You may recall that a couple of years ago there was a mild brouhaha when Sweden’s Teknikens Värld said that the 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee failed the publication’s “moose test” in a dangerous manner, almost rolling over when performing the accident avoidance maneuver. At speeds as low as 37.9 mph (61 kmh) the ’12 Grand Cherokee lifted its inside wheels without any intervention by the vehicle’s electronic stability and anti-rollover systems. Since then, the Grand Cherokee has been completely redesigned and as part of a comparison test of the Jeep Grand Cherokee 3.0 CRD, the BMW X5 and the Range Rover Sport for their February 2014 issue, Teknikens Värld put the 2014 JGC through their moose test. They were “delighted” to report that the new Grand Cherokee, loaded according to its Swedish certificate of registration (6,501 lbs), passed the test with flying colors, “a perfect result for a big car” is how they described the test. The video won’t embed here so you’ll have to visit the Teknikens Värld website to check out how the 2014 edition of the SUV’s nannies keep all four wheels on the ground.
The magazine reports that the traction control system on the ’14 JGC is activated early and reacts aggressively, slowing the car dramatically even at a low corner entry speed of 61 kmh. At higher speeds the system works even more proactively. The highest speed at which the ’14 JGC passed the moose test was 71 kmh (44.1 mph), which Teknikens Värld calls “a good result for a SUV”. Actually, in the video they say that it was a “perfect result” for a large vehicle.
The 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee failing Teknikens Värld’s moose test.
When the 2012 Grand Cherokee failed the moose test, the video went viral with millions of views. In part that was due to the dramatic failure mode, we don’t often see cars on two wheels outside of daredevil shows. No doubt, also, the cervine moniker had something to do with it as well. Moose are inherently funny and attention getting. Jay Ward certainly knew that. Teknikens Värld did the right thing and issued a press release specifically about the new Grand Cherokee’s passing the moose test with flying colors, but I doubt the new video will get as much attention as the old one.
Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS
Last picture: is that the rear wheel rim kissing the pavement? Whoa.
Any idea if Chrysler recalibrated models only bound for Sweden? Or was this a global change? I would imagine it is the latter.
Good news! If you don’t understand physics, and insist on driving a heavy, tall SUV-derivative like it was a car with a significantly lower COG, it will now try harder to save you.
Bad News! Due to all the revisions of the Grand Cherokee you can now dodge a moose at 40MPH but probably cant even clear a curb and most of it’s off road capabillities have been nutered. Might as well make it a front drive wanna bee like most other SUV’s nowadays. GOOD BAD JOB JEEP!!!
An important note about the moose test that produced the video of the vehicle on 2 wheels. After that test there were allegations that the vehicle they tested was actually overloaded beyond it’s weight capacity. German magazine Auto motor und sport subsequently reproduced the stardardized moose test 11 times and found no fault with the same model 2012 JGC.
I remember there was some sort of discrepancy between the payload numbers given to the Swedish testers and the ones Chrysler expected.
Either way, the claims were that the ’12 used in the test was overloaded by 110 lbs. IIRC, that’s about 7% overweight. Obviously running over specs is a bad choice, but is that the usual margin engineered in between “totally safe” and “on two wheels”?
With *insanely* variable numbers, factors of safety range between 1.25-20 (think aircraft parts vs a boiler).
“Payload” vs “Payload that would statically break the car”* would probably have a factor of safety of several dozen, at the very least.
7% overload, while technically overloaded, should absolutely be expected by Chrysler.
*Static vs dynamic loadings are insanely different. I kind of cherry-picked my terminology to make a point.
Fearless Leader will applaud your reference to Moose and Squirrel.
“Is always moose and squirrel.”
http://www.wavsource.com/snds_2013-12-29_4910247632491694/tv/bullwinkle/moose_and_squirrel.wav
No, really! It was a very big moose!
A moose once bit my sister.
Where?
Old Monty Python and the Holy Grail joke, which el scotto was channeling.
Mind you, moose bites can be pretty nasti…
As one who lives in moose country and has been WAY to up close and personal with the damned things, the is nothing funny at all about moose.
