Considering purchasing a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee

[Roadkill]

I LOVE seat ventilation

Yes. This is one reason that the comparison is between a 4Runner Limited and a JGC.

I mean how often are you going to take a GX470 through muddy hills, sliding all over the place, getting in and out to help others while caked in mud and rain? Those nice leather seats with all their little pores for the seat ventilation, and their motors and greasy under carriages getting covered in wet crap, that sounds like a recipe for job security (for me at least. )

Right, but it's more than just on the trail. A Lexus or an MB just seems to "want" to be parked out all by itself at the far end of the lot to prevent dings, etc. I doubt I want to deal with that kind of concern.

god forbid he gets a spec of mud on his 50k+ CUV interior!

Strange. Presumably such a person would be much more laid back about getting trail stripes on a brand-new 40k+ 4Runner Limited? On the other hand, once any vehicle is 10 years old I doubt many people are still treating it with kid gloves.

it just boils down to what you need out of your SUV; reliability & capability off-road vs. over compensation of gadgets and luxury to make up for limited capability and possibly poor reliability (in the case of ChryCorp/BMW products)

True. This becomes a matter of which I would rather make excuses about regarding a rather expensive vehicle purchase: a lack of features (certain) or a lack of reliability (probable).

Quite a dilemma.

How long do you plan on keeping it?

My friend purchased one against my suggestion. It's two years old, and is waiting on a tranny for a second time, and Jeep will not provide a loaner while he waits.

I plan to keep whichever vehicle I select for 10+ years. It sucks that your friend was not offered a loaner. Do I infer correctly from your comment that getting a free loaner vehicle is a benefit offered for all Toyota warranty service?

 

[1engineer]

The 2014 summit diesel stickers at over $56,000. That is Lexus GX money, and they have most of the gizmos too.

The Mercedes influence is obvious in the grand cherokee but it has strayed far away from what once was a solid axle, capable, affordable off road SUV.

Reading this forum one would think all toyotas don't require a factory warranty and toyota dealerships don't have service departments because no toyota ever fails and nothing ever breaks...also no jeep has ever made it to 10k miles. Lol

It is not my money but if you want a big luxury car with a hatchback get the grand cherokee...

Do me a favor dude:
Read all the issues on the 4Runner on this board, then read all the issues on the JGC on their board. I think the worst that's happened to a 5th gen here is a throttle body or a PS pump. That's in almost 4 years! So what is reliability and durability worth not to mention resale? A shitload donkey.
Regards, Shrek.

 

[1engineer]

OP after reading your above posts please get the JGC. The statements you made prove you are either 18 or have no inkling of how much reliability or durability is worth.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Strange. Presumably such a person would be much more laid back about getting trail stripes on a brand-new 40k+ 4Runner Limited? On the other hand, once any vehicle is 10 years old I doubt many people are still treating it with kid gloves.

I thought about getting a 5th gen, the styling stuck with me and I love the exterior blocky/rounded look; the insides just were up to my standard. If Toyota had been smart when they made the 5th Gen and threw in the 1UR-FE I would have bought one vs. the 4th Gen I got; instead they shoved a 2.7L under the hood for a year and a half and realized they made a mistake and just left the 1GR-FE as the only option (not a bad engine, but I had an old S10 Blazer with a horrible 4.3L V6 that made me swear I would never buy a mid-sized or larger truck and/or SUV with less than 8 cylinders.)

Either way I still would have thrown a bumper, lift kit, and continued the same path I am going with the 4th gen down to the pin striping; because its why I bought my vehicle, to take off-roading and do what other so called SUVs can't. Would I feel a little skittish about scratching the paint on my new 40k SUV had I bought a Trail Edition? Sure, hell I felt a little bummed when I got my first set of pin striping on the 4th gen on her first outing; but I knew what I was getting into and have no one to blame but myself. If pin striping is the damage I suffer for my off-roading, then I am doing pretty damn good I think.

