First drive: 2017 Jeep Compass Limited 2.0 diesel

First drive: 2017 Jeep Compass Limited 2.0 diesel

Made in India and — it appears — made for it as well!

It’s been a good month for me, albeit hectic. Events have been flying thick and fast, helping me along on my sacred quest to collect free USB drives. Combined with the free pens and occasional apparel, I may have the beginnings of a business model. In between brief commutes back home, I got to drive the 2017 Jeep Compass, a hotly anticipated SUV for several reasons — both good and bad. First, the good: it’s made in India, very capable and expected to be good value. The bad? It’s mission-critical for FCA to make it a success. American car makers aren’t having a good time in India these days.

Much of what we expect from the Jeep Compass is already known now — a month before it’s official launch. What we don’t know is the price. Jeep officials would like to slot it between the Hyundai Creta and Tucson, putting it in a price bracket of Rs 17 to Rs 25 lac, according to educated guesses. Which is just as well — it gives us a chance to assess the vehicle on its merits, with a rough framework of value.

The Jeep Compass is being pitched as an honest SUV, which can take you off-road and bring you back in one piece. It will be available in three trims, as a 4x2 or 4x4 model, using a 2-litre diesel or 1.4-litre petrol motor, and utilising a manual or automatic dual-clutch transmission. For their press drive, Jeep provided range-topping diesel models equipped with 4x4 and a manual transmission.

It’s a well-proportioned vehicle, and demonstrates the size it’s intended to. It appears tall, and the claimed ground clearance is evident at 155mm. Our test model rode on 17” alloys, but we believe there will be 16” steel wheels on lower variants. The front is obviously reminiscent of the Grand Cherokee. This is intentional, to give it an upmarket feel. The rear is more plain, but the package is sweet. Option packs will allow for blacked-out roofs. The Xenon headlamps, cornering fog lamps and LED tail lamps complete the premium checklist.

On the street

Jeep flew us to rainy Goa to experience their made-in-India SUV, which precluded a lot of highway driving. If you’re familiar with the favoured beach destination, you’ll know that the roads are narrow, typically undivided, but generally well-surfaced. Despite being fairly roomy on the inside, the Compass was at home on these small streets, never feeling too big to manage. Part of this is due to it’s actual width, which is modest, and part to the tall seating position, giving you a commanding view of the road and a good degree of judgement about the SUV’s size from mile one.

The engine is torquey, making 350Nm quite early in the rev range. Combined with the nice, positive 6-speed gearbox, the car is is pleasurable to drive, if a bit unexciting. You can lug it along in 4th gear at very slow speeds without complaint, and it’s refined and smooth, eliciting no complaint from myself or my colleagues. The 6th gear makes it lope along at rapid speeds while you hold a quiet conversation with your passengers, and the ratios are well-spaced to not required constant shuffling through the ‘box. The 170hp on tap is plenty for the weight of the Compass, and acceleration is not a problem.

The stand-out feature of the Compass has to be the suspension — it’s very comfortable, and combined with the low noise levels, you get a sense of gliding along the road. Jeep has incorporated what they call “frequency-sensitive dampers”, which adapt to the types of undulations and bumps on the road to provide optimum ride quality. We’d say it works as advertised, because we were unable to upset the Jeep no matter what sort of surface we tackled. Body roll is evident but not overt, and if that’s the trade-off for this sort of comfort, I’ll gladly take it.

On the inside

When we visited the Jeep plant some months ago, the company was coy about letting us see the interior. If this is what they were hiding, we say their hesitation was unwarranted. The Compass has a very nice interior with well-chosen materials and design decisions. The model we drove had a two-tone interior with a lot of light grey covering the seats and doors. This gives the vehicle an airy feel, and the glass area ensures that it stays lit. There’s no sunroof for India, though it will be available on export models, so there’s always a chance in the future.

Seats are comfortable and well bolstered in the front, and felt American-style roomy. The driver seat has height adjustment, but it’s manual. Combined with the tilt and telescoping adjustment in the steering wheel, getting to a comfortable fit is easy. There’s a dead pedal, but it’s unusually high and tucked behind part of the transmission tunnel. It’s a bit unnatural to use, so it sort of defeats the purpose. The clutch action is deep, which I’m told is a Fiat thing. It’s also a VW thing, so I found no trouble with it being a Polo owner.