One of the main reasons I got rid of my ’02 Grand Cherokee was its extremely poor roadholding ability. Unpleasant to drive, and likely dangerous in an emergency.
My closest encounter with a moose was rounding a bend on the Appalachian Gap at around midnight on my motorcycle. I stopped about 20 yards from him on a steep incline, he was standing in the middle of the road. Since he had not taken notice of me I gunned it eased out the clutch and scooted around him.
I’d been out terrorizing cans, paper plates, and anything else that looked good in the scope on my tube fed Marlin .22LR near Idaho Falls. I sat down next to a spring and shot the heads off some cattails (took two shots per head). Then I heard a WHUFFF! and the spongy ground hopped to the stomp of the bull moose that nosed out of the woods on the run. I stood up, tried to figure out if I’d be better off shooting it or hitting it with the butt… Thank goodness the beast stepped back when I did. I was not liking my odds. Umm, the lifted YO my friend had driven me out there in was on 37’s and would have rolled for sure in a moose test, even though it weighed about half what a JGC does these days (’87ish and the truck was older). Moose are big.
BUT CAN IT PASS MY TESTS???
youtube.com/watch?v=TyHkjtPsXiM
Big trucks, 100mph on BUSY public roadways while filming? I do not like you. I do not like your brand of public endangerment.
Here’s to hoping that when you crash, it’s away from other people who shouldn’t have to share the consequences of your recklessness.
But everyone was speeding. All of them were above legal limits. I don’t normally drive that way.
Normally, you go much faster I imagine :)
To tell you the truth, I take very few chances and keep wide following distances so I can prevent myself rear ending someone and my insurance going up.
When I got a brand new car years ago, I got rearended by a teenaged texter. I lost value on my trade in.
My theory is that if I stay far enough ahead of everyone else- they can’t possibly involve me in their accidents.
By the way- there were TWO OF US. I was not always holding the camera.
youtu.be/yuk3V8s_w2c
And your two biggest concerns are losing value on your trade in and having your insurance rates increase?
Reckless public endangerment indeed.
TTAC, please disallow that video on this blog. I trust we don’t have to spell out why.
The second one was in an empty lot.
This is NOT COOL!
Your on the Southern State Parkway doing 100+ in the middle of the day. You’re out of your mind!
I drive this road every day and I have 2 little kids in my car most of the time. Guys like you really get me angry, especially when you take people gong to work out when you loose it.
Did you get the memo that they made race tracks for this sort of thing. You have Pocono, and NJ motorsports park within 3 hours. Monticello is about 2 hours from Islip.
Come on man.
Point taken.
Remember AfroDuck?:
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Driver-Arrested-Manhattan-Lap-Internet-Video-222655351.html
Looks like you’ve already gotten enough fingers pointed at you, but hell, why not one more? You’re an ass driving like that around other people. It’s not your insurance rates you should worry about, it’s killing someone or at least messing up their ride and their day. Plus you glamorize it for other idiots on YouTube.
Note to self…speeding in a car makes people who visit an auto fan site angry
I’m sure the moose are just as happy as the JGC buyers…
The leader still after all these years is the 1999 Citroen Xantia Activa with the active hydraulic body roll control.
85kph, 3kph faster than the Porsche 997 GT3 RS.
http://www.teknikensvarld.se/algtest-lista/
“Since then, the Grand Cherokee has been completely redesigned…”
Uh, well, maybe the suspension has been redesigned, but from the outside, the 2014 JGC looks a lot like the 2012 model.
As the owner of a 2012 it appears to me only the headlights have changed on the outside of the 2014. Body panels and curves look the same.
At least they didn’t add a row of urinals to give it a family resemblance to the new Cherokee.
“Since then, the Grand Cherokee has been completely redesigned….”
No, it hasn’t. It’s modified a bit from the 2012 version, particularly in the stability control calibration. It’s not a complete redesign.
Easy on the hyperbole there.
The Grand Cherokee has absolutely not been “completely redesigned” since 2012. The 2014 model received a largely cosmetic mid-cycle refresh and the new eight-speed transmission, but the underlying vehicle is the same.
