The 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee, maybe far more than any vehicle it competes with, need to be numerous matters to several diverse consumers. In its foundation Laredo and mid-level Confined trims, it features heart-of-the-current market potential buyers a rugged two- or 3-row solution with legitimate grime-highway ability. In its higher-crust Summit and Summit Reserve trims, we claimed it compares favorably with luxurious choices from Audi, Lincoln, Land Rover and Mercedes-Benz. And then there’s the Grand Cherokee Trailhawk, which is the design we just used a 7 days driving on and off pavement. It ostensibly competes with off-street-biased SUVs like the Toyota 4Runner TRD Professional, but as we’ll make clear, it casts a considerably wider net than that.
Jeep has produced guaranteed that casual observers can explain to that the Trailhawk is no common Grand Cherokee. A matte-end hood decal straight away offers it absent, punctuated by bright red tow hooks and one of a kind 18-inch wheels shod in chunky Goodyear Wrangler off-road tires. But it’s what you really don’t immediately see beneath and inside the automobile that actually will make the Trailhawk tick.
As you’d count on from a Jeep donning a Path Rated badge on its fender, the 2022 Grand Cherokee Trailhawk arrives with a whole complement of steel skid plates to safeguard its fragile underbelly. Hopefully they will not be needed, however, as the height-adjustable Quadra-Elevate air suspension technique lifts the Grand Cherokee to a highest 11.3 inches of ground clearance. Which is far more clearance than a Wrangler Rubicon (without having the Xtreme Recon package’s 35-inch tires) and affords a drinking water fording depth of up to 24 inches. The suspension will change by itself dependent on the Selec-Terrain Traction Administration method selected, or can be manually altered with a toggle to the proper of the knurled dial that acts as the shift lever.
Jeep’s Selec-Terrain Traction Management Method incorporates modes for Snow, Sand/Mud and Rock in addition to the Car manner it’ll stay in most of the time and, oddly adequate, a Sport method. These modes are picked with a toggle to the remaining of the spinning shifter. Selec-Velocity Command keeps the car or truck touring at a consistent (gradual) speed regardless of incline or decline, devoid of more driver intervention.
Like the Wrangler Rubicon, Ford Bronco and sure variations of the Toyota 4Runner, the Trailhawk provides a sway-bar disconnect. Mainly, hitting a button on the console electronically disconnects the front sway bar that ordinarily connects the driver- and passenger-facet wheels. That permits the two wheels increased flexibility of motion and thus escalating suspension articulation. It automatically reconnects at regular driving speeds to give safer on-pavement dealing with.
Also standard is Jeep’s Quadra-Drive II entire-time 4-wheel-push procedure, which capabilities an energetic transfer situation and a rear electronic locking restricted-slip differential. It is capable of sending as a lot as 100% of total engine torque to a person rear wheel. Normally, there is a 4 Reduced method that locks the entrance and rear differentials and switches to 2.72:1 gearing for reduced-pace crawling. There’s also a Neutral method that enables for flat towing on the street.
Now would be a great time to place out that all of that superb, top-shelf hardware is generally intended to support the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk excel off road. Positive, there is a Sport manner, but there’s no finding close to the simple fact that this SUV wears knobby tires and basically was engineered to be at its ideal while crawling in excess of boulders, mucking by mud, sleighing via snow or no matter what other form of off-highway situation you can dream up. That’s not to say it is no very good to drive on the highway, but purchasers who do not know what a disconnecting sway bar is or why it may possibly be practical — things that provides significant cost — ought to search at a single of the other fine Grand Cherokee trim levels. We’ll dive a minimal deeper into that dialogue a minimal further beneath.
Power for our exam vehicle was supplied by a 3.6-liter V6 engine that makes 293 horsepower and 260 pound-toes of torque. We never felt like the Trailhawk was hurting for electricity, but for all those consumers who want more, a 5.7-liter Hemi is available that spins out 357 hp and 390 lb-ft. The two engines mail those people ponies through an eight-pace computerized transmission to all four wheels. The EPA fees the V6-driven Trackhawk at 19 miles for every gallon in the town, 26 mpg on the freeway and 22 mixed, and which is ideal about what we managed about a week. The V8 is rated at 14 town, 22 highway and 17 merged. That’s not really great, but it is basically on par with the substantially less effective V6-run Toyota 4Runner’s EPA rating of 16 city, 19 highway and 17 combined.