As for the other large reason I decided to pass on the 5th gen was interior comfort, it just not as comfortable as my 4th gen. That's not to say its an uncomfortable vehicle in general. Just that everything is just "a little off" everything I reach for, rest on, ect feels just a little too far away, a little too high, too low, and/or not in the right place. Toyota went with a sort of Tundra/Tacoma/FJ Cruiser hydrid interior that kind of works and doesn't work in my honest opinion.

One example that always bothers me every time I get in one is the window sill height. I drive all my vehicles with the seat as far down as it goes, I like to feel centered in my vehicle, not like I'm in a booster seat; in the 5th gen I cannot comfortably rest my left arm on the window sill for long periods of time and use my left hand to steer the vehicle. The angle is actually a hair over 90* and it actually becomes uncomfortable after a few minutes or so, the window switches are all on the sill which makes me feel like I'm either going to drown it in rain/mud/dirt when I drive with the window down; also they just don't feel comfortable to reach out to. Granted it took me some getting used to with the 4th gen because they put the switches a little lower than felt comfortable as well. Also I like to adjust my seat so that my foot can rest flat on the footrest on the left hand side, when I do that in the 5th gen the steering wheel feels too close even when pushed as far in as it goes. Again, its not as bad as some cars where I feel like a little old lady; but just enough to feel "off." The 5th gen is a good SUV, its got neat looks, great reliability, and great capability; it just fell short in my eyes in the interior department and engine offering.

Now I haven't had a new JGC come through the dealership to test drive yet, the newest was what ever the previous generation was before this one. But if its anything like those, than I won't be impressed, it takes more than fancy leather seats and ass coolers to get me to buy a truck. Not to mention my job is to inspect and repair used cars at the dealership, so over the years I have a good cross section of what brands one should not touch with a 10ft pole, and ChryCorp is definitely one of them.

 

[Roadkill]

Not to mention my job is to inspect and repair used cars at the dealership, so over the years I have a good cross section of what brands one should not touch with a 10ft pole, and ChryCorp is definitely one of them.

Thank you for your insights and reasoned responses. This is a good data point.

OP after reading your above posts please get the JGC. The statements you made prove you are either 18 or have no inkling of how much reliability or durability is worth.

Ah, what a shame to hear this coming from you. I expected more rationality, calculated response, collegiality, and absence of ad hominem from a fellow engineer. If this is reflective of how you handle technical debates at work I doubt I would wish to be part of your team.

I guess it just goes to show that merely obtaining a degree does not make one worthy of respect; respect is earned or lost through interactions with others.

Or, to put it another way, "Bite me?" (haha)

FWIW, I have been reading the truedelta information you suggested. Suffice it to say that I did not post this agitating topic to troll but rather to elicit any data/feedback that I may have overlooked in my initial research.

Again, thanks to everyone who has responded with constructive data & feedback.

 

[Donkey]

Do me a favor dude:
Read all the issues on the 4Runner on this board, then read all the issues on the JGC on their board. I think the worst that's happened to a 5th gen here is a throttle body or a PS pump. That's in almost 4 years! So what is reliability and durability worth not to mention resale? A shitload donkey.
Regards, Shrek.

Ok, dude. Jeez you toyota people are so thin skinned. If you base vehicle reliability on posted problems on an Internet forum...you are more intelligent than this. Even a toyota can break, have a very public recall of nearly every vehicle, produce entire series of engines that sludge to death, replace every valve train for entire model years AND believe it or not corporate does issue service bulletins! They even buy back lemon law cars. Oh the horror.

I've owned two grand cherokees and two wranglers. Covered hundreds of thousands of trouble free miles, was never stranded and sure a few things broke or wore out. Oh and jeep engines and transmissions are not water proof either. No better or worse (ford excluded) than any other vehicle. Perhaps I was just lucky, I expect my first toyota will be no different.

Resale value may be important to some and 4runners offer insane resale value. You don't even have to be an engineer to figure that one out.

 

[1engineer]

Thank you for your insights and reasoned responses. This is a good data point.



Ah, what a shame to hear this coming from you. I expected more rationality, calculated response, collegiality, and absence of ad hominem from a fellow engineer. If this is reflective of how you handle technical debates at work I doubt I would wish to be part of your team.

