I recently got a promotion at work and start on the 18th. I will be traveling 30-35k miles a year with a territory covering greater Chicagoland, Northwestern Indiana and Southwestern Michigan. My wife wants me to get rid of my old truck and my daily driver that averages 24 mpg cty/hwy and fall back on one vehicle. We currently have four cars we drive and two more older cars that were her dad's, one I might restore. I don't want another full size truck because a crew cab with 5 foot box will barely fit in the garage. That leaves me looking at the Jeep Grand Cherokee Ecodiesel to cover my work and hunting vehicle. I have an enclosed trailer for my hunting needs but also want an all weather ride and this seems to be the only practical vehicle with the mileage and towing I am looking for. Does anyone know someone that had the Dodge Ram or Grand Cherokee with the Ecodiesel motor? So far I have seen some decent reviews and it was a solid vehicle when i test drove one. I'm pretty close to pulling the plug and getting one but was hoping to find someone that has or knows people that have them.
For us it was between the new Grand Cherokee or the Outback. Since we had a Grand Cherokee before I chose the Outback. Can't go Wrong with the GC though. I'm also a huge fan of the Wrangler which has terrible MPG
I cannot answer for the diesel, however my Grandmother just bought a GC a couple weeks ago. The thing is nice. It's not overly large, but more space inside that makes it comfortable while traveling. What do you do for work that you travel so much? Best of luck in the new position!
I usually have a hard time buying a vehicle the first year its in production. To me it seems like your the one working the bugs out for the big company. Just a change in body style is ok but do they really have the diesel problems worked out yet with all the emission laws? We drive Dodge and Ford diesels every day and so far they havent got it figured out yet. With that being said. our company doesnt keep up on the maintanance like they should and we have alot of idle time.
I don't think so....especially when considering diesel is also more expensive to buy But if someone is going to be doing much towing the diesel would be nice is it produces a lot of torque FYI, I think the difference between the V8 and diesel upgrades are around $2k. But, yeah the diesel costs alot more than the standard V6.
The Grand Cherokee has the Fiat 3.0 Liter EcoDiesel from Italy. It is more of a car based Diesel but still throws out 420 ft/lbs torque.
I did the math and with Diesel being higher it would still be around 1-1.5k a year in fuel savings and I can go 700 miles on a tank. Over the course of 5 years it would be cheaper and the diesel would have a higher trade in value.
Don't know about the ecodiesle but it it will be jeep's first year producing it so I'd expect a few bugs but nothing major. I just picked up a 2014 Grand Cherokee limited for my wife and we like it a lot. Racked up 600 or 700 miles in the first two weeks and no issues yet
So after debating I finally got the Jeep Ecodiesel in September. I've put on a little over 7k miles and couldn't be happier and thought I would share a few things. The AVG MPG rating for it was 24 but I have seen anywhere from 24-27.5 MPG when calculating manually instead of using the trip computer which seems to think it gets 1-2 MPG better. The electronics and GPS in it are awesome and it even has a nifty weather map that views out to 600 miles. Driving 24k-30k miles a year in a pickup would have been tough with the new job and the Jeep has gotten back into a couple of areas I'm not sure a pickup would have. I do miss my F-150 when it comes to hunting but overall the Jeep has done everything I could ask and gotten better mileage than expected. I did have to realize that I am that guy with the dead deer on the back rack, something I always said I would never let happen Seeing the little kid in the Audi Q7 make his mom back up at the stoplight to see it was priceless though! Here are a few shots from the field.
