2016 Jeep Cherokee 4X4 - Deep Snow & Off-Road Review

**2016 Jeep Cherokee: A Comprehensive Review**

Hello everyone and welcome to this video where we are taking an in-depth look at the 2016 Jeep Cherokee. Typically, I would delve into lengthy details about various trims and all aspects of the car, but as a Jeep, it’s essential to focus on its off-road capabilities. The vehicle we’re testing is a Jeep Cherokee Latitude equipped with all-wheel drive and a powerful 3.2-liter V6 engine producing 271 horsepower and 239 pound-feet of torque. Despite weighing over 4000 pounds, the Cherokee isn’t the most fuel-efficient SUV in its segment, offering 19 mpg in the city and 26 mpg on the highway. However, it compensates with impressive power and a class-leading towing capacity of up to 4,500 pounds.

While discussing practicality, it’s important to note that rear legroom is sufficient for most passengers, but cargo space is somewhat limited compared to its competitors. With the seats folded, it offers about 20 cubic feet less than some direct rivals, and only four more cubic feet than the smaller Jeep Renegade. However, let’s shift our focus to where this vehicle truly shines: off-road features.

Today happens to be one of the worst days for testing an all-wheel drive vehicle due to severe snow conditions. Fortunately, we’re in a Jeep that has proven capable of navigating these challenging terrains. Last week, I had the opportunity to test a Toyota Rav4 and couldn’t have imagined facing such harsh conditions without the Cherokee’s advanced all-wheel drive system and ground clearance.

We’ve been working on a steep hill that typically tests all-wheel drive vehicles’ abilities to ascend it. The snow here is extremely deep, but the Jeep has managed to carve a new path through it with ease, despite some initial sliding. This demonstrates the vehicle’s impressive off-road capabilities even in the most adverse conditions.

The Cherokee comes equipped with four driving modes: Auto, Snow, Sport, and Sand/Mud. Each mode tailors the vehicle’s performance for specific terrains. In Snow Mode, 60% of the torque is directed to the front tires, while 40% goes to the rear, ensuring optimal traction on loose surfaces. The system also employs a brake lock differential to eliminate wheel slip, enhancing control during acceleration and braking.

When engaging the Jeep’s Active Drive 2 system in Four-Wheel-Drive Low Mode, it provides a crawl ratio of up to 47.821 with the V6 engine or an impressive 56:1 with the inline four-cylinder engine. This feature is particularly beneficial for towing and off-road crawling scenarios where low-speed, high-torque performance is crucial.

The Sport Mode shifts the torque distribution to favor the rear axle, delivering a sportier driving experience with quicker acceleration and handling. However, it’s essential to maintain momentum in Sand and Mud Modes, as wheel slip can lead to getting stuck if traction control intervenes too aggressively.

During our testing, we attempted to ascend a steep incline covered in snow. Initially, the vehicle struggled due to the slick conditions and all-season tires, but with careful application of speed and utilizing the brake lock differential, it managed to crest the hill successfully. This achievement is particularly impressive given the unfavorable conditions and the vehicle’s limitations without all-terrain tires.

In comparison, testing the Toyota Rav4 under similar conditions would have been futile due to its lack of ground clearance and less advanced all-wheel drive system. The Cherokee, on the other hand, proved more than capable of handling the challenge.

While the 2016 Jeep Cherokee excels in power, towing capacity, and off-road performance, it does have some drawbacks. Cargo space is limited compared to competitors, and fuel economy isn’t its strongest suit. However, if you prioritize strength, versatility, and the ability to tackle challenging terrains with confidence, this vehicle is an excellent choice.

