Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk (EU 2019) - Short Review
Introduction: I always loved high performance SUVs, my first one was actually one of the first (affordable) available on the market, the infamous Mercedes ML55 AMG with 355 hp V8 n/a engine. This car offered everything a family father wanted at that time.
A few years later, I got myself the first Cayenne Turbo, even retrofitted the OEM Powerkit (500 hp, new brakes, etc.) to it and ended up with a (955) Cayenne Turbo S. I just loved the Cayenne. At that time, it was basically the sportiest SUV available on the market, it had no serious competition. Until the X5 M came...got one as well. Over the past couple of the years, I had many different SUVs but particularly one of them stack out of the bunch, the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT (2013). It was one of the most fun SUVs I ever owned, V8 6.4 l HEMI n/a engine and all but unfortunately also a car which always had some (smaller) issues, which were annoying.
I love sports cars but for daily commuting, traveling and family stuff, SUVs are still the best. I tried a couple of sedans, even had a station wagon for a month (test car) but always ended up with a SUV because they just offer that special drive feel no other family car can offer.
A few months ago, I put my eyes on a Lamborghini Urus, I just love this SUV, drove it on a couple of occasions and I really think it is the best high performance SUV on the market right now. I couldn't justify the high lease cost of this car, over 3500 EUR per month and buying wasn't an option either at around 290-300k EUR for a well equipped car.
Then, I fell in love with the new G63. I always liked the G63 but the older one was a little bit too "raw" for me. The latest G63 version is an amazing off-roader/SUV, it sounds great and drives great. Unfortunately it doesn't fit my garage (height) but we would have found a solution for that. Since demand is very high for the G63, lease cost is also high. 2700 EUR per month was the offer, 2500 EUR after some negotiations. No thanks. Again too much for a daily driver/family car.
One day, not long ago, I was driving past a local Fiat/Alfa Romeo/Jeep dealer which is only a couple of minutes away from my house. I stopped there because my son wanted to look at some cars. There it was in the showroom: The Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk. In Redline red. It looked fantastic, that good old American fashioned SUV design, less aerodynamic than a wall unit. I am not a fan of all those sports car looking SUVs like the X6 M or Cayenne Coupe, I love the classic SUV/off-roader design, with the only exception being the Urus.
A little background story here: FCA made around 150 official 2018 Trackhawk and 100 official 2019 models for the German market. At total of 9 cars for the entire EU were in Redline red as far as I heard. So finding a brand-new 2019 (US 2020) EU car in Redline red at a local dealer next to my house is almost like winning the lottery.
The official price tag for the Trackhawk in Germany is around 132k EUR. The car is basically fully loaded, there are no options other than the color and the DVD entertainment system. There are grey imports available from various dealers but these are US cars and there is a strong rumor that Export cars for the EU had some minor hardware modifications as well, to improve cooling. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find these differences.
Biggest advantage of official FCA EU cars: The warranty. The Trackhawk has a 2+2 years warranty in Germany. Also, FCA has huge spare parts storage facility in Europe, so parts can be delivered to official FCA dealers pretty fast.
Of course I got the car much cheaper, I leased it but the negotiated value of the car was 94k EUR instead of 132k EUR. The reason for this huge discount was simple: The color (most people buy darker colors), the engine type and fuel consumption and the fact that the car was registered to the dealership early October (so called "Tageszulassung"), so the dealership has a fiscal advantage. So I basically got an official EU car for the price of a grey import car.
Let's get to the car itself: 710 hp make the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk the most powerful standard production series SUV in the world. The 710 hp look and sound impressive but reality is, the Trackhawk weights around 2500 kg, so it needs all the power it can get. For comparison: A Cayenne Turbo is around 250 kg lighter than the Trackhawk.
The Trackhawk engine is the well known supercharged V8 6.2 HEMI engine (nicknamed Hellcat) used in many other FCA vehicles as well: Dodge Challenger and Charger SRT Hellcat incl. all the various Redeye versions and Demon, Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat and RAM 1500 TRX. Many of the Hellcat engines were tuned to 900, 1000 and even 1200 hp, they are considered to be very reliable and bulletproof (stock).
Sorry for the long introduction but many of you may not be into US cars or maybe you do not have experience with them at all, so I thought it might be interesting to provide a little introduction, so you understand why I chose the Trackhawk.
