RichSNJ
Well-known member
So I've had my new Grand Cherokee L Summit Reserve V8 for about week now, thought I'd give some feedback on how it's going… I'll start off with the things I like and then go into the iffy parts after…
I had to break this into 2 messages in order to post it due to a 10K character limit…
So, I'm transitioning from a 2019 Grand Cherokee Overland High Altitude V6, which had all the bells and whistles available at the time, but there are a few new ones to talk about.
Here's the Pros:
The V8 is wonderful, and I haven't really gotten the chance to really gun it because I'm still breaking it in, but while the V6 was really no slouch, it was "ok" and nothing to write home about. The Hemi, when it kicks in just gives you this wonderful smooth acceleration that just puts a smile on your face. I had a Tahoe with a 305 and a Durango with a Magnum 318 before, but the Hemi just seems to be much smoother and has a much better kick in the pants. It is surprisingly loud and non smooth sounding at idle, but no biggie…
Active Drive Assist / Adaptive Cruise Control is fantastic and works much better than I expected. It will work pretty well on a regular 2 lane road, but be prepared for it to disengage if you live in an area like me which has crappy roads with bad markings, but honestly it works really well. On a decent highway, it's pretty much set and forget. Unlike the previous version on my '19, there is now an actual sensor in the steering wheel that you just have to lightly keep your hand on. If it stops detecting your hand there's a steering wheel icon which turns yellow until you put it back on. Presumably it would turn red and then complain in some way if you didn't fix it, but on the old system it measured steering resistance to determine if your hand was on the wheel, and if you didn't have to turn the wheel, you would sometimes get a loud alert telling you to put your hands on the wheel, which was very jarring… The ADA system also has green "side lights" on the console which I thought might be annoying, but they're actually pretty useful and let you know exactly when the system is engaged and when it's not. One of the things I was worried about before using it is that when you change lanes the description says that the system disengages, and I figured that would be pain because you'd have to be resetting it all the time, but actually it works really well in as far as when you change lanes or override it, the green lights turn off, but as soon as it's happy again, it will auto re-engage and the lights turn green again and you know you're good. Also, with the old system, it would disengage when fully stopped for a few seconds, which was disappointing when stuck in a traffic jam or something like that, but the new system stays engaged. I've noticed that it takes a long time to get going again after the car in front of you starts going, but I've played with the controls and setting the following distance to the minimum will get it going a lot faster, or you can hit the gas and it goes without disengaging. The car is also set up for a subscription based hands free driving assistance for certain roads, but Jeep Chat says that isn't coming till the summer of '22, but honestly, I'm pretty happy with it the way it is. I wish the starting from stopped to keep up with traffic was a little more Johnny on the spot, but the braking to stop in traffic is much smoother and less scary than the 2019 system was.
The night vision system was something that I thought was going to be stupid and that I'd never use. However to my surprise, it's actually really cool and I find myself turning it on at night on a regular basis. I would especially recommend it if you're going to be driving down a long road out in the sticks at night. While I haven't seen an animal at night yet, the yellow box highlighting of people on the screen works amazingly well, and it has picked up all the people I've been near at night, even at range. I guess the farthest I've seen it pick up is well over 200 feet, and that's the as far as I've seen anybody so far, so it may be better if I encounter something on a long straight road, time will tell.
The passenger screen is probably something I could have done without, especially for the price, but I do see its merits on a road trip with the ability for your passenger to find destinations on the map and then send it over to the driver. While it does not have FireTV built in unless you have the rear entertainment system, I did try plugging a firestick in this weekend and my wife loves it. She was watching netflix while I was happily listening to music. It would be nice if Android Auto extended into the passenger screen, but I assume that would be more of an AA feature that would need to be worked on rather than a Jeep project, but even if you're using AA like I am, it will still send directions over to the driver and you can navigate temporarily with the built in system without screwing up google maps on AA. Your passenger needs to have their own bluetooth headphones for them to have sound fyi… The biggest downside to the screen is that most of the time it's not on, and since it's a touch screen, when it's not on you see all the fingerprints all over it. Happily they give you a large microfiber cleaning cloth in the owner's manual kit
But when it is on, you either don't see it at all or barely see it from the drivers seat due to polarization of the screen, which is really great as it doesn't distract you as the driver.