Thank you for watching, and feel free to leave any questions or comments below.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome in this video we are checking out the 2016 jeep cherokee now usually i'd go into a long spiel about the different trims in all aspects of the car but this is a jeep and as the advertising suggests we need to get some off-road testing in the jeep cherokee latitude that we're in has all-wheel drive and a 3.2 liter v6 producing 271 horsepower and 239 pound-feet of torque weighing in at over 4000 pounds it's not the most fuel-efficient suv in its segment with 19 mpg city and 26 mpg highway but it's certainly one of the most potent and has a class leading 4 500 pounds of towing capacity considering the size of the engine and the weight of the vehicle the fuel economy story isn't too bad thanks in part to a 9 speed automatic transmission very similar to the unit used in the chrysler 200. as far as practicality rear leg room is sufficient however cargo space is a bit low for this segment as much as 20 cubic feet less than some of its direct competitors with the seats folded and only four more cubic feet than the smaller jeep renegade but enough about practicality let's talk about the many off-road features and today is actually probably one of the worst days i could be possibly testing a all-wheel drive vehicle but luckily i am in this jeep i will say you know last week i was in the toyota rav4 and had i been in the ram for this week i know for a fact i wouldn't have actually come out here just doesn't have the clearance to get out here and the all-wheel drive system wasn't quite as good this has been able i've actually carved a new path out in the snow here no one has been driving out here uh because the snow's gotten really deep and i didn't have a problem getting out here sure it was sliding around a little bit but it made it out here so what i've been doing is just kind of going down this hill that i usually test the all-wheel drive vehicles on to see if they can go up it and so i've been just trying to pack down the snow on it so we can actually test it out and try and go up and over it conditions are pretty bad and this is on all season tires so i don't imagine it ever actually getting over it if i come to a stop on it it'll even start to slide down so that means the tires can't even hold it with the brakes all applied so in that case i mean you know it's it's not looking good for it to actually get over it but i think with a little momentum we'll be able to do it so just to demonstrate that here if i come to a stop so i did stop on it and then now it's just kind of sliding down so it's a pretty steep incline and covered in snow which has gotten starting to get packed down but the all-wheel drive system in this vehicle is pretty cool and so right now we are in snow mode there's four modes here we've got all-wheel drive auto and so that of course lets the computers do all the work it optimizes traction based on the different sensors throughout the vehicle but we've got it in snow and so what snow does is it puts sixty percent of the torque to the front tires forty percent of the torque to the rear tires and it really tries to eliminate slip so when you start to have wheel slip uh you know that's not good on snow and so this is for loose surfaces and it'll try to eliminate that and i've also put it down into a four wheel drive low mode and so this is with the jeep active drive 2 you add on the four wheel drive low mode and what that does is it gives you a 2.92 gear reduction giving you a crawl ratio of 47.821 with the v6 engine uh 56 to 1 i believe with the inline four-cylinder engine so you can get a lot of torque great for towing or you know off-road situations where you're kind of just crawling along like we're doing right now now you may hear the brakes kick in when i am going around the corner and trying to accelerate or trying to accelerate up a hill and what that is is the brake lock differential and so what it's doing is it's trying to eliminate wheel slip there in order to send more torque to the other wheel so if one wheel starts to spin and you've got an open differential you're sending basically no torque to either wheel and you can lock up that spinning wheel and that allows you to send more torque to the wheel that actually has traction so you may hear the brakes kicking in there i didn't notice that in the rav4 i don't know if it actually has a feature or not but it seems to work pretty well on this i mean you will definitely hear it but that's kind of a good thing you want to you know know that it's actually working and it's actually helping you out and accelerate over this now there is also a sport mode and so when you put it into sport mode what it does is it sends sixty percent of the torque to the rear and forty percent of the torque up front and so you get a little rear bias um you know a little bit sportier acceleration and a little bit sportier handling you're gonna actually have slightly quicker shifts as well so it's going to kind of change up a few things when you do put it into that sport mode and then finally there is a sand and mud mode and in sand and mud the important thing is to maintain momentum because once you stop you'll basically just bury yourself and so what sand and mud does is it allows for wheel slip so it kind of you know it gets a little looser with the traction control system to allow for wheel slip because you want to maintain momentum and if you have the throttle getting killed from traction control or the wheels getting break from traction control you're going to slow yourself down out in the mud and then you're going to end up getting yourself stuck so that's ideally set up for you to be able to maintain momentum and then the snow mode is all about you know traveling really slow and really loose surfaces and making sure that you don't have wheel slip so that you can accelerate across it and of course use those braking differentials open differential but you use the brakes in order to send more torque to the wheel with more traction now the jeep trailhawk actually has a locking rear differential this doesn't have the locking rear so that is one benefit and also has all-terrain tires as standard whereas this is on all season tires which as you can see slide down that hill actually i was having a hard time just standing on that hill i was walking up it and i've got these like snow boots on and i was having a trouble just walking up it so honestly it's really steep really slick and very challenging to go up all right so the moment we've been waiting for can it make it over the hill and one of the things i didn't mention when you put it in sand or mud mode it can put up to 100 of the torque to the rear axle so it's capable of disconnecting the rear