2008 Jeep Compass 4x4 2.4 Limited
Text and photos © Isaac Hernandez/MercuryPress.com, All Rights Reserved

Oh Baby!

When the Hummer H2 came out, Arnold Schwarzenegger said, “don’t call it a baby.” Today small SUVs are cool; the huge Hummer H1 ceased production, after insignificant monthly sales of just 25 vehicles. On the other hand, 297,000 compact SUVs were sold in the US in 2004, and the market is expected to surpass 600,000 units by 2010.

Text and photos: © Isaac Hernández/MercuryPress.com

Jeep is selling the Compass as a compact SUV that offers the best fuel mileage of any Jeep in history; this is suddenly headline news for US consumers, facing close to $1 per liter at the pump. The Compass has many standard features like ESP, side curtain airbags, break assist and ABS; and starts at a great price ($15,985 including destination charges). It’s been “designed to reach youthful costumers who may not have previously considered the brand,” according to George Murphy, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing.

Global Marketing is the right title, as the Jeep Compass and its brother the Dodge Caliber will be sold in 98 markets. Production of the RHD Compass will be relatively fast; and Australia, Japan, South Africa and the United Kingdom should expect to get the baby Jeep by the fourth quarter of 2006, at the same time as other international markets. The US will get it in the third quarter. It’s manufactured in the former Neon factory in Illinois, which underwent a $490 million renovation to accommodate the Caliber and the Compass.

EXTERIOR
The Compass takes some cues from other Jeep cars, such as the round headlights, the seven-slot grille and trapezoidal wheel openings. But it has a completely new profile with unique fender forms and a raked windshield. It comes standard with 17” wheels; our Limited model came with beautiful aluminum 18” 5-spoke wheels. A chrome-clad version is also available. The black integrated roof rack is also standard. There’s also a mini-functional spoiler.

Wheelbase is the same as for the Caliber, 2635mm, but the overall length of 4404.8mm is 9.1mm less than the Dodge.

Surprisingly, all of the body, including sheet metal, doors and glass are unique to the Compass (not sharing with the Caliber), as is the interior design.

INTERIOR
The first thing we notice is how spacious the car feels inside. Even though the seat has been raised by 2” (compared to the Caliber) to give it a “more Jeep-like command of the road,” according to Compass’ Chief Engineer Matt Lidanne, the headroom is still 4” more than in the Caliber. Lidanne, who sat with us at a pool table club in Portland, Oregon, says that the seating position and the feel at the wheel is the favorite part of his baby.

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ENGINE
The Compass is only available with a 2.4 engine (172hp) in the US. But in Europe it will also be powered by a 3-cylinder 2.0-turbo diesel Volkswagen engine (from Golf), matted to an Aisin six-speed manual transmission. Mitsubishi worked with Chrysler in making this application, so you can expect a future Mitsubishi product to have the same engine-transmission configuration.

The 2.4 engine we tested came with a CVT2 (Continuously Variable Transaxle 2 nd generation) transmission with AutoStick (a non AutoStick version is also available). This CVT is the same as in the Caliber, made by Jatco. The Japanese company moved its production to Mexico to better accommodate the large volume expected. According to Chrysler, this CVT2 contributes to a 6-8 percent fuel savings over another automatic transmission. A five-speed manual is also available...

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