Thanks to our friends at Abbotsford Chrysler in the Fraser Valley Automall in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, I had the opportunity to review this 2019 Jeep Cherokee Limited. The Cherokee gets a thorough update for 2019 to further refine Jeeps popular mid sized CUV.
Exterior
For 2019 Jeep updated the front and rear ends of the Cherokee, giving the front end a more conventional look than the outgoing 2014-2018 Cherokee and bringing the design more in line with its big brother, the Grand Cherokee. Headlamps are now a LED with integrated switchback DRL elements for turn signals and running lights. The rear end gets a new liftgate design, and new LED tailllamps. The rear bumper has been redesigned with an integrated hitch receiver and integrated dual exhaust tips. The rear license plate mounting has been moved from the bumper on the 2014-2018 Cherokee to the liftgate which gets rid of the plain design of the previous liftgate. Coming along to the side the design is still carryover from the previous Cherokee although it still looks clean and modern. All trims get new wheel designs ranging up to 19 inches on Overland models.
Interior
The interior of my Limited tester was filled with high quality materials, supple leather seats that were very comfortable and lots of tech. Fit and finish was spot on with no discernible panel gaps. My tester had the black interior, with chrome, brushed aluminum and piano black accents. The panoramic sunroof gave the interior a very airy feeling.
The leather wrapped dash is of an attractive design with all controls laid out in a logical easy to use manner. New for 2019 is FCAs new Uconnect 4C infotainment system which sits nice and high on the dash making it easy to use and not far out of your sightlines while driving. Housed in the screen bezel directly below the screen you have your controls for your automatic park assist, parking sensors, hazard lights and lane keep assist system. Controls for the dual zone climate system and radio are laid out neatly and logically on the center stack, along with buttons to turn off traction control and disable the automatic start stop function.
Jeep slightly redesigned the center console for 2019 giving you a cubby ahead of the shifter to store items such as your phone. The cubby is a good sized and fit my Samsung Galaxy S8+ with room to spare. There is also a select terrain knob, a USB port and a 12V cigarette lighter plug just ahead of the console mounted shifter.
Door panels are nicely finished with soft touch materials, chrome accents for the door handles and the typical parts bin FCA controls which I personally like and find easy to operate.
Driving position is excellent and I found it very easy to get comfortable in the drivers seat, I also found visibility to be quite good with the long rear doors and door glass helping with over the shoulder lane changes. I’m 6’1 on a good day and could sit behind myself although I had to splay my knees a bit to the sides of the front seat, I didn’t know until after that the rear seat on some Cherokee models slides as well so that could have possibly given me some extra room. For rear headroom the top of my head was just brushing the headliner although it was easy for me to get comfortable in a position that allowed a bit more headroom. As I mentioned before my tester had the panoramic sunroof which does impede on headroom a little bit.
Technology
My Limited tester had the Safetytec and Technology groups which include: Blind-Spot Monitoring & Rear Cross-Path Detection, Park-Sense® Rear Park Assist System, Adaptive Cruise Control with Stop and Go, Advanced Brake Assist, Automatic high-beam headlamp control, Forward Collision Warning with Active Braking, Lane Departure Warning with Lane Keep Assist, Parallel and Perpendicular Park Assist, Rain-sensing windshield wipers and Side distance warning. I found all the features to work seamlessly, adaptive cruise control would be a great feature to have on long road trips with the Jeep keeping a set distance from the vehicle ahead of you even if they slow down or speed up to your preset speed. The system in the Jeep will even bring the vehicle to a complete stop if the vehicle ahead of you stops and then bring the vehicle back up to speed when traffic starts moving again. The lane departure warning worked flawlessly as well steering the Cherokee back into its lane when I purposely let it drift towards the center line.
As I had previously mentioned for 2019 FCAs Uconnect 4C replaces the Uconnect 3 system found on previous Cherokees. The new system features faster processing speed, a higher resolution screen, responds quicker to inputs and has Apple Carplay and Android Auto functionality. A 7 inch screen is standard on base Cherokees while 8.4 and 8.4 with Navigation ave available as well.
Powertrains
There are 3 powertrain options to choose from in the 2019 Cherokee. The base engine is the 2.4 Liter 4 cylinder Tigershark putting out 180 horsepower and 170lb ft of torque. Stepping up from that is the 3.2 Liter Pentastar V6 developing 271 horsepower and 239lb ft of torque. New for 2019 is the 2.0 direct injected, turbocharged 4 cylinder developing 270 horsepower and 295 lb ft of torque. All engines are paired to a 9 speed automatic transmission and have automatic stop start which shuts the engine off when idling at a red light for instance.
FCA has made some programming changes to the 9 speed automatic for 2019 and I found the transmission well behaved on my drive. Shifts were nearly imperceptible but quick when calling for more power. I also found the automatic stop start system to be very smooth, you could barely tell when the engine shut off at a light. Taking your foot off the brake causes the engine to start up right away and it was ready to go by the time you moved your foot to the gas pedal. This feature should help city drivers save quite a bit of fuel.
The drive
I found the Cherokee to drive very nicely on the road. Suspension tuning is spot on, absorbing bumps and road imperfections without transmitting a lot of feedback into the cabin. It handled quite well for being a midsized CUV and I was very surprised at how flat it was when taking some twisty roads spiritedly. Steering feel was nicely weighted, transmitting a little bit of road feedback to the driver.
My tester had the Pentastar V6 and while not a rocket ship it developed good power and moved the Cherokee along effortlessly. I think the V6 would be more than enough for most buyers in this segment but if someone did want a little more the 2.0 Turbo 4 cylinder is available.
Brakes worked well without drawing any attention to themselves which is a good thing in this segment. Due to this being a dealer vehicle I didn’t want to “abuse” it so I didn’t do any panic stops, but under normal braking they felt strong.
I think Jeep did an excellent job updating the Cherokee and keeping it fresh in the competitive mid sized CUV market. With the way it drives, all the powertrain options and technology offered it is a compelling choice for anyone shopping for a new vehicle in this segment. If you’re shopping for a mid sized CUV the 2019 Jeep Cherokee deserves a look. Forum member UN4GTBL recently wrote about his 2019 Cherokee Trailhawk experience after 2 months of ownership that you can check out here.
Below is our video review of the 2019 Jeep Cherokee Limited.