axle meaning 100 of the torque to the front and it's capable of sending all of that torque to the back so it can send the torque to the axle with the most grip i've got it in snow here which is a 60 40 front rear split in four wheel drive low traction control is in this disabled mode uh but it does use that brake lock differential so first we're going to try creeping up over this hill which i do not anticipate working out the tires aren't going to be able to do it and you know the conditions are just super slick so this is probably unfair in comparison it definitely is unfair in comparison to the other tests i've done and there you can see uh getting stuck as soon as it starts to go up oh actually it's it's gripping and going up a little bit wow wow well i'm impressed honestly that it even got that far using those brake differentials um started to go up the hill and you you could see in here uh it would start to spin and then it would lock that up send more torque to the other side that's actually pretty cool you know these conditions are super unideal i'm going to put it into drive i'm going to give it a little speed and see how it does with some speed trying to get over oh we're just spinning come on and we are so close but it doesn't feel like it's going to be able to get over there some smoke from our exhaust all right so i'm going to give it as much speed as i can get and we are going to get over that hill because i believe in this vehicle it's honestly pretty impressive yeah we did it all right pretty impressive honestly like these conditions are terrible and the fact that it can even get over that hill even with you know a good amount of momentum is impressive it's got two open differentials to deal with and all season tires so it's got a lot working against it and yet the all-wheel drive system has the intelligence to figure it out and get you over the hill so pretty impressive overall i do want to try out putting it in sand mode and seeing if that helps at all just by the fact that it can send more torque to the rear axle and see how that does so we'll put it in neutral pop it over into sand mode all right back up a little bit and all right with a little bit of momentum nope it is not going to go over there um so what if we put it into snow mode now nope it just doesn't have the traction okay well put it in reverse go back down our hill so i'm going to put it in sand and mud mode and give it a little bit more speed and try and get over this hill all right nicely done very cool overall i really have enjoyed driving it you know it's got plenty of power it's got a solid all-wheel drive system like i said before you know if i had been in the rav4 this week instead of this jeep i wouldn't have even gotten out here and i wouldn't have done an off-road test uh because it just didn't have the ground clearance the all-wheel drive system wasn't quite as good as this uh so you know it's been fun to drive this thing and you know it's certainly not the the most practical for some of the aspects it doesn't have as much cargo space as its competitors and the fuel economy isn't quite there but you know if you need the power if you need the towing capability 4 500 pounds that's quite a bit and you need the ability to go off the beaten path and actually get where you're going this is certainly a vehicle that's capable of it so thank you guys for watching and if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave those belowhello everyone and welcome in this video we are checking out the 2016 jeep cherokee now usually i'd go into a long spiel about the different trims in all aspects of the car but this is a jeep and as the advertising suggests we need to get some off-road testing in the jeep cherokee latitude that we're in has all-wheel drive and a 3.2 liter v6 producing 271 horsepower and 239 pound-feet of torque weighing in at over 4000 pounds it's not the most fuel-efficient suv in its segment with 19 mpg city and 26 mpg highway but it's certainly one of the most potent and has a class leading 4 500 pounds of towing capacity considering the size of the engine and the weight of the vehicle the fuel economy story isn't too bad thanks in part to a 9 speed automatic transmission very similar to the unit used in the chrysler 200. as far as practicality rear leg room is sufficient however cargo space is a bit low for this segment as much as 20 cubic feet less than some of its direct competitors with the seats folded and only four more cubic feet than the smaller jeep renegade but enough about practicality let's talk about the many off-road features and today is actually probably one of the worst days i could be possibly testing a all-wheel drive vehicle but luckily i am in this jeep i will say you know last week i was in the toyota rav4 and had i been in the ram for this week i know for a fact i wouldn't have actually come out here just doesn't have the clearance to get out here and the all-wheel drive system wasn't quite as good this has been able i've actually carved a new path out in the snow here no one has been driving out here uh because the snow's gotten really deep and i didn't have a problem getting out here sure it was sliding around a little bit but it made it out here so what i've been doing is just kind of going down this hill that i usually test the all-wheel drive vehicles on to see if they can go up it and so i've been just trying to pack down the snow on it so we can actually test it out and try and go up and over it conditions are pretty bad and this is on all season tires so i don't imagine it ever actually getting over it if i come to a stop on it it'll even start to slide down so that means the tires can't even hold it with the brakes all applied so in that case i mean you know it's it's not looking good for it to actually get over it but i think with a little momentum we'll be able to do it so just to demonstrate that here if i come to a stop so i did stop on it and then now it's just kind of sliding down so it's a pretty steep incline and covered in snow which has gotten starting to get packed down but the all-wheel drive system in this vehicle is pretty cool and so right now we are in snow mode there's four modes here we've got all-wheel drive auto and so that of course lets the computers do all the work it optimizes traction based on the different sensors throughout the vehicle but we've got it in snow and so what snow does is it puts sixty percent of the torque to the front tires forty percent of the torque to the rear tires and it really tries to eliminate slip so when you start to have wheel slip uh you know that's not good on snow and so this is for loose surfaces and it'll try to eliminate that and i've also put it down into a four wheel drive low mode and so this is with the jeep active drive 2 you add on