The Grand Cherokee had an extensive electronics upgrade. Sergio bitched about how expensive the new electronics were but said it was worth it in making Grand Cherokee the best in it’s class.
Then why does the 2014 model not only have a black circle in CR reliability, but also a red frowny face on TrueDelta? These extensive electronics upgrades are just making the only good Jeep worse.
What’s wrong with the Wrangler and new Cherokee? The former is in a class all its own, and the latter appears fully competitive with class leaders.
Atum, There have been complaints with the 2014 in all trim levels. My wife’s three sisters each bought a 2014 during March-April 2013 and each had to take theirs to the shop for warranty work.
Among the problems they experienced were keyless enter-and-go electronics, a transmission that was shifting clunky or would not upshift into 8th gear or was slow to engage in drive, instrument panel lights that had a mind of their own and had to be reset by shutting off the engine and restarting it, and a cruise control that disengaged when steering wheel radio buttons were pushed.
You think they’d learn from the first sister’s problems, haha. Cars seem to be getting painfully unreliable again. I know that’s a big exaggeration, but some vehicles are more unreliable than they were even one or two years ago. By the time I’m a legal adult, married, have a family, and a bunch of cars, warranties might be 20 years long or something because of these new technologies failing here and there.
Or, the automakers might just learn and fix the glitches they have now. That sounds better. First model years of redesigns usually have more problems. That’s one of the only good things about my mom’s 2012 RAV4 Limited; it’s the seventh model year of that generation, so most of the bugs have been cleared away.
It was a little more involved than learning from the first sister, since the first sister was my wife and we had a really good ownership experience with the 2012 Overland Summit we bought.
The three sisters all went in about the same time to their respective dealers (based on our recommendation), and traded their Highlanders for the 2014 Grand Cherokees.
As far as warranties are concerned, I’m happy to just get 100,000 trouble-free miles out of whatever I buy.
I’m worried about my grandkids and what they are faced with when they buy their first new car on their own when they get to be legal adults.
My 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland has all the electronic upgrades and options. UConnect, EVIC, and FWC are notoriously buggy, as I can attest. When they work properly, the Jeep is satisfying to drive, but too often for a $50,000 vehicle, electronic gremlins make life miserable.
I wonder what tires that Swedish Jeep had.
Yeah, and the “new” electronics were largely involving the “infotainment” stuff….you know, upgraded navigation and related options. Anything else remains pretty much the same, except for calibration of the stability control system/trac cont/ABS/etc…
This topic makes me feel bad about myself. Sometime in middle school, when the 2012 GC test occurred, I went on YouTube and commented that this was a stupid test. About ten angry Europeans came by and called me a stupid American; I may have even been blocked from the YouTube channel.
Be careful what you say online, kids.
Whether or not you like the test … the moose avoidance maneuvre is a very real thing to tens of millions of people living in areas with significant moose populations.
I understand the purpose of the test now. I made that YouTube comment back when I was quite clueless. Having lived in Georgia my whole life, moose aren’t a problem in my area (I don’t even know if I’ve seen a moose in person).
Wait, there are tens of millions of people in moos territory?
see above
The Grand Cherokee has been completely redesigned? LOL…okay, bud. Sorry, but it’s a facelift at best, not anything even closely resembling a complete redesign. It’s pretty much the same old Grand Cherokee with some cosmetic revisions, a new 8-speed automatic transmission (for the V6 model) and some new infotainment stuff.
I understand the need for stability control as not everyone are expert drivers, or at least aware of vehicle stability. In the end, it’s all about insurance rates for us all (and lives, of course). I drive a lifted Wrangler, and I take great care of the steering wheel on the highway. My wife occasionally drives it, such as on long trips when she helps me out by letting me relax, and I’m all over her about being super careful as the Jeep would easily roll if she swerved.
I would hope with the Grand Cherokee that it can be disabled for off-road use? One time I rented a Kia and I actually got stuck in snow on gravel with it’s stability control on, and I had to figure out how to turn it off to get going.