Speaking of Android Auto, the wireless AA and I assume Apple Car Play works really super well. I had heard a lot of people complaining that it was buggy at best on the '21's, but I haven't had any issues with it yet. AA is something that I only used on my '19 on trips because it had to be plugged in, it worked really well, but it was more of a hassle than I wanted for everyday use, but now that its wireless I *love* it. The reason it's so great is because I use multiple streaming services for music on my phone, and I don't know if that's the issue, or whether it would just happen anyway, but through the regular blue tooth connection on my '19 sometimes it would start playing music, and sometimes I'd have to dig my phone out and tell it to play something. Also, AA is great because you can easily change what you're listening to without having to drag your phone out or try "Hey Google" while it's in your pocket or whatever. If I want to change from Pandora to YouTube Music I can do that on the screen, and if I want to play a certain song or album or whatever, I can use the system microphone to talk to the phone. Also, this might be the case on my '19 too, but I learned that if I hold down the phone button on the steering wheel, it activates the mic button on AA which is great…
Massage seats - Awesome! Wife loves them. I was a little unimpressed at first, but their true value is after you've been sitting in the car for a while and you kick it in with a little heat, really nice. Sadly, they seem to automatically disengage after a certain time, not sure abut the timing yet.
Heated / Ventilated seats / wheel buttons. The WK2's had no buttons to control the seats, and you had to go through the Uconnect to adjust them, which was at best a pain and at worst dangerous if you're trying to drive. Having the buttons is one of the things I most wanted changed, and I'm so glad they did.
I didn't realize this would be the case, but the LED headlights are a definite improvement over the HID lights on the '19, especially the high beams, which were lacking on the '19. I still am considering a hidden lightbar for high beams, but its very much on the back burner. My '19 was a lease, otherwise I would have absolutely have put a light bar on.
The Surround view camera is fantastic. So easy to back into parking spaces and parallel park now. I understand how it works but it's still pretty amazing. The front camera has a washer on it, I wish the rear camera did too as that's the one which gets hard to use when it's raining… The only bummer with it is that I would like to use when pulling into my garage, but when you fold the mirrors it sort of screws up the picture, oh well.
The camera rear view mirror is a great idea. I tailgate during football season and fill the back up so that I can't see out, this will come in handy then. In the meantime, switching between it and the regular mirror is easy and the regular mirror works exactly how you'd expect it to. There is a mirror dimmer button in the Uconnect screen which controls the rear view mirror, which is silly if it's the only one, I haven't searched hard on the mirror itself to see if the button it also has a control for the dimmer, but I didn't find it there. Happily you pretty much never need to turn the dimmer off, so it's fine if it's only in Uconnect.
The kick to open tailgate is nice too, especially if you're carrying groceries
Continued in Part 2...
I had to break this into 2 messages in order to post it due to a 10K character limit…
So, I'm transitioning from a 2019 Grand Cherokee Overland High Altitude V6, which had all the bells and whistles available at the time, but there are a few new ones to talk about.
Here's the Pros:
The V8 is wonderful, and I haven't really gotten the chance to really gun it because I'm still breaking it in, but while the V6 was really no slouch, it was "ok" and nothing to write home about. The Hemi, when it kicks in just gives you this wonderful smooth acceleration that just puts a smile on your face. I had a Tahoe with a 305 and a Durango with a Magnum 318 before, but the Hemi just seems to be much smoother and has a much better kick in the pants. It is surprisingly loud and non smooth sounding at idle, but no biggie…
Active Drive Assist / Adaptive Cruise Control is fantastic and works much better than I expected. It will work pretty well on a regular 2 lane road, but be prepared for it to disengage if you live in an area like me which has crappy roads with bad markings, but honestly it works really well. On a decent highway, it's pretty much set and forget. Unlike the previous version on my '19, there is now an actual sensor in the steering wheel that you just have to lightly keep your hand on. If it stops detecting your hand there's a steering wheel icon which turns yellow until you put it back on. Presumably it would turn red and then complain in some way if you didn't fix it, but on the old system it measured steering resistance to determine if your hand was on the wheel, and if you didn't have to turn the wheel, you would sometimes get a loud alert telling you to put your hands on the wheel, which was very jarring… The ADA system also has green "side lights" on the console which I thought might be annoying, but they're actually pretty useful and let you know exactly when the system is engaged and when it's not. One of the things I was worried about before using it is that when you change lanes the description says that the system disengages, and I figured that would be pain because you'd have to be resetting it all the time, but actually it works really well in as far as when you change lanes or override it, the green lights turn off, but as soon as it's happy again, it will auto re-engage and the lights turn green again and you know you're good. Also, with the old system, it would disengage when fully stopped for a few seconds, which was disappointing when stuck in a traffic jam or something like that, but the new system stays engaged. I've noticed that it takes a long time to get going again after the car in front of you starts going, but I've played with the controls and setting the following distance to the minimum will get it going a lot faster, or you can hit the gas and it goes without disengaging. The car is also set up for a subscription based hands free driving assistance for certain roads, but Jeep Chat says that isn't coming till the summer of '22, but honestly, I'm pretty happy with it the way it is. I wish the starting from stopped to keep up with traffic was a little more Johnny on the spot, but the braking to stop in traffic is much smoother and less scary than the 2019 system was.
