SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8
This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
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*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.
Pics: Front by Quickpic, Interior by author
Published in Weekend Witness Motoring on Saturday January 21, 2012
When our young friend Mandy did an au-pairing stint in Atlanta some years ago, her employer hosts provided a Jeep Cherokee to drive the children around and for her leisure-time use. She referred to it affectionately as “Ma l’il truckeh” in her best attempt at a Georgia-southern accent. There was obviously no need for the Cherokee’s off-road capability – it was simply a useful nanny bus. Now, a decade or so later, Jeep has produced the ideal vehicle for moms and foreign au-pairs; a crossover with no real off-road pretensions at all. Don’t get us wrong, it is quite capable of tackling the road to Cousin Elmer’s farm. It has decent ground clearance for a city slicker and its approach, departure and ramp-over angles aren’t bad either. It’s just that, after seventy years, Jeep has produced a vehicle that isn’t a real Hogback Mountain gully-whumper. It’s not only two-wheel drive, but it’s front-wheel drive. Gran’pappy gonna choke on his ‘shine if he ever finds out.
This new Jeep Compass, not to be confused with the previous model from 2008, is available only as a fwd crossover with 2.0 litre petrol motor and five-speed manual transmission. A CVT shifter will become available later this year. It is handsomer than its predecessor with new bonnet, front wings, headlamps, chrome-accented grille and rear detailing. The interior has been worked on too, while safety and security features are right up to date with six airbags, ABS, electronic stability control, electronic roll mitigation and hill start assist.
Suspension has been retuned with higher spring and damper rates, added rebound springs and a thicker rear antiroll bar. As a result, it rides reasonably firmly without the top heavy, slightly wobbly feeling one often finds with SUVs. The trade off is that on dirt those with delicate tushies might find it a bit too firm. Can’t have everything, can we?
So now that we have got our heads around the concept of a mommy bus with a Jeep badge up front, how does it work? The 2.0-litre engine develops 115 kW and 190 Nm of torque, quite enough to get it up to 100 km/h in ten-and-bit seconds and on to a top speed of 185. It’s not a breather of dragon fire, but it goes with more enthusiasm than some others with similar power trains. The easy-shifting gearbox has nicely spaced ratios with fifth geared slightly toward fuel economy rather than ultimate roll-on performance.
While shorter, narrower and lower than big brother look-alike Grand Cherokee, it has quite enough space inside to haul a bored-room of teenagers and their extramural kit. The luggage volume to the ceiling with rear seatbacks up, is given as 643 litres. As seatbacks are folded, it expands to 1519, then 1719 litres as you lay down the front seat as well. Load height is given as 781 mm, or about mid-thigh to this tester. The rear door is easy enough to lift, with a pair of gas struts assisting. The spare is a steel spacesaver in a well under the floorboard.
Rear seat headroom, kneeroom and foot space is quite enough for the fussy SA Standard Tall Passenger, who found the shaped headlining that overcomes space constraints expected with the optional sunroof, quite a grand idea. The seatbacks are split one-third to two-thirds, recline slightly and are fitted with three head restraints and as many belts. Baby seat anchors are provided. There are two cupholders, but no seatback pockets and door storage is limited.
In front, the driver’s chair adjusts electrically for reach and height, manually for recline. The passenger is stuck with just one height and all adjustments are manual. Both have warmers for use in chilly weather though. The steering wheel has buttons for cruise control, phone and music, but adjusts for height only. The RDS radio and six-disc player features an auxiliary input and is set for digital station ID and track details. The air conditioner is a single channel unit with straightforward rotary controls.
Storage is courtesy of a bi-level central box with armrest, two cupholders, a couple of small slots, an open compartment and a medium sized, but well shaped glove box. Door storage is limited. A small whine is that the central box is oddly placed, making use of the handbrake awkward. Luckily, hill start assist means you only need to use it at the beginning and end of each journey. The interior is attractively if a little conservatively decorated in black, with good fit and finish throughout. Pedals are well spaced for big feet, with enough room to slide the left one off and onto the floor.
For those who simply cannot adjust to the idea of a pussy-footin’ Jeep, hang in there. The folks at Belvidere, Illinois, have listened to the fans and introduced a pair of optional on-demand awd packs for the CVT version. Let’s hope they get offered here too, so Gran’pappy need never know about this one.
The numbers
Price: R269 990
Engine: 1998 cc, DOHC, 16-valve four cylinder
Power: 115 kW at 6400 rpm
Torque: 190 Nm at 5000 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 10,6 seconds
Maximum speed: 185 km/h
Real life fuel economy: About 9,2 l/100 km
CO2 emissions: 175 gm/km
Tank: 51 litres
Ground clearance: 206 mm
Approach/departure/rampover angles: 20,1/31,4/20,3 degrees
Warranty and maintenance plan: 3 years/100 000 km
This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.
What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.
My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so I do actually exist.
I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!
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SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8