The 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee L Summit Is A Long Favored 3-Row American Luxury SUV

If you're looking for the best-selling midsize SUV nameplate in the States, you shouldn't look any further than a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Over the years, Jeep has managed to sell between 2,000 to 300,000 units annually, just in the States, every year. Now, about two years ago, Jeep introduced an all-new version of the Grand Cherokee, and everyone in the industry pretty much stood up and took notice. They also introduced their first-ever three-row model, the Grand Cherokee L, which is the vehicle that I'm standing by today to show you guys an updated review on. Now, as you guys know, the three-row midsize SUV crossover segment continues to be red-hot. And after spending some time driving the new competition from Toyota, from Honda, from Hyundai and Kia, and of course from Mazda, the big question I want answered, if you guys are looking for a midsize three-row family SUV, does the 2023 Grand Cherokee L still represent one of the best in the segment? Stay tuned to find out. Now, it's been a couple of years since I showed you guys a full review on the Grand Cherokee L. I actually showed you guys a review on the two-row model, which was new last year. But since we've had some time to drive the competition for the three-row, I thought I'd show you guys an updated review. But the first thing I want to talk about is the powertrains underneath, which Jeep has made no changes to for the 2023 model year. Now, my particular tester is one notch below the top-of-the-line version. And unlike the two-row version of the Grand Cherokee, the L is only available with gas powertrains, which to me is kind of silly how they haven't put the 4xE powertrain under the hood of this vehicle just yet. But my tester has the base engine. This is the company's signature 3.6-liter Pentastar naturally aspirated V6 without direct injection. It still makes the same 293 horsepower and 257 pound-feet of torque. You can take your pick between either rear or three different versions of their QuadraDrive four-wheel drive system. This Summit trim has the QuadraDrive 2, which also includes a limited-slip rear differential, although my particular tester deletes that option for $400 in terms of a credit that it gives back to you. It all goes out through an eight-speed torque converter automatic built by ZF, one of the best transmissions in the industry. And fuel economy is rated at 18 in the city, 25 on the highway. Like I said, my tester is four-wheel drive. This has a relatively big 22-gallon gas tank, so you're looking at around 500 miles on a full tank, thankfully on regular gas. Jeep doesn't quote a zero-to-60 time. However, we got 8.4 seconds in our testing two years ago. I am up here in Denver, Colorado. We're at a mile above sea level, so this engine's going to feel even more sluggish out in these conditions. This vehicle has a top speed of around 130-ish miles an hour. Good luck trying to get to that speed here at this elevation. Towing capacity maxes out at 6,200 pounds with the V6. It'll go up to 7,200 if you guys get the optional V8 for $4,000, which is still available on this car. And as this vehicle sits, it weighs in at just over 5,100 pounds. It's about 200 pounds heavier versus the two-row model. But let's go ahead and close up the hood and talk about the exterior styling, which there are no changes, so I'm not going to go too much into detail. This vehicle is still very much a handsome midsize SUV, although the L stretches the overall length by almost a foot, so it's pretty much encroaching on large SUV territory. You can see the summit trim includes some bright accents here on the seven-slotted grille. You have the Jeep logo there on the hood. You have these full LED headlights with an LED daytime running light and turn signal. The Grand Cherokee still offers LED fog lights as well. And right there, you have the sensor for the adaptive cruise control and the lane keep assist and whatnot, and the camera along in the windshield. But overall, in this silver color with the two-tone roof, it's definitely still an attractive vehicle. It just doesn't stand out in the way that some competitors do. This is kind of an anonymous, more conservative looking vehicle. I do like how boxy it is, however, and it's definitely going to give us that traditional Jeep look. Now, moving around the side, this is built on an Alfa Romeo Giorgio platform, so it's a unibody with an all-independent suspension. My tester also has the four-corner air suspension with adaptive dampers. Jeep basically gives you the ability to raise and lower the suspension by up to two and a half inches. You can see these 20-inch wheels on my tester included on the Summit. If you go up to the Summit Reserve, you'll get a 21-inch wheel. You have a 265 by 50 or 20-inch tire. The air suspension is definitely one of the class exclusives you're going to find. I also like how the fender trim here has been body-colored as opposed to having all that extra cladding that's non-painted. You can see the side mirrors here are black painted and you have an integrated turn signal. My tester also has