Jeep Compass

Went to see and test drive this new small 1.4L where their usual ones are like 3.6L which is too overkill in local shores. This sounds more suitable here.

Exterior looks is captivating. The trademark front grill keeps you be different from the other makes out there by being unusual. Body contouring similar to Tiguan but not the size of Kodiaq (which shares the same wide body for their upcoming 1.4L). Great rims design and size too.

Interior is defined by the word called “simple” where not much luxury features given as its meant to be rough and tough type. Great to see both front electric seats. In the console settings, there are many extended features that allows drivers to on and off even beeper sounds and the sound level too. I can’t recall if it allows you to permanently off the auto start stop feature.

The drawback to this compass is it comes with standard halogen headlights and need to top up for bi-xenon with DRL (quite dated though for a new model), not even LED. Many others like auto fold mirror when lock, electric tailgate (package with adaptive cruise controls) and sunroof need to top up quite a fair bit too. Conventional conti options like slide down windows via remote, walk away lock, etc are not able to have as standard or even top up.

The drive....Excellent pickup due to high torque and nimble drive as maneuvering this heavy chap is a breeze. With its 9 speeders that’s unlikely to reach in local roads here, gear shifting is a breeze and I should use the word “soundless”. Overtaking is very simple, just throttle a little and you see yourself in this heavy guy overtaking like no other. Parking is simple too as small and compact with all the necessary sensors and guidance provided as standard features.

Overall, it’s a great SUV to get if you are looking for a powerful drivetrain and good gearshifts but with the current price of $130k before COE (dated 17 May 2018) and with many options not available and need to top up and top up, which by all top up done to a so call standard conventional conti features, you may end up looking at others (probably 2.0L conti even) than this, unless you are a die hard Jeep fan.