I guess it just goes to show that merely obtaining a degree does not make one worthy of respect; respect is earned or lost through interactions with others.

Or, to put it another way, "Bite me?" (haha)





FWIW, I have been reading the truedelta information you suggested. Suffice it to say that I did not post this agitating topic to troll but rather to elicit any data/feedback that I may have overlooked in my initial research.

Again, thanks to everyone who has responded with constructive data & feedback.

As I posted to another guy recently, read a few hundred of my posts then judge.
My first post to you was to give you info. After reading you additional posts I knew you were a troll. Buy the jeep. Good luck.

Ok, dude. Jeez you toyota people are so thin skinned. If you base vehicle reliability on posted problems on an Internet forum...you are more intelligent than this. Even a toyota can break, have a very public recall of nearly every vehicle, produce entire series of engines that sludge to death, replace every valve train for entire model years AND believe it or not corporate does issue service bulletins! They even buy back lemon law cars. Oh the horror.

I've owned two grand cherokees and two wranglers. Covered hundreds of thousands of trouble free miles, was never stranded and sure a few things broke or wore out. Oh and jeep engines and transmissions are not water proof either. No better or worse (ford excluded) than any other vehicle. Perhaps I was just lucky, I expect my first toyota will be no different.

Resale value may be important to some and 4runners offer insane resale value. You don't even have to be an engineer to figure that one out.

You are a lucky one then. Different business models between Toyota and Jeep.

 

[phillyd2]

Ok, dude. Jeez you toyota people are so thin skinned..

Dude, why don't you stop now and move along? Duh, this is a 4Runner Forum! And at the end of the day none of us really gives a crap what you or anybody else buys or likes. Guy asked a question and members here politely answered.

And btw, its against the laws of the known universe to get ones panties in a bunch while at the same time crying like a girl about others being thin skinned.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Ok, dude. Jeez you toyota people are so thin skinned. If you base vehicle reliability on posted problems on an Internet forum...you are more intelligent than this. Even a toyota can break, have a very public recall of nearly every vehicle, produce entire series of engines that sludge to death, replace every valve train for entire model years AND believe it or not corporate does issue service bulletins! They even buy back lemon law cars. Oh the horror.

I've owned two grand cherokees and two wranglers. Covered hundreds of thousands of trouble free miles, was never stranded and sure a few things broke or wore out. Oh and jeep engines and transmissions are not water proof either. No better or worse (ford excluded) than any other vehicle. Perhaps I was just lucky, I expect my first toyota will be no different.

Resale value may be important to some and 4runners offer insane resale value. You don't even have to be an engineer to figure that one out.

I believe what 1Engineer is referring to is what I call the "fraction of a fraction" effect. These types of forums usually only contain enthusiasts who actually take care of their vehicles for the most part and are active in the upkeep of their vehicles, so lets say we make up maybe 10~15% of all owners of a specific vehicle/brand. Out of that small slice of pie we see about 30-ish% re-occurring issues. So throwing in a rough guess that the other 90~85% is seeing the same rough slice of pie, that's a large section of owners over all.

For example, We maybe have about 5~10 posts total regarding 1GR-FE cylinderhead gasket issues on the T4R.org where they have actually failed and the owner has had to have them replaced. Toyota does not have a TSB, warranty, recall, or anything other than a superceeded part number. This problem is also known in Tacomas and FJ Cruisers as well. So from looking on the forum it looks like it might be pretty serious, but in reality its a very small subset of owners, compared to say seizing caliper issues.

Now go check out a Jeep forum, or any of the Hemi Equipped vehicles and there are NUMEROUS threads about consistently occurring issues. I've got one 5.7L with a dropped valve seat the others about to fall out and another 5.7L on the lot doing the exact same thing the other did before it dropped a valve seat. The worst part is that it is not as uncommon as I had originally thought and it spans not one or two years, but almost 7+ years, yet I haven't noticed a TSB, Recall, or even whisper from ChryCorp. Not to mention I have personally dealt with these issues, have had customers and fellow shops I know personally struggled and ultimately failed to have ChryCorp admit their fault. They consistently built bad products, have consistently had bad customer support, and consistently have not changed their habit of blaming others. How about the 3.7L V6's that have a TSB for sticking valves for only '07+ when it affects consistently as early as '05?

