Category: Large 4x4s 
Price Range: £20,095 to £24,595
Excellent off-road ability, plenty of kit, bold styling.
Poor handling, plasticky cabin, expensive to run.
Great off-road, poor on it. There are better, cheaper 4x4s that have better all-round abilities.
Flogging a 4x4 is not an easy business nowadays. They are expensive to run, hated by drivers of reasonably-sized cars and impossible to justify anywhere but off-road.
So the honeymoon, it is fair to say, is over. Any manufacturer launching a bona fide off-roader needs to have a bloody good sales pitch and realistic expectations about sales volumes. And with its new Cherokee, now on sale in the UK, Jeep reckons it has both.
Jeep is realistic: it is hoping to sell 500 Cherokees in the UK this year. That's a modest target, but dealers will still have their work cut out to persuade potential buyers that this car makes sense. In automatic form this 2.8 diesel pumps out 242g/km of carbon dioxide - putting it in Band G - and will only give you an average fuel consumption of around 31mpg. Those two facts alone could be enough for customers to walk away and take their business elsewhere.
The bald fact is this car makes little financial sense, and as such Jeep is targeting the 'core' 4x4 buyers, not those who are swayed by the latest trend. To keep these people interested Jeep has opted for more traditional 4x4 styling - a backward move, but potentially a smart one. This latest incarnation is more butch, more rugged and boxy. This is a proper off-roader and designed to look like one.
There's only one engine and one trim available, but you can choose between a manual and an automatic. The manual will set you back £24,495 and the auto £25,595, but you'll shell out £1,500 for the sat nav and infotainment system upgrade and a further £400 for 'special' paint. So, if you want an auto and a little extra luxury you'll pay in the region of £27,500, which is hardly cheap when you consider the competition.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Jeep Cherokee
wrote on 19 07 2006