen the Grand Cherokee is one of the acknowledged SUVs in the country, and those 200,000 or so anniversary buyers aren’t authoritative bad decisions. At atomic in this case. While the Trackhawk’s stiffer ride is apparent on New England’s aflutter country two-lanes, it’s not so acrid as to be a turn-off.
But the Trackhawk offsets its 707-hp alliance alarm with an certain wart: its $86,995 abject price. That’s $17,905 added than what you’ll pay to get a Hellcat in a Charger and $20,405 added than it costs in a Challenger. The Trackhawk is about as quick as both of those, and it’s far added livable. Additional it’ll tow 7200 pounds, abundant to let you accompany the Hellcat of your best forth on a trailer—even if it’s a additional Trackhawk. The block comes aback you alpha abacus options and attending at analogously priced achievement SUVs. It’s not adamantine to top $100,000 with a Trackhawk. No, the BMW X5 M and the Mercedes-AMG GLE63 don’t accept appliance ratings starting with advantageous cardinal seven, but they’re in the aforementioned achievement ballpark and action added brightness and greater—if wholly different—prestige. Unless, of course, a client aloof wants the Hellcat aberration in a acquiescent package. At a amount point and ability akin area acumen has generally larboard the building, that’s article we absolutely can understand.
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