It's been a heck of a past few months! Oliver Motors has had some great success selling vehicles, and trying to replace just the right inventory has been a challenge. I've had the opportunity to drive a lot of vehicles over the past few months, but haven't had the opportunity to review any of them. Well, I finally have a beautiful sunny summer day to sit down and do a little catch up!!
I'm going to start with the most recent vehicle I drove, a Beautiful 2014 Jeep Gr. Cherokee Limited 4x4 that's currently at our Oliver Motors Baraboo location. When I say BEAUTIFUL, I'm not just saying that!! This Gr. Cherokee is one of my favorite colors for a Gr. Cherokee, many will call it a maroon/red but I believe Jeep calls it Deep Cherry Red Crystal Pearl coat [Red]. My personal feeling is that color gives it a sporty, yet elegant look. And when you match it with a black leather interior it just looks sharp!
Now if you've read my past reviews, you know I'm a little more partial to the Jeep line. If you really want to know whey, stop in and drive this one. Again I was NOT disappointed in the ride, performance, or style.
As always I went to adjust all the features like side mirror, driver seat and rear view mirror to fit my driving style. Everything was quick, smooth, and easy to find right at my fingertips. As I adjusted my seat, I noticed how comfortable the seat was and how thee was plenty of room, not constricting like some seats. This Gr. Cherokee has the push button start feature, so I placed my foot on the brake and went to push the start button. I will say that in doing so I noticed the only thing I may change, (it's not a big thing or a bad thing) the previous owner put a touch of bling around the push button. The vehicle started smoothly and quietly and the dash and display lit up big and bright.
As the U Connect popped up on the large radio/touch screen I noticed that not only was this Gr. Cherokee equipped with heated seat, but also a heated steering wheel (Not that these features are needed in June, but nice to know). I pushed "Accept" and went to the main home screen and adjusted the temperature, tuned into XM and switched to channel 39 (hair nation), and by habit clicked on the Navigation button.
Now that I had everything set into place, I reached down to put in reverse. If there was anything I would say bad against this Gr. Cherokee, it would be the shifter. Not that it's bad, defective, or hard. It's just that I'm set in my ways, and like the old way of shifting, where this has the electric shift and I'm just not used to it and well don't care to learn new things. After driving the vehicle the shifter did start to come around and I did notice that is was a smooth feature. Anyway as I put it in reverse, the center screen lit up bright with a back up camera that features green, yellow, red lines helping judge distance and a perforated line keeping you on track as to where the center of the Jeep's rear end is.
As I put the Gr. Cherokee in drive, and headed down the road, I remembered why I love the Jeep product so much. The 3.6L Pentastar motor has 295hp, which gives more than enough power, get up and go, and performance to satisfy any situation you would have for a 6 cylinder motor. For a full sized SUV, the Gr. Cherokee handles like a dream! It handles great in cornering, has a smooth comfortable ride, and little to no road noise. There wasn't an issue merging onto the highway as far as power, it didn't have a bad blind spot, and it felt like I was driving a luxury vehicle both through town and down the interstate.
When I arrived at home, I did a quick walk around of the rest of the vehicle and played around with the 60/40 split rear seats, folding them both down to see how much room was in the back. Not only is there a ton of leg room with 5 person capability with the seats up, but when you lay the back seats down you open a large cargo area.
I am quickly going to touch on the main reason I am an advocate for Jeep, their 4x4 system. Now in June, there's not a lot of need for the 4 wheel drive, unless I decide to take it in the mud, or out in the woods over a little rougher terrain. However, talking from experience, I know that if I decided to, or was in the middle of a winter storm that I would have the best 4x4 system under me.
All-in all I was not disappointed in this 2014 Jeep Gr. Cherokee Limited 4x4, and I think if you're in the market and drove it, you would also understand the phrase "It's a Jeep Thing"!
Del--Oliver Motors