2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo X: Regular Car Reviews

all right so hi welcome to the first installment and what I hope will be a series which for right now for lack of a better term I'm calling hate hunt the reason is because I am a notoriously agreeable person and so I end up liking everything so my challenge such as it is is to find something that I can review that I might not actually like but the problem is how do you find something for the guy who likes everything and so I have a 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo behind me and you would think normally oh of course you know a Jeep that'll be an easy target but me I like I don't know I like the Jetta I like all the typical like trucks we've done I like SUVs I like Mom cars I like all of the things and you want to know why it's because if it runs it's great it's great and I understand that that makes me technically the worst Automotive journalist of all time as I have my award here that I won for automotive journalism ugh just ignore it it's a humble brag yuck all right so we're gonna go check out this car luckily our wonderful volunteer Mike over here has offered us the use of this wonderful well you know maybe not so wonderful but wonderful in the fact that it exists and it's provably existent it's right here I can touch it I'm not going to because there are acid marks from where battery acid ate through you know but those shouldn't still be uh live and active and dangerous in any way whatsoever but I guess we're gonna find out so uh join me on this adventure as I try to find something that I actually might not like first thing I learned when driving the Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo is just how limited my vocabulary is because I'm not sure I have the words to truly encapsulate a car that makes me feel the way I felt about myself growing up just disappointment spreading out like an unchecked termite problem a pauper's car in hand-me-down Emperor's clothing a Waffle House Gatsby call it exaggeration call it manifest hypocrisy but I have no real trouble saying that this is the worst Jeep I've ever driven but is it the worst jeep ever made is the hate hunt already over after just one episode let's talk about perception what we have here is the bastard offspring of a 90s Grand Cherokee and the Deferred dreams of an automaker in spiraling Financial Straits in desperate need of a bailout not just financially but creatively but in business it really seems like the best idea anybody ever has is what if popular thing from our past but worse Chrysler sought to evolve what had been an American staple and arguably the progenitor of the SUV craze that was born in the 90s and really took off into the 2000s but it's a version that doesn't exactly live up to the Ambitions of capturing the same Market segment with the same sort of passion because frankly it's just not as good as a classic Grand Cherokee if a 90s Grand Cherokee is the boss when you first fight him the Laredo is like when you unlock him as a playable character just underpowered and over hyped because you see the the engine here is a 3.6 7 liter that makes 210 horsepower but feels like a whole hell of a lot less there is no real kick down here and the acceleration you get Ebbs off pretty quickly so that what you're left with is the sensation of a college relationship after the trauma Bond wears off okay cool this isn't the worst situation in the world but also how did I get here and why am I staying this is a car that doesn't like to roll if that makes any sense oh so it wants throttle input rather than yeah like you can't really coat and see it does not Coast it wants it wants you to keep it fed that's about the best way I can describe it where that throttle problem really kind of comes in is when you're trying to merge on a highway and you're already going and it kicks down but there's really nothing there the visibility all around it's just the visibility of up front unfortunately that's here we go that was all oh yeah you would expect a little more I would think considering that this is an unleaded car right now there's not like a whole lot in it and there's no real number any sort of like accelerate energy really it's making a lot of noise and you know it's a whole lot of Sound and Fury signifying nothing the way the throttle just kind of like after you're done inputting it just kind of like gives it a half second and this says okay I guess I'm done now yeah it's like I already it's like you ask your kid to clean the room and they pick up like one thing and then they're done that's a really really good comparison Moana [Music] you see you just did you feel boy [Music] it's like I'm driving through oatmeal it's like it's going but it's kind of like sluggish yep like there's some unseen Force holding it back it's just so unfortunate you know I mean yeah it's a Jeep but is it though you see it online but oftentimes the Laredo is hated for what it isn't because like say the Jeep Compass people don't think of this as a real Jeep oh it's not an off-roader oh it's not a real four by four oh it's you know