There’s a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk 4xe coming this spring, and it appears promising on paper. It will produce 375 hp and 470 lb-ft of torque from a 2.-liter turbocharged four-cylinder which is paired with an electrical motor. Jeep estimates drivers will get 25 miles of electric variety from a whole demand, and the EPA suggests motorists should expect a blended 23 mpg immediately after the battery runs out of ample juice to electrical power the vehicle without having the engine’s support. As constantly with a plug-in hybrid, it behooves you to charge as substantially as achievable to maximize its effectiveness.
The regular V6 motor is not only sufficient in electric power, but it is also a clean performer. We’ve lengthy been fans of the 8-speed gearbox Jeep takes advantage of in the Grand Cherokee (and a amount of other Stellantis cars), and it will work effectively in the Trailhawk. There are dinky paddle shifters on the steering wheel we examined them to make sure they do the job, and they do, but we identified tiny use for them afterward although on the road.
Dropping into Activity manner lowers the Trailhawk’s heart of gravity, which does indeed offer the driver with additional auto-like responses, and we will not complain about that. The huge cumbersome tires, however, nevertheless wallow a lot far more than decreased-profile, road-oriented tires would, and there seriously is not any further electric powered trickery Jeep can do about that. We ended up information to go away the Trailhawk in Vehicle most of the time, allowing it manage by itself and fall into a decreased aerodynamic stance at highway speeds.
We mentioned the Toyota 4Runner TRD Professional as a competitor for the Grand Cherokee Trailhawk, and it is likely about as shut a bogey as exists in today’s market place. Compared to the $56,030 Trailhawk, the $53,635 TRD Pro feels antiquated – both by style and design and due to the fact it is been around for ages. The 4Runner may well be a charming outdated beast, but it is a lot less effective, less refined, bumpier and noisier than the Trailhawk. Its inside tech doesn’t occur near to comparing with the bevy of screens available by Jeep, its gauges are, perfectly, gauges as a substitute of customizable electronic readouts, and the suspension doesn’t boost or lower in trip peak. You also can not get a disconnecting sway bar on the TRD Pro. Both will get drivers to their off-street destinations, but the Jeep will do so with increased consolation and refinement both of those on and off the pavement.
We designed good use of the soaked springtime ailments of the streets to test out the excess traction offered by people chunky tires and hefty responsibility off-road tech. Irrespective of mucking our way by means of ankle-deep mud and mush, we hardly ever got shut to finding trapped. Reduced-range gearing designed swift work of the steepest inclines we could discover in Central Ohio, and even while we didn’t will need to use the disconnecting swaybar, we analyzed it out in any case on a two-row boat ramp divided by a thick concrete berm. No shock, it amplified the quantity of suspension articulation and consequently the length we could reach though straddling the hole.
The 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk’s $56,030 value involves a required and seemingly exorbitant $1,795 place charge. Include $395 for any paint that isn’t good white — our test auto confirmed up with two-tone Silver Zynith and Black that we wished was something brighter or deeper. We’d consider the $1,295 Luxury Tech Group required in order to get items like proximity entry and a power tilt/telescoping steering column with memory. Our tester’s sticker selling price ballooned to $61,040 with a twin-pane panoramic sunroof, the $1,095 front passenger interactive display screen, the really recommended $1,495 Uconnect infotainment method on a huge and impressive 10.1-inch display, and a $1,995 bundle that provides a handy Evening Vision method and a surround-perspective digicam bundle. Buyers who want a 3rd row are out of luck as there is no Trailhawk model of the Grand Cherokee L out there – it is two-row only.
We’ll reiterate listed here that we analyzed out all this magnificent off-highway package, and it operates particularly as marketed. But we never really had to test it, even with exclusively searching for the grossest slop we could drive through on looking streets only normally occupied by ATVs and folks donning rubber boots. All of that is to say that we applaud Jeep for providing a Grand Cherokee that’s definitely capable off-street, but the Confined 4×4 that prices $5,000 considerably less or the Overland that only fees a grand or two much more would likely be far better decisions for motorists who really don’t know why they’d need a Path Rated badge.
But for those people buyers who do know particularly why they need practically a foot of floor clearance, the skill to ford 2 feet of h2o, or adequate suspension articulation to straddle a mini Mount Rushmore, well, there actually is absolutely nothing else on the market that also provides lavish finishings and refinement for the rate of the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk.