a large panoramic roof, which definitely lets in a lot of light. And then when you back away from this vehicle, it doesn't look that big, but at 204.9 inches long, this is one of the largest in the segment and it has a 121.7-inch long wheelbase. This is around four inches longer in the wheelbase and around 11.5 inches longer than the two-row model. I mean, this is bigger than even the Mazda CX-90, the new Honda Pilot, and the Toyota Grand Highlander, which already those vehicles are big in itself. This is about the same length as something like a Chevy Traverse. Now, moving around the rear of the vehicle, you can see Jeep does a good job of hiding the mass of this vehicle. I do like the slim LED taillight design where it's a full LED. As you can see, you have some L badges over here to show you've got the longer version. And then there's also a Summit badge here to show everybody you've got the highest trim. And then Jeep still does an integrated exhaust system, which as you can see, it's got chrome tips. It's not actually connected to the muffler, which is actually behind the exhaust tip, but it's a nice-looking vehicle overall. Now, opening up the cargo area, this is where the L also gives you a decent amount of space, but not class-leading space. You can see with the third-row seat up, which this vehicle can seat up to seven, it doesn't have the ability to carry three across in the third row. You get around 17 cubic feet of storage space with the third-row seat up. This is decent, but you can see there is a little bit of underfloor storage over here. This vehicle's space trails something like the Grand Highlander by about three cubic feet in the cargo area. If you want to fold down this third row here, you can see I love the power folding feature. This is something that the Toyota Grand Highlander should offer. It's just one touch. It folds down. You expand the space here to around 41 cubic feet of space with the third-row seat down. If you fold down the second row as well, Jeep says the maximum is around 84.8 cubic feet, which sounds like a lot, and it is, until you realize the Grand Highlander offers something like around 98 cubic feet of space. The space efficiency and the packaging, Jeep could do better over here, but this is still going to be around the same spaces you're going to find in something like the new Honda Pilot and the new Nissan Pathfinder. Let's go ahead and move on to the interior of this 2023 Grand Cherokee L. Before we get inside, I do want to show you guys the key fob. You can see this is Stellantis' or Jeep's newer key fob. It's a nice looking fob. I like the chrome details. I like how sturdy and the good size that it is. I also like the fact that you have your usual buttons here, including remote start, open up the power lift gate, and then your panic function. If you have access to the Jeep app as well, if you're the owner of this vehicle, you should be able to also remotely access this vehicle through your smartphone. Now, you can see the door handle is traditional. There are these three ridges here. If you touch that, it locks the doors. It also folds in the mirrors if you have it set to do that. If you touch the back of the handle, that is what's going to unlock the door for you. Now, my silver exterior test car is complemented by this black Nappa leather interior. This is technically one step down from the Palermo leather that you can get on the Summit Reserve trim in that Tupelo Honey color, which I love. I do love the diamond quilted stitching with the contrasting copper stitching. You have, basically, it looks like a 16-way power adjustable seat. These are heated, ventilated, and massaging. So, one of the few vehicles that you can get in the mainstream segment with massaging seats. In terms of the door panel, you can see you've got this beautiful American Walnut genuine wood trim, leather stitching on this upper portion, more leather over here, piano black plastic trim. All the windows are one touch up down. These are newer switchgear, which I like. And then, you have two-person memory as well. Your massage function is just accessed by pushing a button. It's very simple. My tester also has the 19-speaker Macintosh audio. That's an extra charge, which is standard on the Summit Reserve. It sounds good, but it's a little bass-heavy for me. It's not my favorite audio system. Down here, it's hard-touch plastic, which you kind of expect, although this vehicle here has a very high price tag. Now, as I get into the Grand Cherokee L, you can see I have the suspension at the normal height, which has around eight and a half inches of ground clearance. When I shut the door, the door has a nice, solid-sounding thunk. Jeep does not offer soft, closed doors on this vehicle. And then, start it up. The button here is where you'd expect it to be. And you can see the mirrors will fold out. It has that typical starter noise. And then, all Grand Cherokee Ls come with this 10 and a half inch full digital cluster in the instrument panel. Even the base trim has this, where you can kind of customize this. You can show a night vision camera. You can show your GPS function, simply by just kind of using these little buttons here on the