it's a V6 or it's the underpowered V8 whatever but I don't know it runs it does it does that I mean on the one hand it has similar gas mileage to the Hemi but you don't get to brag about driving a Hemi and it's kind of a 4x4 with four-wheel drive but not really it's the Quadra drive one which is a system that sort of lacks the refinement of a more modern four-wheel drive because you're not getting things like low range mode it's just a single speed drive system and sure it's full time and it favors the rear wheels with a 4852 torque split but no matter the road conditions you're facing this ratio isn't really changing the best it can do is switch power between left and right Wheels as necessary through open diffs it's not the end of the world but I will say the lack of four low means you probably shouldn't actually take this off-roading especially when weather conditions aren't favorable but then I suppose that's just common sense I mean this is an off-roader but I don't know that you're even necessarily encouraged to use it as one it's almost like a Jeep for someone who wants to appear rugged and outdoorsy but doesn't actually like going outside it's like a Jeep for a person who breaks down every time they're exposed to Nature and it happens so often that their nickname is biodegradable oh I'd love if we could all go hiking together but I'm sure biodegradable Bob would find something to complain about you know it's one of those things where yeah you're not going to get into trouble in it but you're also not going to be able to do a lot of things that well you're probably not going to be able to tow it's supposed to tow 3 500 pounds I think um I'm not quite sure that it can I wouldn't like to try it but you know really you know the for what you I guess you get for what you paid for and well you know we didn't pay for a V8 so Brian was telling me that I could actually come back and give a sort of overview of the third row but that's the funny part there isn't one uh it's just kind of this whole situation back here although I will say um it's more room than I was expecting still not a lot though it's just kind of this situation this hatch situation with maybe a cubby hole down here well actually it's kind of interesting this is one thing that's actually kind of cool about this if you have something dirty you can actually flip this over and do that like you know for for our kids it was actually basically like cleats and stuff like that or sports equipment so it's kind of nice to have that so it doesn't necessarily roll around or you know screw up everything in the back I mean at this point in the vehicle's life it doesn't really matter but but back then it was kind of important let's see uh the trim level is the X which I guess just stands for extra bull like heated seats oh I think this was maybe part of the X package [Music] X package gets you the one rear window so this possibly could be a camera car if these tie-down Loops are nope nope they are attached to the a fabric and upholstery they don't go to the body fail can't be a camera car but all the features in the world have trouble making up for all the things that have gone wrong with this car you mentioned a bit about swollen nuts yeah yeah it does suffer from swollen nuts a lot of the Jeeps from this time period from the factory they came through with uh like they were just regular they were Chrome effect not lug nuts they were basically caps on the top of regular lug nuts and after time you know heat up cool down heat up cool down they kind of tend to weld themselves to the studs and it happened several times where basically you they went you know you try and take a tire off or what have you and the thing would either strip out the stud or it would actually just snap it off and uh one time at least we actually had to torch one off so the evidence of that is actually on the one wheel as well [Music] so what else do we have we've had locked up calipers some of the evidence of that is on one of the wheels as well [Music] residual evidence of the locked up caliber here which is basically when the caliper locked up it kind of just ground off the uh what you see in there is basically just metal that is uh flaked off and welded itself to the wheel because the caliper locked on to uh to the the rotor and uh well yeah that's that's basically just rotor that's a part of the wheel now how'd you find out it was doing that my son told me yeah my son told me it's making it my son told me he's making a funny sound and it's not really rolling right and when I came home it's like yeah it's not really smelling right either so I realized I left my transmission fluid dipstick in here and that's because uh back when these were made and probably even now um they didn't put a transmission fluid dipstick on this vehicle so you had to go out and either go to the dealer or Source your own X somewhere else so that's what I did is there a tube a dipstick tube yeah there's a tube they got everything there except for the dipstick so what they do they just plug the tube no they put a little cap on the end of it and said go to the dealer and have them