Category: Large 4x4s 
Price Range: £31,800 to £31,800
Excellent Mercedes diesel engine, proper off-roading ability, old-school styling and trad Jeep appeal, high equipment levels, looks good value for money
Wallowy ride, not much rear legroom or luggage space for such a huge vehicle, not a real seven-seater, cheap and contrived feel for the price
This retro Jeep is retro in more than just its appearance; it lacks the on-road finesse, interior versatility and general abilities of its main rivals. Great off-road, though.
The Cherokee and Grand Cherokee have not scored well in reliability and customer satisfaction surveys, and Jeep has been rated bottom in the Warranty Direct reliability index. The latest Cherokee/Grand Cherokee seem to be better-built than their predecessors, however, which bodes well for the Commander too, though there have already been a number of recalls in the US for quality defects and electrical/electronic glitches. Commanders and Grand Cherokees for the UK are built by Magna Steyr in Austria, and they do seem to be better-made than the US-built Jeeps. That said, the Commander just doesn't give off the air of being a £30,000-odd vehicle; some of the plastics inside are cheap, such as the flimsy air vents, there are ill-fitting bits of trim and it isn't finished with the same attention to detail as, say, a Volkswagen Touareg or Volvo XC90 - or even the now-aged Shogun or Land Cruiser - let alone a Discovery, BMW X5 or Lexus RX-series.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Jeep Commander
wrote on 11 09 2007