JEEP CHEROKEE 2.8 CRD Limited 5dr (2008)

Robust, strong, excellent view of the road

To start with there's lots of cool gadgets and features in the Cherokee, which is sort of bordering on a but luxurious for what looks like a big beefy man car. Like the heated seats, bah don't need heated seats! Grrrrr!! (I do like them though) And there's other handy stuff like the windscreen wipers that automatically realise when it's raining. Same deal with the headlights in darkness. Parking sensors at the back as well, ah who cares I am comfortable in my masculinity! I can admit I find those really useful, and if it saves me from bumping stuff and keeps the resale value up then that's a good thing all in all. You can turn off the sensors with a little button at the front though if they really insult your manliness. Some stuff feels less wimpy though, like there's a compass. That's pretty cool, a bit sort of Ray Mears-y. It's got a sat nav tho, so that's less adventurous maybe...

The mileage is alright for an off roader I suppose, gets about 30 or so MPG. It's getting harder to justify these days tho, as I mostly do town driving anyway. Insurance is a bit high actually.

The seats are again almost bordering on luxury. I said about the heating under the seats. I suppose they look reasonably boxy and manly! There's lots of useful space inside, big box under the central arm rest, cup holders here and there. It's a bit annoying about the way the dash board though, there's only about a couple of inches of it really, just stops and then suddenly there's the windscreen. That could be a more useful space to put stuff.

I like the way the stereo accepts USB drives, means I can easy load up a pen drive with tunes and plug it in. I had been getting a bit tired of burning CDs before, and having them knocking around inside my old car.

The storage space in the car is one of the real winners. The boot even without the rear seats down is enough for about nine sets of golf clubs (albeit obstructing your visibility a bit), but with the rear seats down I've had four adult bikes in it. I had to take their front wheels off and shimmy them around a bit, but it was happy enough after that.

A little quibble is that the hard drive on the stereo/front unit thing has drained the battery before, which cause the car to lock me inside! I reckon that's just down to my usage habits though, could be fixed with more care.