Here are my findings after driving 620 km in the Trackhawk. The break-in period is around 890 km, at 620 km I am permitted to do some full throttle runs but I am not permitted to drive faster than 136 kph. After 890 km, you can do everything with the car, just not track or drag racing it (after 2414 km you can do that as well):
- Surprising good interior and exterior built quality, especially compared to my former 2013 SRT. A lot has changed over the years but of course the Trackhawk is not at Mercedes/BMW level yet. Pretty close though.
- Engine is a treat, lots of (brutal) power, instant acceleration similar to an EV from a stop, unbelievable. Supercharger whine in the lower and mid rev range is a very nice additional treat but I switched the OEM air filter with a aFe sport airfilter inlay and this definitely made the supercharger whine louder. The Trackhawk has a Helmholtz resonator installed, which could be removed to improve the whine further but it isn't necessary in my opinion.
- Auto gearbox from ZF shifts very fast and quite comfortable, same gearbox is used in other cars, like in the Rolls Royce Ghost for example.
- Exhaust/engine sound is subtle when you do not press the throttle more than around 30-50%. At first, I was very disappointed because I thought there is not much sound. There is a noticeable V8 sound at idle when you turn on the engine but it is not too loud or even annoying. Once you fully press the throttle though, hell breaks loose. It is incredible how the sound changes from subtle V8 to infernal V8 racing sound. By infernal I mean all hell breaks loose infernal, it is unbelievable. I know that some Trackhawk owners add a sport exhaust or straight pipe the truck but I do not think this is a good idea, especially not in Germany. Me and the kids were thinking about a nick name for the Trackhawk and I think we found it. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.
- Chassis is similar to the engine, it changes with the driving (in Auto mode). Once you switch to Sport or Track, things change, the truck shows barely body roll and is surprisingly agile through twists and turns. We had bad weather over the past few days and I am running on winter tires (Pirelli PZero Scorpion Winter) but still, the traction is amazing and the chassis is really sporty for a 2.5 t SUV. In Auto mode, the ride is comfortable and quite nice, perfect for a daily driver. For some, it may still be too stiff but it is more comfortable than my GLC63 S AMG for example.
- Steering is a little bit indirect in Auto mode but becomes quite direct and sporty in Sport and especially Track mode. Maybe a little bit too direct for a 2.5 t truck but I never got the feeling that there is any danger of a rollover or something similar. Very good steering for such a truck.
- The Harman Kardon entertainment HiFi system with 19 speakers and 900 W is very good, I had to put the bass setting to the middle setting because there was just too much bass. It sounds very very good, can't say I have heard any car lately which has a similarly good sound.
- The touch operated navigation/infotainment system Uconnect with a 8.4'' display has a very nice resolution and is very bright. The software is very snappy, no lags (only if you start the performance pages) but the GUI looks a little bit outdated. The Navigation is based on TomTom, it works well but it looks outdated as well. There is a built-in fixed speed traps/speed cameras detector but unfortunately it does not work in Germany, only when the GPS detects that you are outside Germany. Bummer. Overall it is a nice system but nothing to write home about. Five years ago, it may have been the top of the line but now it is merely a "keeping up". It works well and snappy, like I said before but I guess it is time for something new. I love the Performance Pages which offer tons of detailed information about power, torque, oil temperature, water temperature, intercooler air temperature, gearbox temperature and tons of other temperatures and pressures, including boost pressure and what not. Amazing.
- Interior room is amazing, very comfortable, kids love it. Wife loves it. My mother loves it (getting inside the truck is a different story for a 86 year old woman). Lots of luggage room as well and it is possible to slightly incline the rear seats backwards for better comfort. My GLC63 S doesn't have this feature.
- The brakes are very good for such a heavy car, Brembo brakes with 400 mm discs in the front. Not even close to the Urus or Cayenne PCCB system but still a very good brake. The brake feel is firm and quite precise, it feels quite good. Will have to see how the brake behaves in summer and under more stress.
- Truck is fully loaded with options: Heated seats in the back, heated and ventilated seats in the front, panoramic glass roof, heated steering wheel and many many other things, tons of USB outlets as well, there is nothing you really miss.