steering wheel. It's a relatively nice-looking screen. My tester also has the upgraded 10.1-inch Uconnect 5 screen here, along with the passenger display over here. This is like an extra $1,200. This is where your passenger can essentially watch movies, connecting an HDMI port. They can also access the audio information and send GPS over to this screen here. It's kind of a gimmick. Unless you regularly have a passenger here, it's an option I would skip. In terms of the materials, you can see beautiful, soft-touch leather with real stitching on the entire portion of the dash. It's even right here, more of that beautiful American walnut trim. This right here, sadly, is a hard-touch plastic area. But what do you expect? This isn't a full-on luxury brand. You can see the steering wheel is a nice size. It's a three-spoke design. It's got more of that natural American walnut wood grain. You have paddles on the wheel. You've got a power tilt telescoping steering column, which, again, class above some of the mainstream rivals here. And then the horn sounds good. It doesn't sound puny. It sounds nondescript but appropriate, given the size of this vehicle. And then some of the controls here, they feel like the typical Stellantis controls. I kind of wish that we had the newer-style switch gear for the turn signals and the windshield wiper controls. You can see over here the screen. If I put the vehicle in reverse, it gives you a full top-down 360 camera, where it also has a washer. You can also look behind you, as well. And you can also look in front of you. That's the trail cam. You can see there's the button to wash the camera in case it gets dirty. The graphics and resolution is fine. You can see the Uconnect 5 system here. I will say, considering when I first drove this vehicle two years ago, I found it to be laggy and slow. And when it's in the CarPlay function, it looks nice. It's quick and snappy. There were times that it didn't always connect to my phone right away. I had to kind of redo it or force it to connect. When I go back to the Jeep system, this is where things get annoying because it's still ridiculously laggy. When I switch between the different functions, you can see there are times where it's just really slow. There's the GPS. It's taking forever to populate. Going to the vehicle settings here, you can see, again, it just takes a little bit too much time. Jeep could really beef up the software in this to kind of match the beautiful resolution and clarity of the screen. Remember, this has over-the-air updates, so I'm hoping they'll continue to do that. You can also adjust your heated and ventilated seats from this screen here, but Jeep also gives you these actual hard buttons so you don't have to go into the screen to do that, which is nice. You also have a heated steering wheel. You have a volume and a tuning knob here. Open this up, you can see wireless phone charging pad, and then you have four USB charging ports, your HDMI port where you can connect to that passenger screen. And then this right here is your transmission selector. It's a rotary dial twisted all the way to the right to go to drive. Reverse is here. Go all the way to go to park over here. And then your drive mode selector is here. You have rock, sand, mud, snow, auto, and then a sport setting. And then your adjustable air suspension is this toggle here. My tester also has an actual four-wheel drive low range, which is nice. It's part of the QuadraDrive 2 system. And then you have cupholders over here. Padded center console. You have two levels of storage. You can see there's a little bit of a light in there. There is ambient LED lighting in this cabin, which you can choose from five different colors. It's nothing super special, but it's nice that Jeep gives you that. You can see the glove compartment is damped. It's a bin style. It's lined with felt. The seats are comfortable and supportive. And then that leather could be a little softer, but I think that's why the Palermo leather exists, to give you a little bit more suppleness. And then my tester also has a tech package that gives you the digital camera rearview mirror. It also has a heads up display. And then the panoramic roof, as you can see, open that up. It opens into the second row of the vehicle, and it just lets in a lot of natural light. You can also actually tilt and slide this open completely only over the two front seats. But overall, you can see the interiors still feel roomy. It still feels like it has a lot of great tech in it. And the build quality is rather good. I also like some of the authentic materials in here. But until Jeep really upgrades the software in this, some competitors to me offer a slightly better infotainment system. Moving into the second row, you can see my tester has the captain's chairs, which means you only have seating for up to six. For 750 bucks, Jeep will delete this and give you a bench, even in this trim, so you can kind of get a seven passenger configuration. But you can see the seats look really nice. They're pretty similar to the front. They are manual adjusting, but I also love the diamond quilting stitching. These seats are also heated, although they are not ventilated