Pointing to the right direction

Cutting across price segments, there is a new wave of sports utility vehicles coming to our shores. On this page last week we had reviewed the new Volkswagen Tiguan and the Lexus LX 450d, and this week we drove the new Jeep Compass fresh out of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ Indian plant at Ranjangaon, near Pune.

For ardent fans of Jeep, the Compass is really good news with the prospect now of owning one of the brand’s vehicles at a more approachable price. The choice at the time of the brand’s entry was limited to the Jeep Wrangler and Grand Cherokee, both of which were imported as completely built units and priced way past their segment peers. FCA officials haven’t announced the price range for the locally produced Compass, but we expect it to be about ₹18 lakh to ₹25 lakh. With the local content at about 60-70 per cent at the time of launch and plans to export out of here to many right-hand drive markets, it looks promising from two perspectives – one that the Compass can be priced aggressively and two despite relatively low volumes it can still shore up FCA India’s bottomline. So is it the compact SUV you have been waiting for? Here is our first impression.

The Compass is a compact sports utility vehicle, which shares its platform with the Renegade, but has been designed to unabashedly look like a miniature version of the Grand Cherokee. Set next to each other, the resemblances are more than obvious from the front. The sloping roofline at the rear is the only deviation when the Compass’s lines are viewed from the side. Naturally, there is a lot of Jeep DNA that already comes through with carried over iconic design signatures like the hexagonal wheel arches and the compressed seven slat bonnet grille, which even in the Grand Cherokee was a reinterpretation of the original Jeep grille.

The exterior design of the Compass is more crossover than upright SUV. But it still doesn’t miss out on giving off a sense of robustness and premium finish. Lots of chrome elements including the highlight line that runs along the top of the door frames and just below the roof, swooping around the rear glass and tracing the same line on the other side of the vehicle. Dual tone body kit with black side cladding highlights the wheel arches and adds to that all-terrain Jeep flavour. Faux underbody protectors and the part clamshell bonnet also boost the SUV-body style. The Compass’s height is quite low at 1,640 mm, so the design has to do the talking. The headlamps and the tail-lamps get LED tubes, including the eyelet signature, but these are pilot lamps and not daytime running lights.

The India-spec Compass’s interior had not been revealed at the time of the official roll-out at the company’s Ranjangaon plant. So, it was a pleasant surprise when we stepped into an airy, bright cabin on what was a wet day in Goa, where the first test drive was being held. The cabin sports a dual-tone theme, with dull-white leather seats (top-trim) and the same colour for the bottom half for the dash, door trim and centre console. The dashboard looks like a sedan’s in terms of its layout and construction, not the usual vertical orientation we see in bigger SUVs.

Material quality like the soft-touch plastics and other dashboard trim elements is good, as are the knobs and switches. But, the overall quality is still just a notch lower than the quality of cabins in the luxury class. We liked the chunky steering wheel with the audio controls at the rear of the 9:3 hold position. The other interior element we liked was the spherical gear knob, which fit nicely into the palm and has been made to look like it is machined aluminium. The Compass’s cabin is quite spacious; kneeroom at the rear is a good eight inches even with a six-footer at the wheel. The rear seat headroom, though, is an issue for tall occupants. And the squabs could do with a bit more under-thigh support.

Perforated part-leather seats, and double-stitched door trim, leather-wrapped steering wheel and the auto aircon are the good bits inside the Compass cabin. The seven-inch infotainment display screen is small and misses navigation as one of its features. There are a few other features missing in the Compass, including a sunroof, and electrical adjustments for the seats – stuff which may make a difference if the price gets too close to the likes of the Volkswagen Tiguan and Hyundai Tucson.

The Jeep Compass will first be offered with the 2.0L Multijet II diesel engine. This engine will be paired only with a six-speed manual transmission. But, FCA India plans to also offer the vehicle with a 1.4-litre Mair petrol engine about six weeks after the diesel version hits the showrooms. This petrol version will be offered with the option of the six-speed manual or a seven-speed dual dry clutch automatic transmission. Both the petrol and diesel versions are likely to be offered with three variants each – Sport, Latitude and Limited. We, however, got to experience only the diesel-manual top-trim (Limited) variant during our test drive.

The two-litre Fiat multijet engine is a good fit for the Compass in terms of its broad performance character. The engine produces a healthy 173 PS of peak power and 350 Nm of peak torque. The typical diesel clatter overpowers you outside, but in the cabin considerable work on the NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) parameters helps keep the noise levels down at slow speeds. However, after we pick up speed and the engine revs past the 3,200 rpm level there is a fairly loud engine boom that sets in. The powertrain doesn’t suffer from offering sufficient pulling power, though there is a bit of turbolag until the needle crosses the 1,700 rpm level.

The Compass’s handling abilities were a surprise to us. The steering is quite precise, though we would have liked more weight and feedback at the wheel. The all-terrain Firestone tyres offered good grip on most surfaces that we drove on. There was a bit of understeer during hard cornering even though traction control was on. But, there is negligible body roll and overall handling hardly feels like that of an SUV.

What is a Jeep without its legendary off-roading prowess. The Compass gets the Selec-Terrain four-wheel drive system with its Auto, Snow, Mud and Sand traction modes. The system features a fully variable wet clutch and a driveline disconnect tech to swap seamlessly between two-wheel drive and 4WD. Needless to say that the auto mode where the system detects wheel slippage and splits traction automatically is the default mode and will serve the needs of most buyers.

To really prove the Compass’s off-roading abilities, FCA India had also set up a wet, slushy and slippery course in the hills south of Goa. Both on-road and off-road, the all-independent suspension with frequency sensitive damping helps keep the Compass calm and confident.

The Compass might just be worth the wait. It is also the best effort that Jeep can come up with for a value-sensitive market like India. But, the price will still be key. To woo the buyers into its showrooms, the brand will also have work to do to convince them of a good post-sale experience.

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