For ****'s sake their fix to exploding plastic intakes on one of their engines due to backfires was to put a sticker that says "do not operate with the hood open, may result in harm and/or death" instead of actually fixing the car. That's a wonderful solution! The families of mechanics that were harmed and/or killed will be very grateful! Or how about Dodge Durango's losing a wheel on the freeway due to a bad bearing? I don't remember seeing too much of a recall on those, maybe a TSB?...

There is a reason Chrysler is called Fiat, period. GM survived with the same hand-out ChryCorp got, Ford managed to actually make money off the Government and yet ChryCorp was so consistently bad that MB was trying to dump them since '07 and the Government hand-out couldn't save them. Its not about being thin-skinned, its about looking at the facts.

Look Toyota is far from perfect, I personally think Toyota is going in a wrong direction with their new very strict warranty policies and some cost cutting. I think they are letting their standard of quality just hover above the rest, they are overcharging and decontenting vehicles trying to compete with Kia/Hyundai and its going to bite them in the ass and tarnish their reputation in the long run. But they are by far consistently better than most any ChryCorp product made since the last Challenger.

Sorry to sound ranty/soap boxy, but there's just no justification for poor products, poor management, and most of all poor customer service. Chrysler's just the poster child, but at least Toyota DID buy back their sludge motors and did try and fix them; other brands had similar sludge issues in some of their motors and they weren't nearly as friendly as Toyota was. Toyota's not the god send of manufacturers, but they have been able to consistently create a good product and maintain good customer service for when they did mess up... for the most part. After all, people will buy a '97 Toyota Corolla for a couple grand with 200k+ all day long, how many people will touch a Dodge Neon with that many miles; if it makes it that long? My friend's '98 Corolla somehow manages to get 20+mpg with 31psi running compression at 300k+

 

[Donkey]

Dude, why don't you stop now and move along? Duh, this is a 4Runner Forum! And at the end of the day none of us really gives a crap what you or anybody else buys or likes. Guy asked a question and members here politely answered.

And btw, its against the laws of the known universe to get ones panties in a bunch while at the same time crying like a girl about others being thin skinned.

Thanks for the feedback, dude!

 

[Jayhawk5G]

You said you plan on keeping this vehicle 10 + years, based on that statement I would not got Jeep. My last vehicle was an 05' Grand Cherokee Limited with 5.7 and while there are things I loved about it, it had a lot of small nagging reliability issues.

Don't let people throw you off, a JGC with 5.7 or diesel and Quadra Drive 2 4x4 with front and rear electronic lockers is going everywhere a 4Runner does... It's just not going to go to those places for as long or with as few problems.

The 14' 4Runner also has a multi information screen now in between the speedo and tach, I think it will display tire pressure.

 

[philsey]

[MENTION=80857]Roadkill[/MENTION]. OK, I just re-read the entire thread. You remind me of my engineer brother (I wish I were half as smart) who takes 30 days to make a 3 day decision. I’d love to see your comparison tables – I’ll bet each feature is numerically weighted to three decimal places.

Your WANT-side (Jeep), is battling your LOGIC-side (4R), and your big engineer brain is locked up.

Try this: Imagine each vehicle purchased without any factory warrantee, e.g. all repairs and downtime are on you. (Flawed, I know, but you’re in a detail rut Man).

10 years you said? I don’t believe that! If that were true, this would have been over in 3 hours.

 

[limamike]

Do me a favor dude:
Read all the issues on the 4Runner on this board, then read all the issues on the JGC on their board. I think the worst that's happened to a 5th gen here is a throttle body or a PS pump. That's in almost 4 years! So what is reliability and durability worth not to mention resale? A shitload donkey.
Regards, Shrek.

By the way, the power steering pump failed due to installation of aftermarket parts.