do it what sent part yeah exactly I always thought this was kind of a dumb design when they put the metal together in the back of here the metal doesn't kind of lap over and stop it kind of just meets at the bottom and it's welded at the bottom so what happens is you know if you're around like around here where you get like salt and what have you in the winter time it kind of just collects underneath here and you can see the result of that that's unavoidable I usually try and keep the thing washed or have kept the thing washed but it still ate it anyway I mean there's some stuff you can never see and that's what happens when you don't see it what you really need something like this for is um I guess hauling capacity for hauling things but also including people um but mainly it's just snow and inclement weather and you know why am I pointing the GoPro out at the field I don't know why am I doing anything maybe I just don't want it on my face wow I'm really bad at this um yeah I think a lot of it has to do with just wanting to sort of be in a middle ground between having an SUV but having options of sort of being able to go other places and not feel limited of course but then with the lack of four low don't get yourself into too hairy a situation exactly you know I remember there was a car we were reviewing once way in the early days of RCR where snow was blanketing the ground and there was a small incline to get up a hill and the car got stuck so Mike you were telling us about how this has very bad front visibility owing to some blind spot issues yeah I mean one of the things that we noticed from driving it my wife noticed it first and then when my son started to drive it he noticed it and I sure did too it has deceivingly awkward front Vision I think it a lot has to do with the fact that this a-pillar kind of comes down and from the driver's standpoint the a-pillar is rather thick up here and you combine it with the mirror down here and it actually forms a pretty good block here that is completely out of your view when you're driving so if you're in a position where like there's an oncoming car coming this way or you're facing a slight incline you're looking down and the same thing exists on the other side too you really kind of have to be aware of that and kind of move your head out of the way of the a-pillar otherwise you could really get yourself into a bad situation quick and I know all all every one of our family that has driven this vehicle has found themselves in exactly that situation matter of fact I drove it yesterday and in our town there's a there's a three-way intersection and the one kind of just comes off to the left a full-size van was blocked from the driver's side from the driver's seat a full-size van was blocked by this thing completely and had I not like actually moved my head around I would have never seen it mechanic once you had some sort of neck fusion so he has to turn his whole body to look around he'd be screwed in this thing although I think a mechanic would have better sense than the drive but who knows you're not a mechanic are you no not really all the lights inside the HVAC cluster are burned out and but you can't replace them without replacing the entire unit because Daimler Chrysler uses bulbs that were soldered to a circuit board and this is without even getting into the non-existent torque and the just this is a paraphrase of the knee the email that like Mike sent me but I actually find that a lot of what he kind of prepared me for was stuff that was dead on the money because the throttle response is painful and especially when you're easing up off the gas there's sort of this like fluttery um queasy like shuttering that happens on the front end of the car there's this sense of unease this tension this nervousness to it and I can't reconcile that with perceptions of the Jeep as this super overconfident car this feels so tentative like it's giving up before it even tries you know so you're putting your foot to the floor waiting for something to happen and then nothing materialize is I mean Mike was telling me about having problems with the factory battery because it literally exploded you know you had battery acid leaking and and scuffing up all the pain and eating through things and it's just a complete disaster let's see you mentioned the acid marks on the side there yeah that's because of way back when this thing was probably when we had it about maybe probably about four years the original factory battery literally exploded um just happened one time my wife was starting it up and um well you see the aftermath um it just kind of blew up left a lot of smoke and uh it was kind of a mess in there so I had to clean that up and take the battery out and try and wash it down the best I could but as you can see the damage was done which is even Wilder to me because it wasn't an aftermarket battery he ended up replacing it with an aftermarket battery from Deca which is like the biggest employer in the Tri-County area around here it's like everybody knows somebody who worked a deck of battery and if you can see right here his battery is just labeled