the four wheel drive low mode and what that does is it gives you a 2.92 gear reduction giving you a crawl ratio of 47.821 with the v6 engine uh 56 to 1 i believe with the inline four-cylinder engine so you can get a lot of torque great for towing or you know off-road situations where you're kind of just crawling along like we're doing right now now you may hear the brakes kick in when i am going around the corner and trying to accelerate or trying to accelerate up a hill and what that is is the brake lock differential and so what it's doing is it's trying to eliminate wheel slip there in order to send more torque to the other wheel so if one wheel starts to spin and you've got an open differential you're sending basically no torque to either wheel and you can lock up that spinning wheel and that allows you to send more torque to the wheel that actually has traction so you may hear the brakes kicking in there i didn't notice that in the rav4 i don't know if it actually has a feature or not but it seems to work pretty well on this i mean you will definitely hear it but that's kind of a good thing you want to you know know that it's actually working and it's actually helping you out and accelerate over this now there is also a sport mode and so when you put it into sport mode what it does is it sends sixty percent of the torque to the rear and forty percent of the torque up front and so you get a little rear bias um you know a little bit sportier acceleration and a little bit sportier handling you're gonna actually have slightly quicker shifts as well so it's going to kind of change up a few things when you do put it into that sport mode and then finally there is a sand and mud mode and in sand and mud the important thing is to maintain momentum because once you stop you'll basically just bury yourself and so what sand and mud does is it allows for wheel slip so it kind of you know it gets a little looser with the traction control system to allow for wheel slip because you want to maintain momentum and if you have the throttle getting killed from traction control or the wheels getting break from traction control you're going to slow yourself down out in the mud and then you're going to end up getting yourself stuck so that's ideally set up for you to be able to maintain momentum and then the snow mode is all about you know traveling really slow and really loose surfaces and making sure that you don't have wheel slip so that you can accelerate across it and of course use those braking differentials open differential but you use the brakes in order to send more torque to the wheel with more traction now the jeep trailhawk actually has a locking rear differential this doesn't have the locking rear so that is one benefit and also has all-terrain tires as standard whereas this is on all season tires which as you can see slide down that hill actually i was having a hard time just standing on that hill i was walking up it and i've got these like snow boots on and i was having a trouble just walking up it so honestly it's really steep really slick and very challenging to go up all right so the moment we've been waiting for can it make it over the hill and one of the things i didn't mention when you put it in sand or mud mode it can put up to 100 of the torque to the rear axle so it's capable of disconnecting the rear axle meaning 100 of the torque to the front and it's capable of sending all of that torque to the back so it can send the torque to the axle with the most grip i've got it in snow here which is a 60 40 front rear split in four wheel drive low traction control is in this disabled mode uh but it does use that brake lock differential so first we're going to try creeping up over this hill which i do not anticipate working out the tires aren't going to be able to do it and you know the conditions are just super slick so this is probably unfair in comparison it definitely is unfair in comparison to the other tests i've done and there you can see uh getting stuck as soon as it starts to go up oh actually it's it's gripping and going up a little bit wow wow well i'm impressed honestly that it even got that far using those brake differentials um started to go up the hill and you you could see in here uh it would start to spin and then it would lock that up send more torque to the other side that's actually pretty cool you know these conditions are super unideal i'm going to put it into drive i'm going to give it a little speed and see how it does with some speed trying to get over oh we're just spinning come on and we are so close but it doesn't feel like it's going to be able to get over there some smoke from our exhaust all right so i'm going to give it as much speed as i can get and we are going to get over that hill because i believe in this vehicle it's honestly pretty impressive yeah we did it all right pretty impressive honestly like these conditions are terrible and the fact that it can even get over that hill even with you know a good amount of momentum is impressive it's got two open differentials to deal with and all season tires so it's got a lot working against it and yet the all-wheel drive system has the intelligence to figure it out and get you over the hill so pretty impressive overall i do want to try out putting it in sand mode and seeing if that helps at all just by the fact that it can send more torque to the rear axle and see how that does so we'll put it in neutral pop it over into sand mode all right back up a little bit and all right with a little bit of momentum nope it is not going to go over there um so what if we put it into snow mode now nope it just doesn't have the traction okay well put it in reverse go back down our hill so i'm going to put it in sand and mud mode and give it a little bit more speed and try and get over this hill all right nicely done very cool overall i really have enjoyed driving it you know it's got plenty of power it's got a solid all-wheel drive system like i said before you know if i had been in the rav4 this week instead of this jeep i wouldn't have even gotten out here and i wouldn't have done an off-road test uh because it just didn't have the ground clearance the all-wheel drive system wasn't quite as good as this uh so you know it's been fun to drive this thing and you know it's certainly not the the most practical for some of the aspects it doesn't have as much cargo space as its competitors and the fuel economy isn't quite there but you know if you need the power if you need the towing capability 4 500 pounds that's quite a bit and you need the ability to go off the beaten path and actually get where you're going this is certainly a vehicle that's capable of it so thank you guys for watching and if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave those below\n"