 

[Roadkill]

You remind me of my engineer brother who takes 30 days to make a 3 day decision.

You made my wife laugh. No... that, uh, does not describe me at all. (*cough*)

10 years you said? I don’t believe that! If that were true, this would have been over in 3 hours.

Yes, I really do need to gauge the risks. I have one friend who has owned a mid-2000's Cherokee for 6 years and he has had about the same number of issues with it as I have had with my Camry over a similar period when it was the same age (a minor, acceptable amount totaling less than $500). I understand that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data", but I also need to estimate the odds of substantive issues.

As others have noted in this thread, it's hard to get a good sampling from any enthusiast forum. For example, if you read the FJ forums you would assume that the fender bulge/body crack issue is endemic. If you read here, what percentage of owners would you believe have had nigh-uncorrectable, pernicious tire balance issues causing vibration at highway speeds? Add in the individual horror stories about one-off issues, and it rapidly devolves to the scenario from this XKCD comic strip.

Before everyone piles on about qualitative comparison of horror stories at different forums, I do get it. I refer you to the "cons" cited in my original post.

No doubt the best course of action is to wait for the 2014 4Runner Limiteds to be officially revealed/ship and go see one in person.

 

[philsey]

[MENTION=80857]Roadkill[/MENTION]. . I’d love to see your comparison tables – I’ll bet each feature is numerically weighted to three decimal places.
.

..... and this?

 

[Roadkill]

..... and this?

I neither confirm nor deny the existence of any spreadsheet related to this analysis.

Haha.

 

[philsey]

....
No doubt the best course of action is to wait for the 2014 4Runner Limiteds to be officially revealed/ship and go see one in person.

Oh crap, we'll have to go all through this again?
.
.
.
BTW, love yer avatar, reminds me of this:

 

[dorton]

Yes, I really do need to gauge the risks. I have one friend who has owned a mid-2000's Cherokee for 6 years and he has had about the same number of issues with it as I have had with my Camry over a similar period when it was the same age (a minor, acceptable amount totaling less than $500). I understand that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data", but I also need to estimate the odds of substantive issues.
.

I've come to realize, most domestic owners tend to omit certain things when it comes to their "trouble free" vehicles. I had such a conversation recently with a Chevrolet ZR2 pickup owner, who said he'd never had to do anything to it. I replied with a "congratulations, most had heater coils, and intake manifold leaks, and other issues". He reluctantly agreed that he had had those too. The farther the conversation lead, it was revealed he had to have both sides upper and lower door hinges replaced, transmission, and fuel pump. That's not what I call trouble free.

 

[Ivy Mike]

Putting economics of getting rid of a newish 4runner aside, go get it....on a lease. You can buy it at the end if you think it's the right car for a long term relationship. If I want Jeep headaches again, I'll go get another Wrangler.

 

[bigbillyt]

It all comes down to how you feel when you drive it

I have no real brand preference to Toyota vs. Jeep. I have a lot more experience with Toyota and it has been mostly positive. We had a 1998 4Runner with the 4 cylinder engine and other than a bit of a stiff suspension it was an awesome vehicle with amazing gas mileage. It made it from Florida to Seattle and had no issues going over mountain passes loaded with our stuff. We actually traded it in Seattle for a loaded Jeep GC limited and that was also a great vehicle that we kept for many years. We loved the V8 power and had no real mechanical or electrical problems, just normal maintenance. After that I had a Tacoma that I loved until I got tired of the manual shifting. That got traded for one of the early models of the Tundra which had some bad electrical problems. Then I went to driving XTerras for a number of years. When I was shopping for this latest vehicle it came down to the 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee with the off road package and the 4Runnner Trail. I could have saved about 3k on the Jeep, which may have offset any quality, reliability and resale issues to some extent. I really liked a lot of the features on the Jeep too. For me it came down to the simple fact that the Jeep made me feel older and stodgier when I drove it. It just didn't "fit" me and my personality. Of course this is subjective, but to me it is one of the most important things for a daily driver. Just my 7 cents (adjusted for inflation).