the usable because when you shop at the DECA store you get Factory seconds so somehow like Deca battery leftovers were better than what Chrysler was putting in their own car like this is the battery Daimler Chrysler thought would be a good fit for some Suburban families a weird humming sound coming from the rear what is it no one knows where does it start still no one knows how do you fix it a wild guess but I'm going to assume no one knows really I can't see how they expected this to appeal to anybody much less the mom crowd it does not care about her needs at all this has all the energy of a husband asking how her day went and then thinking that's all he had to do as he drowns out the talk about the party they threw for Gina from HR to celebrate her divorce being finalized and I mean it sucks that it's come to this because it comes from a legacy of better cars I mean the history dates all the way back to the early 80s when AMC was working on designing the follow-up to the XJ and everything sort of worked out so that the company streamlined and centralized the design process so that it was easier to iron out any issues with regards to design changes and Engineering approaches this is just a very basic Cliff Notes version of the Grand Cherokee history but basically this approach meant all the documents and drawings related to the project were in one database this made the production cycle far less complicated and far more cost efficient as it promoted the harmony of Divisions that normally were on completely different pages at times the Grand Cherokee was launched in 1992 for the 1993 model year just five years after Chrysler purchased AMC in 1987 with the ZJ serving as the first Jeep product to wear a Chrysler badge and it would go on to become one of the most iconic vehicles of the 90s so what went wrong well it kind of feels like the entire design philosophy behind Jeeps was about cutting costs so that everything just sort of feels cheap this Laredo has Plastics that just feel awful this is like a playground at the school that just had its budget cut with this well I mean the one thing you're going to see and I guess it's pretty standard for for Mopar products of this areas but it's to see a hard plastic so what I mean like hard everything's hard there isn't a soft touch surface in this vehicle anywhere I mean that's about the amount of cush that you get on the on the actual door panel for where your elbows hit you're already on this and you can see how far that pushes in I mean there's like zero tolerance for anything I mean it's basically just to see a beige plastic that's it the textures don't really match the the brake handle I love how like basically the entire brake handle is one giant piece of plastic that they tried to separate with lines and different textures but it's really just one simple piece of plastic I mean you know it works it does its job I mean I guess that's the whole point of it you know it doesn't have to be pretty if it does its job which it does you'll notice that there's like a spot here that looks like a handy grab bag area but really what this is is in in like higher option Jeeps this is where you would go into they have the switches here for going into like your four low basically as you can see that's not here because this thing is uh in basically four-wheel drive all the time it's the base level package for that does not have four low so I mean it is a four wheel drive vehicle I guess and for an ostensible family car the back seats and leg room are Mustang and Chevy Spark levels of bad alright so as Mike was telling me this has a an absolutely catastrophic lack of leg room in the back for what is nominally an SUV it's sort of a different sort of way of getting to the family style car without actually having to buy a family car but the problem is that you can't really fit your legs you don't have a lot of room back here this has all the thigh support of like a pair of Levi's I've rarely since my Mustang kind of been in a car that had this amount or this relative lack of sort of movement I'm a pretty short guy I'm like five seven and a half and a half and my knees are like all the way up here I mean granted it's not the worst in the world uh maybe that's just me being super charitable and of course you can always have the driver move the seat up but but one fair point is that the seat's not all the way back yet oh there there actually is now oh all right so I mean find the negative Nick find the negative but even then like this isn't like the worst no this is not great room back here and the minute you become any older than like maybe 12 this would become kind of cramped but I feel like I'm coming at it from the standpoint of a guy who grew up in relatively small cars who spent the last seven years driving a relatively like small car and yeah I just I don't hate this back seat necessarily even as I understand and recognize that this isn't ideal everything that's happening here is not ideal and I'm not talking about my crotch I'm just well although that is less than ideal but this is just all sort of you know whatever it's whatever and depending