Nissan Murano vs Jeep Cherokee

The fourth generation of the Murano comes with a new powertrain and lots of new features, including tech and comfort options making their way into this lineup for the first time ever. Yet Nissan has also, for some reason, felt it necessary to take away certain desirable offerings that used to be more affordably accessible. It sits at the upper end of the automaker’s crossover and SUV range, above the Nissan Kicks, the Nissan Rogue, the Nissan Pathfinder, and the Nissan Ariya, but below the larger Nissan Armada.

Verdict: We’ve got a lot of good things to say about this new Murano. The downgrades stick in our craw, but in reality, they represent just a small handful of the many changes that are generally quite positive.

The KL-generation Cherokee launched as a 2014 model and almost immediately began swirling in controversy. Jeep hadn’t offered a Cherokee in the United States since the 2001 model year, when the XJ Cherokee disappeared, replaced by two generations of the Jeep Liberty.

There was great excitement for this all-new Jeep. Lots of fans were hoping for a redo of the 1984 to 2001 Jeep Cherokee that really helped to define the midsize SUV class with a unibody and legendary toughness. “The 2014 Cherokee feels planted on the road, more carlike than trucklike…” read an early review in Car and Driver. A separate review from the same publication read: “If you have eyes, you’ve noticed that this Cherokee, code-named KL, makes no design references, other than with the grille, to the iconic, rectilinear XJ Cherokee.”

But the automotive industry isn’t necessarily in the business of fueling nostalgia. It’s interested in what it can sell in great numbers in the future, not what people liked 30 years ago. And what we’ve realized over the years is that the Cherokee is really good at what it does, and it’s capable of doing a lot more than you’d expect.

Jeep sells these at a rate of 240,000 annually, in a good year. The best the Jeep Liberty it replaced ever managed was 166,883 units before dropping off the face of the Earth entirely. Clearly, Jeep knew something we didn’t when it released the Cherokee.