2014 Jeep Cherokee Limited 4x4 Long-Term Road Test - Wrap-Up
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2014 Jeep Cherokee Limited 4x4 Long-Term Road Test - Wrap-Up
Edmunds' Long-Term Test of the 2014 Jeep Cherokee Limited 4x4 is complete after one year and more than 20,000 miles.
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but honestly if someone said i bought it cause i had to have a v6 i'd say, "fair enough".
The CR-V is not bad looking, but it is rather plain. If I were going to buy a 4cyl CUV it would almost certainly be the CX-5, with the Escape 1.6EB a close 2nd.
Thank you to Edmunds for reviewing the Cherokee long-term equipped as most drivers would and not the excellent but niche Trailhawk. By the way, your wrap-up says "The Limited is the second highest trim, topped only by the off-road-focused Trailhawk." Not true. Comparing apples to apples, the 4x4 Limited is priced higher than the 4x4 Trailhawk, so the Limited 4x4 is the top of the range.
I will note that various of your posters seemed fixated on trying to nit-pick, searching for things to gripe about. Seemed like trying to fill space.
Also, you need to revise how you calculate depreciation. Your wrap-up says "The MSRP on the Cherokee was $35,930. After testing the Jeep for one year and 22,329 miles, the Edmunds TMV® Calculator valued the SUV at $25,857 based on a private-party sale. That equates to a substantial 27 percent depreciation, more than the 18 percent depreciation of our long-term 2012 Honda CR-V or the 15 percent of our long-term 2014 Mazda CX-5." This is very misleading. You should not be using MSRP because that does not accurately reflect what people really pay for vehicles. Better to compare apples to apples and use real world sale prices for both initial purchase and resale to calculate depreciation. Some cars you have to pay close to MSRP but many others, especially domestic cars, you usually pay far less. MSRP also does not take incentives into account. According to Edmunds if two cars both have a MSRP of $40K and a resale of $30K, you say they both depreciated 25%. But if one of those cars typically sells for $40K and the other usually for $37,500, the second one really depreciated 20%, not 25%. Also, a vehicle that sells well below its MSRP will naturally need to have a greater depreciation relative to MSRP because the real-world additional cost to buy that model new the next year vs. a one year old used version would be lower. The used car must be priced enough less than the real price of a new one to incentivize someone to buy the used one. So using MSRP for calculating depreciation is not an honest measure and does not serve your readers. You folks have your TMV numbers for both new and used, so use them both for calculating depreciation. Of course you could also just use the actual price you paid for the car, assuming you bought it.
Coasting in Neutral Does Not Save Gas (Popular Mechanics)
Crazy eh?
Well I can't use the efficiency excuse anymore. Though there is efficiency since in neutral I'm going considerably faster at the bottom of the hill than if I just left it in gear, and especially more than if I was using the cruise control, so I am thus further down the road after the bottom of the hill before I have to get back into the gas. Of course that assumes no one in front of me and that I'm someplace where I can let the speed safely increase as I go downhill.
That is why you will see hyper-milers do anything to keep their speed up and avoid accelerating.
But, as noted... while you are only coasting, staying in gear is more efficient.
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