on trim the original MSRP could climb as high as forty thousand dollars or more 40 large for this this is a car for people who see sixty percent off and think they're getting a deal for getting there at Crate and Barrel and sixty percent off a fortune is still a fortune nobody needs to pay upwards of four grand for a modular three-piece sofa and some stainless steel Burger presses and look this wouldn't be such a huge deal breaker if the performance were great but honestly it's sluggish I talked about it a bit earlier but it really is shocking how sluggish this is I put my foot to the floor and got a whole lot of nothing just great big handfuls of bopkus so if you just need a car irrespective of whether or not you needed impressive or heavy duty then they should be fine but for me personally I just don't it doesn't feel like a Jeep it's weird like it's so weird to me because if I were to drive this blindfolded I mean we'd be in a lot of trouble but also I don't know that I would be able to tell you what this was I don't know I would think it was one of the really sort of cheap Kias from the late 90s or something there you go that's a good smell through the front end oh so rattly yeah it is I mean it feels like it's there's something loose but there isn't that's just the way it is this just can just feel the Sunshine drain out of me yes it continues I got looks from people I tried to pass accelerating and coming up short drawing the scorn of truck drivers with forearm tattoos men in constant preparation to compete in parking lot UFC living out their fantasies in the Octagon of the mind oh no rust built Randy has an iron deficiency and a taste for blood all the while he's ignoring his kid in the back seat as little Johnny continues asking more questions than a doctor who companion I'll tell you where babies come from when you're 12 or you can ask your mother and she'll tell you some fairy tale about pulling you out of a Cabbage Patch there are so many other options like a RAV4 an Outback a Forester even buying American I could imagine going for something like a Chevy Equinox or a Ford Escape of course I haven't driven either but I'd love a chance to see if either of those cars could even come close to inspiring this level of regret because I could imagine regretting this and you want to know why it's funny because I I really don't like this but I'm completely honest I could see myself like owning something like this not because oh camera got too hot because that was a good place for it to die yes I could imagine owning something like this because I already kinda do my Mustang has all sorts of problems and while I continue trying my best to save up money to buy something else before selling her I recognize how much more I value a car that functions and doesn't have a thousand different problems because having a car break down is pain which brings us to some of the positives about this car I've been listening to roster man's Channel and one of the things I noticed that some cars don't do that this one does is allows you to take the radiator support subprint from Radio support subframe off right there there's two bolts there and two bolts there so if you have to take the radiator out and a bunch of other stuff you don't have to skin your knuckles to do it this whole part on bolts there so I'm saying one positive thing about this so far I'll give you another positive okay so the one thing with the what the if you have like the V8 you actually you actually have two extra cylinders I mean all this really is the 3.7 is basically just uh the 4.7 v8 with two cylinders lopped off that's really all it is as you can see you get an abundant amount of room so I mean a couple of times I've had to replace the belt I've had to replace a water pump on it it's not for lack of space I mean you can really kind of get in there and do work on it if you need to so you know yeah yeah check this out you can see clearly check this out and take my hat and it goes right down there oh it disappears I almost got it last time I went right through the car oh almost uh one of the things that I actually did like that this had and we used a lot was this basically just a regular normal plug rather than a cigarette outlet plug I don't know why more car companies don't do that but uh something that actually we is really useful you know it's one of the things that I actually do like about this car basically this was purchased for my wife real world does she ever go off-road no which she ever wanted to go off-road no what would she want to do she would want to go to work and back and and putting her in basically in Pennsylvania you're going to be dealing with snow did it do well in that absolutely it did exactly what it was supposed to do for that so it wasn't like you were getting extra capacity just to say you had it yeah durability is an incredible thing you see the pain of a failing car has the same philosophical point of inspiration as say going to the gym if you're going to be in pain anyway at least let it be the kind kind of pain that serves you if you're going to drive a crappy car at least let it be the