Overall, I like this car a lot, the engine, the sound and the performance are the best parts though.
Unfortunately, there are also a couple of not so nice things about the Trackhawk but I think I can live with them:
- Heated and ventilated seats can be controlled through the infotainment system only, which is annoying. Same goes to the heated steering wheel. The worst part is: The driver's heated seat and the heated steering wheel are automatically turning on once the system "senses" a low outside and/or inside temperature. The steering wheel gets sometimes very warm, the heated seat sometimes very hot (there are two levels though). I do not know why it is sometimes hotter and sometimes less hot, it seems to do this by itself without any logic. Annoying.
- Headlights are Bi-Xenon and not LED. At night and especially at night in bad weather, this can be annoying. It is not a big deal but the GLC63 S LED lights are really much better (brighter) in comparison. Another issue: When you turn on the windshield washers, the headlight washers go on as well, basically spraying your front and front hood with washing water plus antifreeze (now in winter), which doesn't always look so good on a newly washed car.
- Rear camera quality is really bad for a 2019/2020 car. Is it really so hard to switch the low res camera with a higher res camera? I haven't looked into it but I almost can bet that there is a better aftermarket solution available, hopefully as a plug'n play job. When it is dark, you can barely recognize something on the camera. The GLC camera display size is smaller but the resolution is good enough to even spot bicycles at night on the camera.
- Fuel consumption...I'm not even sure I should mention it. During break-in (driving slower than 116 kph), fuel consumption was around 15 l / 100 km. Acceptable but I heard horror stories about more than 30 l / 100 km during full throttle on the Autobahn, so... Average fuel consumption is definitely over 20 l / 100 km and now you probably understand why the Trackhawk isn't and wasn't a bestseller in Germany.
- Maintenance: Every 6 months or 10000 km (what comes first). Maintenance cost isn't very expensive though as far as I understood.
- No simple tuning with "tunes" possible anymore. FCA has encrypted the PCM, you need to unlock the PCM to be able to run your own tune. Unfortunately this also means FCA can detect it. The good old times of Diablo and Co. handheld tuning devices are over, you need to unlock the PCM to be able to use them.
The interesting part: The same issues with heated seats/steering, washers and rear view camera were there when I had my 2013 SRT. Not sure what FCA is doing but they clearly concentrated more on performance and the engine than other (less important ) comfort/safety stuff.
Conclusion: Amazing performance SUV but you cannot compare it to the Urus or the G63. You get what you pay for but the performance is really fantastic, off the line this 2.5 ton SUV jumps forward as if it is an EV, unbelievable.
The Trackhawk is basically a muscle car disguised as a SUV. If you love muscle cars, you will love the Trackhawk as well. If you use the throttle gently, this can be an excellent daily driver but beware of the extremely high fuel consumption once you let the beast run.
For those interested: You can easily tune the Trackhawk to around 800 hp without even needing a tune. Just a few minor hardware mods. The next step would be unlocking the PCM (ECU), applying a tune, improve engine airflow (air filter), pulley, spark plugs, etc. and you get 900 hp. With a few other mods, incl. new injectors and some engine mods, you can achieve 1000 hp. For the next step, 1200 hp, more mods are necessary and E85 fuel. This is more interesting for those who love to drag race (seriously) the Trackhawk. I talked to my former Jeep dealer, who also tunes the HEMI engines and he told me that 900 hp are reliable and the gearbox can take them. Everything over 900 hp requires various mods, including the gearbox. It is even possible to get TÜV for the 900 hp tuning. The 900 hp tuning raises the Trackhawk to a E63 S AMG straight line performance level from 0-200 kph and 200 to 300 kph. Not bad for a 2.5 ton SUV. From the factory, the Trackhawk is limited to 289 kph top speed because of the tires. It is not recommended to remove the speed limiter because even the stock version would easily go over 300 kph. The ZF gearbox supports 900 Nm torque anyway (stock) but 10% more torque (up to 990 Nm) shouldn't be a major issue for it.
Enjoy the pics, sorry I didn't have the time for better ones.
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RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor Lamborghini Huracan Performante (2019), Mercedes GLC63 S AMG (2020), Mercedes C63 S AMG Cab (2019), Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk (2019 EU)