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Arriving at the beach around 7 o’clock in the evening following a day of heavy downpours, we didn’t exactly expect to find hard sand. But we hadn’t counted on carving ruts so deep the sand went halfway up the wheel and would most assuredly have stranded any vehicle not equipped with four-wheel-drive. We crossed our fingers and prayed the...




Arriving at the beach around 7 o’clock in the evening following a day of heavy downpours, we didn’t exactly expect to find hard sand. But we hadn’t counted on carving ruts so deep the sand went halfway up the wheel and would most assuredly have stranded any vehicle not equipped with four-wheel-drive. We crossed our fingers and prayed the public relations person at Chrysler was right when she told us our vehicle should be able handle the sand “without any problem.”

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Most of the Jeep products tested in the past had come with the kind of transfer case that requires a second gear shifter, which is attached to a separate gearbox that enables the driver to put the 4x4 into ultra-low gears like 4H(igh), 2H, 4L(ow) and 2L. (FYI: A transfer case connects to the transmission and also the front and rear axles by means of drive shafts. When off-road these low-range gears slow the vehicle and increase torque needed to handle uneven terrains, slippery surfaces, rock-crawling and steep hills.)



But my Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, a 70th-anniversary special edition commemorating the birth of Jeep back in 1941, came equipped with a four-wheel-drive system known as Quadra-Trac. According to the press materials, this system requires no input from the driver whatsoever because it is operating all the time and only gets down to serious business whenever the vehicle senses the front or back tires skidding or loosing traction. In other words, no separate gearbox and shifter. The vehicle does the thinking for you.



It sounded almost too good to be true. If I can barely do my thinking for me, how can a Jeep?

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Of course, I wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place had I belonged to the 95 percent of people who, according to reports, never take their vehicles off-road. But the Grand Cherokee swaggers in with a lot of bravado, this going back to when then-Chrysler president Robert Lutz introduced this jack-of-all-trades SUV and the first Chrysler-badged Jeep product at the 1992 North American International Auto Show by driving it through a plate-glass window.



Talk about making an entrance.



There is virtually a compulsion to take the Grand Cherokee up on its Gary Hart-like dare to try and catch this dirt-munching trailblazer breaking the public trust by getting, well, stuck in the sand. All the more so since it boasts a 3.6-liter V-6, mated to a five-speed automatic transmission, that brags of pumping out 290 horses and 260 pound-feet of torque.



So, I leaned on the throttle, half-expecting to dig myself still deeper into the sand, when I felt the driveshaft engage the front wheels. Sure there was a little slippage in the deep ruts, but without really batting an eye, my five-door, five-passenger hatchback was free and soon tackling the sopping wet mess of beach as though it were in it to win it.



To think I half-imagined having to call a tow truck and later send the bill to Chrysler.



Making mudcakes

If you’re thinking this is a 4x4-lite for soccer moms, you might be right — but only if that soccer mom were also, say, an architect whose job required frequent trips to heavily muddied construction sites to check on the progress of her buildings. At least that was my impression the day I had to traverse a new-school building site whose field looked like the third day of Woodstock following two days of straight rain. This time, instead of keeping my auto club membership card nearby, I confidently drove the Grand Cherokee through a mosh pit of mud so treacherous my Giorgio Brutini loafers were engulfed the second I set foot out

Tags: Jeep, is-featured

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TOTALLY, DUNE! Jeep Grand Cherokee's Quadra-Trak 4WD gets put to the test was originally published by New Orleans Auto Reviews: Jeep. Read the full story by clicking here.