kind of crappy card you can depend on and in this sense despite being the worst Jeep I've ever driven it's been pretty impressive what Mike has been able to achieve with this thing despite leaking batteries and swollen nuts this is currently sitting around 225 000 miles still running the original engine and five-speed automatic transmission this despite 2008 models being renowned for transmission issues appearing at around the hundred thousand mile Mark or just below Mike says the only real maintenance to keep it running is changing the oil as necessary and even then Mike himself reports that this doesn't even burn a full court between oil changes but even if it did it's a Dixie Plate at a cookout it's eminently disposable so you can drive the hell out of this car without feeling guilty because it's a Laredo who cares it has as much of a futurist crypto and despite a lot of Jeep enthusiasts refusing to truly recognize it as a Jeep it is for better or worse a Jeep and that has significance because it grants entry into a sort of benign Social Circle of people who have jeeps in common maybe you won't make any lifelong friends off of owning a Laredo but I've seen worse at car shows if I'm honest and I know what it's like to feel like your car is your ticket into conversations especially being an introvert where being lonely is often at odds with the desire to do anything about it that's why cars can be such valuable tools for socializing because the people come to you and prompt every conversation being a car Enthusiast is the path of least resistance when it comes to making friends as an adult in the real world and this would be true of any model of car that commands a certain reaction from like-minded owners say what you will about how inconspicuous this car looks but I feel like you're more likely to be able to commiserate over a Jeep than you are over something like a Hyundai or some random Kia or Cadillac your life is good things are good and when you own a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo the implication is that you don't really need that much out of your car and maybe you'll spring for something fancy one of these days but right now there's a better chance of Chick-fil-a opening on a Sunday I envy the Laredo owner the noble Spirit Awash in the low stress of Sunday Domesticity freed from the daily humiliation of living and released into the comforting arms of mechanic bills that don't exist I can see value in this even while recognizing that this is frankly just terrible so I guess that sort of brings it back around to the question at the start of the video do I hate this car is hate hunt over after just one installment well no I don't like the car but I don't hate it either because it runs it's not a bad car it's just not much of one to win the hate hunt the car has to be so bad that even the mere fact of its operation can't be overcome that it can function flawlessly and never break down yet still earn the same level of derision as two people engaged in another installment of stoplight theater as we all sit in our cars waiting for the light to change at the intersection and watch a heated argument take place in the Nissan Altima in front of the 30 minute oil change I never want to drive this car again but I still have to give it credit for what it is because it never tries to be more than a functional SUV we should all probably get in the habit of recognizing the things worth commending about ourselves and others never giving yourself enough credit can be as harmful as giving yourself too much and so I wanted to at least be fair to the Laredo but it still sucks though of course I say that this is a terrible Jeep but it's not the worst jeep ever made for that you'll have to tune in to RCR this coming Monday for a car that Brian really didn't like see you then and thank you to Mike who's been a wonderful sport about everything and who is genuinely one of the nicest people that has ever been on RCR and offered one of the most Pleasant filming experiences I can ever remember having so shout out to Mike and if you think you have the car the car that can win the hate hunt and you don't mind coming out to Southeastern Pennsylvania drop an email at regular cars the Roman at gmail.com that's regular cars the Roman gmail.com I would love to be able to do one of these every month so drop me a line I hope you enjoyed this and have a great rest of your week [Music] review [Music] oh I don't care about the kids only wanna feel the pain but tonight [Music]

Channel: Regular Car Reviews

Views: 124,144

Keywords: RCR, Regular Cars, Regular Car Reviews, Jeep Grand Cherokee (Automobile Model), Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, Jeep, 2008, bad car, worst car ever, horsepower, MPG, Road Test, driving, driving test, driving experience, vehicles, automotive, drive, review, worst car of all time, terrible car, jeep, jeep grand cherokee, grand cherokee, grand cherokee review, jeep review, off-road, 4x4, jeep 4x4, jeep off-road, jeep grand cherokee review, used cars, used car

Id: dcBQWNHLql0

Length: 34min 37sec (2077 seconds)

Published: Tue May 30 2023