like you'll find in some competitors. You can see the door panel has the same beautiful soft leather, real wood, diamond stitching as well, hard touch plastic here. And you also have these manual rear sunshades, which is nice, especially for families that put like a baby in the second row. You can see getting back here, there's around 39 and a half inches of leg room, which 39 and a half is a good amount. You will find a little bit more in some competitors. This is pretty comparable to the new Grand Highlander that I was just in. You can see the seats do slide forward and back. You have four zone climate control. And then there's a button here where you could get a cooled seat, but I don't think Jeep offers it here in the US market, at least. You also have four more USB charging ports. You have an actual household power outlet here, which is great if you want to charge up your devices. And if you don't have the right cable, for example, you have two storage cubbies. And then this center console you can see has two levels of storage, I think, or maybe not, maybe just one level of storage. But it does give you cup holders a little bit more storage over here. And you can also actually, there you go, you can slide this. From the back of this, it actually unlatches. It gives you two levels of storage. That's kind of a nice nifty touch. But again, this is going to limit your maximum cargo capacity. Like I said earlier, these seats are pretty comfortable and supportive. And then the Macintosh Auto you can see has an LED light element with metal speaker covers. And it just overall looks really nice. The sunroof comes all the way to the second row here, not to the third row. And then over here, you can see there's your fam cam where you can spy on the children from the screen up there. That's part of the tech package that my tester has. Now let me get back into the third row, because that's always a big question here. And some competitors have really stepped up their game in the third row space. Now you can see you pull this lever here, this pulls the seat forward, and it gives you a pretty good amount of space to get back here. But you can see it doesn't seat three across like some competitors. If I get back here and show you guys the space, let me go ahead and slide over here. Jeep says there's around 30 inches of legroom back here, which 30 inches of legroom is perfectly fine. This is with the seat all the way back. You can see I'm 5'7". My knees don't touch this. The floor is a little bit higher. The seat's cushion doesn't really offer much in terms of support. In terms of the headroom space, you can see at 5'7", I have a decent amount of headroom. Actually, this is not bad at all. I also like how Jeep gives you two USB charging ports on both sides, actually, and you have rear seat air vents, which is nice. But I will say that the Grand Highlander, the new Pilot, the Hyundai and Kia, they do feel like they offer a little bit more space. And you can also get, remember, three across seating in the third row in those competitors. So Jeep could offer a little bit more space, especially considering how big this vehicle is. The third row is certainly better than something like the regular Highlander, but this is definitely not among the top in the class considering the size of this vehicle. So here we are back driving the Jeep Grand Cherokee L. Now, I am sad to say that I was hoping that Jeep would drop off the model that has the 5.7L V8. I just needed more time to spend with that vehicle. But this model has the base engine, a naturally aspirated V6, which actually sounds pretty decent. Chrysler's Pentastar V6 makes a good amount of horsepower, but it's very light on torque, especially for a vehicle of this size. It's a heavy car weighing around 5,100 pounds, and you feel that mass every time you're behind the wheel of the Grand Cherokee L. This is where some of the competitors do a better job, to me at least, of hiding the mass of this vehicle. You feel how long it is, you feel how wide it is, you feel how heavy it is. The steering, thankfully, is pretty sharp and direct. Not much in terms of feedback, but the suspension is nicely compliant. It's nicely controlled. I love the adaptive air suspension. It's one of the few vehicles in the segment that offers an air suspension. It just gives you a supple ride quality with the ability to kind of raise and lower the vehicle. The car feels like a tank. I mean, it's one of the few vehicles also that has an actual four-wheel drive system with a low range transfer case. So again, you're going to want that if you plan to do some serious off-roading. But overall, driving it around town, you're going to notice the cumbersomeness of this car. But once you get it out of the city and start actually driving it, this is where the Grand Cherokee is definitely a nice driving road trip vehicle. Put my foot down here, you can hear the engine is struggling. Now, it actually makes a little bit of a snarl from the exhaust. I wasn't expecting that. When it shifts, you can actually hear the crackle from the exhaust. I wasn't expecting that. Kind of a nice surprise. It's just a shame because I put my foot down and there's not really