The interior of the 5.9 Limited has features such as premium leather seat inserts, sunroof, spare tire cover with
storage, a new 180-watt Infinity audio system amplifier with 10 speakers, 60/40 rear seat with fold-down armrest,
birdseye maple woodgrain trim, leather trimmed door bolsters and armrests, as well as a leather-covered console
armrest.
From the left front seat, the Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited is easy to figure out and easy to deal with. The instrument
panel seems to be running out of space to put the various switches and controls for all the power options. The typical
Jeep white-on-black instruments with blue, green and orange accents, are easy to scan and very good at night
The leather chairs are very comfortable for long rides, and have a very wide range of power adjustments, with a
two-person memory feature for the seats, radio stations and outside mirrors. The clear instrument covers and some
of the plastic elements used in the interior are too shiny and glary for our tastes.
If the Grand Cherokee has a handicap it is lack of interior space when compared its competition. While the
interior is nicely done, the truck is built on a narrow Jeep platform and that dictates and governs how much
space is available for shoulders, hips, heads and legs, and, behind the second seat, how much space awaits the
cargo loads a truck like this will encounter. Compact sport-utilities that came onto the market after the Grand
Cherokee boast much larger interior layouts and more usable space in the cargo area.
Having said that, the Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited, which is done up in soft, cushy leather and faux wood, offers
quite a pleasant environment for four people and their collective stuff, or two adults and three kids. We wouldn't
stretch it to five adults, though, at least not for long rides. The interior simply isn't roomy enough for five people.
The 5.9 Limited's ride is quiet and comfortable, more comfortable than in any other Jeep and in most of the other
compact sport-utility vehicles. There's extra sound insulation built into the Grand Cherokee to keep the noise down,
and the materials used on the Limited version work very well.
If you like hot rods and need a sport-utility, then the Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited should be on your list of compact
sport-utilities. Its V8 accelerates from 0-60 mph in a mere 7.3 seconds, according to Chrysler, and the sporty
exhaust system lets you and some of the people around you know it's got some serious horsepower. Our test truck
ripped away from intersections. It accelerated up long grades with ease. With excellent performance in the 40-70
mph range, passing on two-lane roads wasn't much of a challenge at all. We didn't haul any major loads with it, but
it is rated to pull a 6700-pound trailer, sufficient for pulling small boats and cars.
The Grand Cherokee still uses recirculating-ball steering, and it is a bit mushy and imprecise compared to other
systems. It works with a leading-arm coil-spring front suspension and trailing arm coil-spring rear suspension
with gas shocks all around to keep the Grand Cherokee on the straight and narrow. Ride quality is very good, all
things considered, and ride control is taut, with not too much body roll in fast corners. Brake performance was
the best we've ever experienced on a Jeep vehicle, very solid and strong.
When going off road the Grand Cherokee is one of the most capable with a suspension that offers plenty of articulation
for climbing over rocks. Its closest competitor in this regard is the Land Rover Discovery. The only caveat here is that the Grand Cherokee's throttle is a bit sensitive at tip-in, make all that power difficult to modulate when creeping through rocky or muddy terrain.
The outside rearview mirrors and A-pillars generate quite a bit of noise at freeway speeds, made more so because the powertrain noise and chassis noise were both so well subdued by tuning and isolation.