The night vision system was something that I thought was going to be stupid and that I'd never use. However to my surprise, it's actually really cool and I find myself turning it on at night on a regular basis. I would especially recommend it if you're going to be driving down a long road out in the sticks at night. While I haven't seen an animal at night yet, the yellow box highlighting of people on the screen works amazingly well, and it has picked up all the people I've been near at night, even at range. I guess the farthest I've seen it pick up is well over 200 feet, and that's the as far as I've seen anybody so far, so it may be better if I encounter something on a long straight road, time will tell.
The passenger screen is probably something I could have done without, especially for the price, but I do see its merits on a road trip with the ability for your passenger to find destinations on the map and then send it over to the driver. While it does not have FireTV built in unless you have the rear entertainment system, I did try plugging a firestick in this weekend and my wife loves it. She was watching netflix while I was happily listening to music. It would be nice if Android Auto extended into the passenger screen, but I assume that would be more of an AA feature that would need to be worked on rather than a Jeep project, but even if you're using AA like I am, it will still send directions over to the driver and you can navigate temporarily with the built in system without screwing up google maps on AA. Your passenger needs to have their own bluetooth headphones for them to have sound fyi… The biggest downside to the screen is that most of the time it's not on, and since it's a touch screen, when it's not on you see all the fingerprints all over it. Happily they give you a large microfiber cleaning cloth in the owner's manual kit
But when it is on, you either don't see it at all or barely see it from the drivers seat due to polarization of the screen, which is really great as it doesn't distract you as the driver.Speaking of Android Auto, the wireless AA and I assume Apple Car Play works really super well. I had heard a lot of people complaining that it was buggy at best on the '21's, but I haven't had any issues with it yet. AA is something that I only used on my '19 on trips because it had to be plugged in, it worked really well, but it was more of a hassle than I wanted for everyday use, but now that its wireless I *love* it. The reason it's so great is because I use multiple streaming services for music on my phone, and I don't know if that's the issue, or whether it would just happen anyway, but through the regular blue tooth connection on my '19 sometimes it would start playing music, and sometimes I'd have to dig my phone out and tell it to play something. Also, AA is great because you can easily change what you're listening to without having to drag your phone out or try "Hey Google" while it's in your pocket or whatever. If I want to change from Pandora to YouTube Music I can do that on the screen, and if I want to play a certain song or album or whatever, I can use the system microphone to talk to the phone. Also, this might be the case on my '19 too, but I learned that if I hold down the phone button on the steering wheel, it activates the mic button on AA which is great…
Massage seats - Awesome! Wife loves them. I was a little unimpressed at first, but their true value is after you've been sitting in the car for a while and you kick it in with a little heat, really nice. Sadly, they seem to automatically disengage after a certain time, not sure abut the timing yet.
Heated / Ventilated seats / wheel buttons. The WK2's had no buttons to control the seats, and you had to go through the Uconnect to adjust them, which was at best a pain and at worst dangerous if you're trying to drive. Having the buttons is one of the things I most wanted changed, and I'm so glad they did.
I didn't realize this would be the case, but the LED headlights are a definite improvement over the HID lights on the '19, especially the high beams, which were lacking on the '19. I still am considering a hidden lightbar for high beams, but its very much on the back burner. My '19 was a lease, otherwise I would have absolutely have put a light bar on.
The Surround view camera is fantastic. So easy to back into parking spaces and parallel park now. I understand how it works but it's still pretty amazing. The front camera has a washer on it, I wish the rear camera did too as that's the one which gets hard to use when it's raining… The only bummer with it is that I would like to use when pulling into my garage, but when you fold the mirrors it sort of screws up the picture, oh well.
The camera rear view mirror is a great idea. I tailgate during football season and fill the back up so that I can't see out, this will come in handy then. In the meantime, switching between it and the regular mirror is easy and the regular mirror works exactly how you'd expect it to. There is a mirror dimmer button in the Uconnect screen which controls the rear view mirror, which is silly if it's the only one, I haven't searched hard on the mirror itself to see if the button it also has a control for the dimmer, but I didn't find it there. Happily you pretty much never need to turn the dimmer off, so it's fine if it's only in Uconnect.
The kick to open tailgate is nice too, especially if you're carrying groceries
Continued in Part 2...
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