any forward thrust. Now, when I first tested this vehicle zero to 60 back home two years ago, or a year ago, a year and a half ago, I got 8.4 seconds. That was my best time. We are at a mile above sea level here in Denver. So I'm not going to retest it today, but it feels like around 10 to 11 seconds. It struggles to get up to speed. I'm going to save Jeep the embarrassment because most people when they drive a vehicle like this, they don't really care about zero to 60 performance. But what I will say is if you plan to carry seven people and all their stuff or tow 6,500 pounds, and you live in this area, you put your foot down, it just doesn't have very much power. Now, I will say that the transmission is nice. The eight speed torque converter from ZF is one of the snappiest, quickest shifting transmissions in the industry. And when I put my foot down, you can hear the transmission is very quick to downshift, which it needs to do. But, you know, getting up to speed, it's fine. It'll get up to speed. But what you do hear is a lot of engine noise. The engine itself makes a decent snarl. But if you've got sleeping kids in the back, you might be worried that it might wake them up and whatnot. But at least I'm sitting here getting a massage. The massaging seats works really well. It's got very good visibility as well from the front, from the side. This digital camera rear view mirror is also nice because when you have the seats up and you have people there, it does block your view out of the back kind of a little much. But with this setup, you don't have to really worry about the driver assistance tech in this car also is fine. It's not class leading. Jeep has been improving it over the years. But some competitors, again, offer a slightly better experience where they're kind of getting closer to level two. Jeep has that feature in the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer, but I don't believe it's made its way into the Grand Cherokee L just yet. But overall, it's still a nice driving vehicle as we get out onto the highway over here. You just get a sense that this is an excellent road trip car. It's got a quiet interior as well, ignoring the fact that the engine screams. It doesn't really have much in terms of wind and road noise. You can see putting my foot down here, we're trying to get it up to speed, to highway speeds. And it's fine. Actually, this is perfectly acceptable. Most people aren't going to be pushing the car as hard as I push the vehicles for demonstration purposes. But once we get into a cruise here, as you can hear, there's a little bit more road noise than I would like, but not really much in terms of wind noise, which shows you they put a lot of sound deadening materials in this car, which is nice. We'll go ahead and we'll turn on the driver assistance tech in this car. It says they're active drive assist ready. Push the set button. You can see you can adjust the distance from this little button over here. It also shows you the distance and whatnot in your heads up display. And then it also has active steering assist. You can see the vehicle keeps in the lane quite nicely. If I signal left, it doesn't have automatic lane changing function, but it does turn off the adaptive lane keep. And then when it shows a green status again, that's where it's active. You can see as I cruise down the road here, if I take my hands off the wheel, it knows automatically and it turns the steering wheel yellow pretty quickly actually, but you can feel it applying torque and keeping you centered in the lane. So it's pretty nice. It just doesn't have like the active lane keep assist. It doesn't have your full hands-free driving on interstates like you might find in some competitors, especially with GM kind of expanding the availability of their super cruise system. But since we're talking about cruising on the highway, this is a great time to talk about fuel economy because this car is rated at 18 in the city, 25 on the highway. In my few days of testing out here in Denver, I averaged around 21 MPG, which 21 is actually pretty good. That's with mostly highway driving. I will say in the city, I didn't see this thing dropped down to as low as 15 MPG, which as you guys know, 15 is terrible. This is where Jeep would really do well to offer the four by E powertrain in this car, where you could get the hybrid assist, the electric assist, the electric only driving range. I'm not entirely sure why it's been two years and they haven't offered the four by E powertrain yet in the L version, especially when they do about 70% of sales being the L, it would be nice to see the four by E powertrain available in this vehicle. But overall, it's a nice driving vehicle. I just highly recommend if you guys plan to tow, you live in a high altitude environment like this to at least go for the V8. And I'm super excited to also see Jeep eventually put hopefully their new Hurricane in line six in this vehicle, their twin turbo in line six, something with like over 400 horsepower would certainly make the price delta of this car. It's a very expensive vehicle, much more easier to swallow. But overall, it's still a nice driving vehicle. Just know that some competitors