For more than 30 years now, the Jeep Grand Cherokee has been walking the line between off-road capability and family-hauling practicality. Along the way, it’s picked up an increasing set of luxury touches that have seen its market position slowly creeping upward — along with an MSRP to match.
The 2025 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 4×4 you see here carries a sticker price of $56,665, including the $1,995 destination and about $10,000 in options. That’s pushing up towards luxury SUV pricing. It looks great, especially in that Velvet Red Pearl paint, but is it really worth the spend?
2025 Jeep Grand Cherokee: The Basics
The 2025 Jeep Grand Cherokee shown here is the Limited trim, right in the middle of a whopping 15 separate available flavors of Grand Cherokee, ranging from the base two-wheel-drive Laredo with a $36,495 starting price to the $79,150 plug-in hybrid Summit Reserve 4xe. This Limited example has a starting price of $44,905 and is powered by Stellantis’ venerable Pentastar V6, a 3.6-liter engine making 293 horsepower and 260 pound-feet of torque. That’s connected to an eight-speed automatic transmission with a single-speed transfer case sending power to all four wheels.
Step up to a higher trim of the Grand Cherokee and you can get either the Quadra-Track II 4×4 system, which includes a proper high- and low-speed transfer case, or all the way up to the Quadra-Drive II, which will take you even further thanks to locking differentials, delivering the kind of rock-crawling and mud-sucking capability that Jeeps are coveted for.
The 37.7 cubic feet of cargo space in the back beneath the powered hatch, expands to 70.8 if you fold down the seats.
(Tim Stevens for Yahoo Autos)
The SUV you see here, though, didn’t have any of that, featuring a more basic all-wheel drive system and open differentials at either end. That’s a less-than-optimal setup for serious rough-road driving, but it is still plenty enough for occasional low-grip antics. You’ll just have to leave the more aggressive trails to your buddies and their Wranglers.
Buyers have a choice of many wheel and tire packages, largely depending on what kind of terrain you plan to cross in your Grand Cherokee. My test car here rolled on 20-inch all-season tires, again serving as a street-friendly option.
That whole package is EPA-rated for 19 mpg in the city, 26 on the highway and 22 combined. In my combined testing, I came in a little short of that, scoring just under 21 mpg.
Inside the Grand Cherokee
Inside, the Grand Cherokee seats five by default, but you can pay an extra $2,000 if you want a third row. The second row seats three across on a rear bench seat that’s respectably roomy and even heated. There’s good headroom, a bevy of USB-A and -C ports, and even a three-prong outlet for keeping more energy-hungry devices happily charged. That’ll ensure the users of those devices will likewise stay happily occupied on longer road trips.
Front passengers have their own set of four USB ports, plus a wireless charger to boot. There’s even a 3.5mm aux jack in case you’re feeling like streaming your media the old-fashioned way. If you’d rather go wireless, there’s Bluetooth audio plus both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
The 10.1-inch central touchscreen provides access to both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
(Tim Stevens for Yahoo Autos)
All these services and more are displayed on a 10.1-inch central touchscreen that integrates nicely with the dashboard. The Jeep’s infotainment software, called UConnect 5, is basic and a bit clunky, but functional. There’s integrated navigation if you don’t feel like using either Apple’s or Google’s mapping services, and a limited voice assistant. It can handle basic vehicle settings like temperature and feed addresses to the integrated nav, so long as your destination doesn’t have a particularly convoluted street name. Alexa is also available in the dashboard, but only if you’re willing to add your car to your wireless data plan. There’s an integrated LTE-powered Wi-Fi hotspot, too, which again requires an active data connection.
Media is played through a six-speaker sound system that is perfectly adequate in every way. It offers decent power and reasonable fidelity, but won’t radically change the way you listen to your favorite tunes.
The overall look of the interior is dark and muted in the Global Black trim, and — while a tan called Wicker Beige is also available — either way you’ll get mostly harsh black plastics and vinyl with some silver strips tossed in for contrast. The woodgrain inset that runs across the dash and the door cards looks quite nice, but its illusion is quickly ruined when touched. It’s just an appliqué.
The woodgrain inset that runs across the dash looks nice, but it’s just an appliqué.
(Tim Stevens for Yahoo Autos)
Overall, it seems like an interior that will hold up to abuse well and is relatively easy to clean, but the unpleasant plastics with visible mould lines don’t do much to boost the luxury cred of this machine.
In terms of practicality, there’s 37.7 cubic feet of cargo space in the back beneath the powered hatch, or 70.8 cubic feet if you fold down the rear seats. Spring for the $995 trailering kit, and the Grand Cherokee can tow a respectable 6,000 pounds. That’s handily above the 5,000 you can tow with a Ford Explorer.
On the move
That Pentastar V6 doesn’t exactly fire up with a rousing sound. This is a very utilitarian motor at heart, far from a high-performance screamer, but spin the rotary shifter over to D and you’ll find it provides good power and torque at all speeds, while the lack of a turbocharger helps deliver good throttle response.
The eight-speed automatic transmission, though, is a little less eager. When you shift the Grand Cherokee into Sport mode, and even if you reach for the wheel-mounted shift paddles, gear changes come on their own time. That’s fine — this clearly isn’t an SUV meant for quickness — but more problematic is that the transmission often failed to deliver smooth shifts when just idling through town. Slipping from one gear to the next when coming to a stop, or pulling away from a traffic light, often resulted in some unusual hesitation and rough engagement.
Sport is one of four drive modes, the other three being Auto, Snow, and Sand/Mud. Given the relatively basic drivetrain system in this Jeep, and the lack of active suspension, the modes really only change the throttle response of the Jeep and the level of aggression of its transmission. In other words, cycling through these modes is hardly a radical transformation, and so I left things in Auto the vast majority of the time.
The rear seats are heated, and a third row is a $2,000 option.
(Tim Stevens for Yahoo Autos)
In terms of handling, there’s a bit of a Jeep-like feel to the Grand Cherokee, in that it has a slight edge of stiffness to the ride. I didn’t find it harsh by any means, in fact, it did a great job of clearing bigger impacts like speed bumps and railroad crossings. It did equally well at soaking up smaller imperfections like asphalt cracks or highway separation joints. In other words, it’s a perfectly suitable cruiser for covering long distances.
But with the ho-hum interior and the middling fuel economy from that Pentastar V6, it wouldn’t exactly be my choice for a road trip. Higher-end Grand Cherokee trims offer more luxury, but at a higher price. On a like-for-like feature basis, the Ford Explorer generally comes in a fair bit cheaper, really only coming up short when it comes to towing.
I know that for Jeep loyalists, there’s not much point in comparing. The Grand Cherokee has the right badge and the rugged look they crave. Thankfully for them, the 2025 model delivers plenty of on-road capability in any guise, and if you tick a few more boxes, it can be a legit off-roader too. But if you’re willing to expand your brand horizons a bit, there are better options to be had elsewhere.
