Topic: Can the new Jeep Cherokee be lifted?

[Jeffy]

http://HTTP://WWW.ROADANDTRACK.COM/GO/AUTOMOTIVE-DESIGN/LIFTED-CHEROKEE-DAKAR
Can the new Jeep Cherokee be lifted?
There can be only one. And I drove it.

By David Gluckman

A lot of people went a little nuts when they heard the new KL Jeep Cherokee can’t be lifted. Never mind the fact that most of those people don’t own one and aren’t planning to buy one. It was apparently a principle thing—Jeeps should be liftable!

To prove the naysayers wrong, Jeep built a lifted 2014 Cherokee. One of six concepts showcased for the 2014 Moab Easter Jeep Safari, the Cherokee Dakar sits a few inches higher than a stock model. It’s a real thing, and I got to drive it this week in Utah. I learned that the process of building it explains why you won’t be seeing many lifted Cherokees anytime soon.



First, don’t call this a lift kit. It’s really an entirely new suspension. The car-based Cherokee has struts up front, and it isn’t designed with the camber adjustability that’s required to compensate for a lift. (You can’t, and wouldn’t want to, lift a Dodge Dart or Chrysler 200.)

The concept setup uses Fox coil-overs front and rear with one-off mounts (the shocks are off-the-shelf units, basically the ones that fit). There are new custom halfshafts with U-joints at all four corners to accommodate the lift. And to clear the 33-inch tires Jeep put on, the Dakar concept’s fenders were cut and new, wider flares were added. That’s a lot of parts and a lot of work to go through, and it’s not the bolt-on solution that Jeep or Mopar would want to sell you. Again, not a lift kit, but it results in a lifted Cherokee.



But yes, it’s possible to lift a new Cherokee. As you’d expect, it cleared obstacles that would, at minimum, scrape the skid plates on a Cherokee Trailhawk. And that was a good thing for me, because as I crawled the Dakar concept over jagged rocks, I asked the engineer riding shotgun how much the thing was worth. “A couple hundred grand in parts,” was his reply. So, not including man-hours for design or the build. I drove a little slower from then on.


A Cherokee Trailhawk can handle some respectable obstacles, with its main impediment being ground clearance. A lifted version solves that but becomes prohibitively expensive. To anyone looking for a liftable Jeep: The Wrangler still exists. And it’s more capable in stock form than a lifted Cherokee would be, anyway. And it’s cheaper. Plus, Mopar is adding a next-to-factory-installed 2-inch lift for the Wrangler.



Jeep acknowledges there won’t be a very large market for lifted KLs, so it’s probably not going to offer one. But at least we now know it’s possible.

Oh, and expect the same non-liftability on the new Renegade.


http://HTTP://WWW.ROADANDTRACK.COM/GO/AUTOMOTIVE-DESIGN/LIFTED-CHEROKEE-DAKAR

[sharpxmen]

some complained how well the YJs flex?

[Wrench]

I just put a towed-vehicle hitch and wiring on one of these.

They are completely independent suspension setup, with a transverse engine like their minivans.  It would be extremely difficult to get one of these truly "offroad capable" for use with larger tires.  Way more work than just an SAS front and rear.

[stan98tj]

Who cares?! Seriously. Its a luxury SUV, designed to chauffeur it's occupants comfortably to and from the grocery store and to soccer practice. And when the weather changes and those roads are covered in snow, it's designed to handle that as well. Off road? Really? People complain that you can't take it "off road " or lift it. They make a wrangler for that. They make 2 versions of it and they come in a multitude of trims. Yet it seems the majority of JK owners- especially in the JKU segment- don't wheel them anyway, so what makes you think they would wheel the luxury wagon? Besides, the new Cherokee is apparently class leading when it comes to the off pavement stuff. So that means if you own one and are cruising along one day and spot a dirt track with some menacing looking ruts, you can comfortably tell yourself that were it not for the $18 mocha drink resting in your heated/cooled cup holder, you would OWN that muddy track and do it better than a Range Rover or a Cayenne or a...you get the point.