offer more efficiency like the new Grand Highlander, and they also offer significantly more power. So after spending the last few days here with the 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee L, I am reminded why I really liked this vehicle when I first drove it about two years ago when Jeep first introduced the L. Remember, they introduced the L first, and then they introduced the two row model. In terms of being a family vehicle, there's obviously plenty of space in this vehicle. The second row has middle of the class in terms of space. The third row also is a little bit on the lower end. There are now new competitors out there that have more space. And the cargo area is certainly fine. This has roughly the same kind of space as something like the new Mazda CX-90, which as you guys know, that vehicle isn't the most space efficient. But considering how big this car is on the outside, Jeep could have done a better job. Now in terms of technology, this is still one of the few vehicles out there where you can get a passenger side display, which is kind of a cool option. You can get air suspension, you can get a night vision camera, you can get massaging seats. So there's a lot of great tech that kind of makes you think that you're driving a more luxury oriented vehicle. However, in terms of the software with Uconnect 5, I found this the system still has issues, at least every time I use it. The carplay doesn't always work, the software lags, and it's really slow as you're going between the screens, which is really infuriating. Although it does have wireless over-the-air updates, so I'm hoping that Jeep will eventually continuously fix that as we go further on into the year and whatnot. But overall, if you're looking for something that has a little bit less complexity in terms of the software, there are other competitors out there, but this vehicle still gives you a lot of technology and luxury. Now, when you start to look at the price tag of this vehicle, this is where things go a little bit wonky for the Grand Cherokee L, because when it first came out, I already said that it was a very expensive vehicle. And now that we see new competitors, including something like the new Grand Highlander, which is kind of a direct rival to this vehicle, you are starting to see just how expensive the Grand Cherokee L. Now, at the base end, it starts pretty reasonable at around $42,300. This is around $2,000 more expensive than the two-row, and it's not surprising to me that Jeep says that the take rate between the two-row and the three-row is around a 70-30. So about 70% of Grand Cherokee buyers, at least last year, bought the three-row for $2,000 more. That makes sense. Now, if you want four-wheel drive, it's going to cost you $2,000 extra, so really around $44,000 for the Laredo trim. Those of you who need more features are probably going to step it up to the Limited. That's going to start at around $52,000. You could get a Limited trim for the mid-50s, which is right around the competitors at the high end. However, my tester here, the Summit trim, starts at around $64,000, $66,000 when you add four-wheel drive, with the options that my tester has, like the Advanced Tech Package Pro for like $3,500 or $2,500, and then you have the Luxury Package, and then the Two-Tone Paint Color, and whatnot. This model here is around $73,000. $73,000 is ridiculously overpriced. It's easily around $10,000 to $15,000, too expensive for me. And keep in mind, if you guys want the 5.7-liter Hemi V8, which here in Colorado, you're going to want that V8 for the extra torque, it's going to cost you another $4,000. So really, you could spend around $77,000 if you got this with the V8. And also keep in mind, there's also the Summit Reserve trim, which is like an extra $4,000, which basically gives you 21-inch wheels and the Palermo leather. It's some upgraded interior luxury touches, which all in, you can get one of these for around $80,000. I can't imagine how expensive it's going to be when Jeep finally adds the plug-in hybrid powertrain. I also, I'm looking forward to them adding their new Hurricane Inline-6 Twin Turbo from the Wagoneer. It would fit perfectly into this vehicle as well. But overall, at the high end, I think the Grand Cherokee L is grossly overpriced unless you can get these with a lot of incentives on the hood at your local Jeep dealership. But if you keep the options in check, it is right around the same price, but still on the high end of the competitors. But really, unless you guys really want the Jeep off-road capability and the Jeep image, there are also options out there that will serve your family friendly needs because of simply more interior space and more cargo capacity. But with all that said, hope you guys have enjoyed my full overview on the 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee L in this Summit trim. If you're also looking to see the latest cars I'm testing, be sure to follow me on Instagram at Redline Underscore Reviews. Like us on Facebook. And as always, guys, please keep subscribing to the Redline Reviews YouTube channel for all the latest reviews. Thank you so much for watching. I'll catch you all in the next video.