The leather materials feel nice, almost extra-puffy. They’re all over the dash too. As if Jeep wanted to drive the soft-touch message home solidly. There’s red contrast stitching, lending a sporty touch. The steering wheel in particular felt good. it’s thick, unlike the Tiguan we drove recently. The piano black trim used around the AC vents is something that so many manufacturers seem to think is a premium touch, and needs to die an ignominious death. Storage spaces are adequate and there’s a USB port up front and in the back, both of which are connected to the infotainment system. This is a good thing if your road trip DJ is sitting in the second row. Strangely, the AC vents for the rear passengers have no controls at all, save for direction.

The 7” touchscreen infotainment system isn’t the most generous we’ve seen, but it does the job. Screen response was ok, but occasionally had some “buffering” evident, where it wouldn’t respond until the computer caught up. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are available, but there’s no on-board navigation. You do get a digital compass though — the jokes write themselves.

Climate control is dual-zone and all controls are sensibly laid out. There’s a general lack of gizmos and buttons in the Compass, and it would have been fine if it stayed that way. Unfortunately, there’s a bank of blank buttons on the right side of the steering wheel where (we assume) cruise control buttons would go on equipped models. Where you’d expect a hand brake, there’s a tiny electronic brake toggle switch, which is one of the more clever features in the Compass. You essentially never need to touch it — it automatically engages when you turn the car off, and disengages when you slot it into gear and drive off. It won’t let you roll backward on hills either.

Finally, there’s the boot which isn’t the biggest we’ve seen for an SUV of this size. The Tiguan, for instance, has a massive 615 litres, while looking smaller. Folding the second row sets flat liberates more space, but not by a huge margin. It’s a tall loading bay too, and the tailgate is a regular manually-operated one. No fancy foot gestures or buttons to close this hatch.

Off the road

Jeep took us about 70km south of the airport, to Netravali wildlife sanctuary to give is a proper experience of what the Compass can do when the road ends. This is definitely where the Jeep shines. The all-wheel drive system with it’s “Mud” mode provided excellent traction in very wet and slushy conditions.

For the more hardcore, it bears mentioning that there are no locking differentials here. It’s an urban-focused all-wheel drive system that sends torque to the wheels that need it automatically, and can be tuned for sand, mud or street based on what position the “SELEC-TERRAIN” mode dial is in. The Compass has hill descent assistance, which appears to activate when needed — you don’t need a button to be pressed. Just put it in first, let go of the clutch and the SUV creeps downhill with perfect control. The clever electronic brake also helps when you’re going in the opposite direction — it will not let you roll backwards into embarrassment, or injury as the case may be.

While the off-road trail was not extreme, we did experience some shallow water crossings, rocks and a lot of mud. Save for the plastic front air dam, nothing at all on the underbody scraped anywhere. The vehicle was easy to place, and the all-weather tyres worked really well. We think this was an excellent showcase of the Compass’ abilities and Jeep would do well to get customers involved in such events.

The 15–25 lac rupee question

Pick your range. We picked 17–23 lac, others have hedged their bets with a wider range. The Jeep Compass has already racked up over a thousand bookings in a matter of days, and we’re beginning to believe that the Compass may well surprise with the sticker price.

For one thing, there isn’t a surfeit of equipment, even on the range-topper. No motorised tailgate, no auto or cornering headlamps, no automatic wipers. Compared to the spec sheet heroes like the Mahindra XUV, the Compass does come off looking a bit spare. The bottom of the range will most likely be a petrol with a manual transmission, which should make for a compelling alternative to the competition — especially if they do indeed manage to breach that 15 lac lower limit.

Of course, Jeep will have to buck up in their service network if they expect sales beyond the novelty period. We whole-heartedly liked the Jeep Compass, and are keeping our fingers crossed. Keep checking back for the launch coverage and the all-important price, when it happens.