Nissan Pathfinder vs Jeep Cherokee

What's the difference?

It looks good, offers benchmark safety and combines strong engine performance with sure-footed traction, particularly on low-grip surfaces. There’s also a spacious, comfortable and practical cabin that can seat up to eight and it can tow up to 2.7 tonnes. Apart from its V6 thirst, based on our at-pump figures, there’s little we can criticise about the latest Pathfinder in Ti 4WD specification, which is certainly worthy of consideration for large SUV buyers.  

The Cherokee is perhaps not going to tempt anyone set on a mainstream mid-size family SUV. But, to those on the periphery who are genuinely looking for something different, there’s a lot on offer here.

The proposition is boosted by the Cherokee’s unique off-road equipment and compelling price tag, but just keep in mind it’s old-fashioned in more than just one way…

The latest Pathfinder rides on a 2900mm wheelbase with an 11.8-metre turning circle. Although it's shorter in overall length with less frontal overhang than its predecessor, it has a wider stance (aka track width) for improved handling plus a height increase for more headroom. There’s also more leg and hip-room.

The sumptuous interior is a tasteful mix of leather accents, piano black and satin chrome with classy exposed stitching along numerous seams including the leather-wrapped steering wheel. It exudes a high-quality look and feel.

The 2/3/3 seating layout can theoretically cater for up to eight occupants, starting with seating for the driver and front passenger which is spacious and comfortable with ample adjustment.

For those in the grandstand-style second row, it also feels spacious thanks not only to the wide-opening doors and increased head and legroom, but also the flat floor with no transmission hump to restrict foot placement for those in the middle. The recline of the 60/40-split backrests can be adjusted for added comfort.

Second-row passengers also have access to their own control panel on the rear of the centre console that allows individual adjustment of seat-heating and temperature/fan speed for vents located under the front seats and in the roof.

The second row tilts and slides forward to provide access to the third row. This is designed to carry up to three occupants, but by our measure only small kids could manage that.

For adults, it’s really a two-seater and that’s only for short trips and only with the second row slid forward at least 100mm to provide adequate knee room.

Even so, the third row offers adequate headroom (even for tall people) and with large glass areas and overhead cooling vents does its best to minimise a claustrophobic feel.

So, we see it as either a seven- or eight-seater, depending on the kid-to-adult mix.

Part of me wants to like the Cherokee. It’s a refreshingly modern take on the mid-size formula from Jeep. There’s another part of me which thinks it’s a bit soft around the edges with a little too much influence from the likes of the last-generation RAV4, especially around the rear. A smaller, heavily opinionated, part of me says it looks like the kind of car the Hamburgler would drive.

But you can’t deny the black paint with black and grey highlights looks tough. The raised plastic bumpers, small wheels, and red powder-coated recovery hooks speak to this SUV’s off-road ambition. And the package is nicely rounded out with LED light fittings front and rear which cut nice angles around this car’s edges.

Inside is still very… American, but this has been toned down significantly from past Jeep offerings. There are almost no truly awful plastics now, with an abundance of soft-touch surfaces and nicer interaction points.

The wheel is still chunky and leather-clad though, and the multimedia screen is an impressive and bright unit taking centre stage in the dash.

My main complaint with the cabin is the chunky A-pillar which eats a bit of your peripheral vision, but otherwise it’s a plush design.

The Ti 4WD’s 2044kg kerb weight (unladen and full of fuel) and 2750kg GVM (how much it can legally weigh when fully loaded) provides a load capacity of 706kg.

That limit could easily be reached or exceeded just by eight adults, before you could think about loading their luggage.

So, be mindful of combined passenger and luggage weight, particularly when planning a trip, to ensure you’re not over the GVM limit.

It’s also rated tow up to 2700kg of braked trailer, which is suitably large to cater for many recreational towing tasks.

However, as there’s no published GCM (or how much the Ti can legally carry and tow at the same time) we don’t know if it can haul its maximum payload while towing its maximum trailer weight.

Even so, it offers 205 litres of internal load volume with the second and third rows upright (ideal space for a supermarket shop), which expands to 554 litres with the third row folded flat and 782 litres with the second and third rows folded.

There are four cargo tie-down points and a surprisingly large bin hidden under the rear floor.

In terms of internal storage there’s a glove box, console box, overhead glasses holder and seat pockets plus a variety of bins, bottle holders and cupholders thoughtfully placed throughout the cabin catering for all three rows.

Nissan claims a total of 16 cupholders, but by our measure there are 18. Either way, there’s more than ample storage for drinks and personal items in this well-designed cabin.

The plushness makes for a comfortable environment, particularly for front passengers who benefit (in this case) from power adjustable seats, telescopically adjustable steering column and faux-leather trimmed padded surfaces pretty much everywhere.

There are small bottle holders in the doors, big bottle holders in the centre console, a large armrest box, and a small trench in front of the transmission stick. Sadly the Cherokee seems to miss out on the secret compartment under the seat base which the smaller Compass gets.

Back seat occupants get a decent, but not impressive, amount of space. I’m 182cm tall and had a small amount of airspace for my knees and head. There are small bottle holders in the doors, pockets on the back of both front seats, a set of movable air vents and USB ports on the back of the centre console, plus large bottle holders in the drop-down armrest.

Seat trim all-around has to be commended for being ultra-soft and comfortable, albeit not super supportive.

The second row is on rails, allowing you to max out boot space if need be.

Speaking of boot space, it’s a tough one to compare to other models because Jeep is insistent on using the SAE standard rather than the VDA standard (as one is more or less a liquid measurement, and the other is one made up of cubes, they are impossible to convert). Regardless, the Cherokee managed to consume all three items in our luggage set with ease, so it at very least has a competitive standard boot capacity.

The floor in our Trailhawk was carpeted, and a luggage cover comes standard. Worth noting is how high the boot floor is off the ground. This limits the space available, but is required for the full-size spare hidden under the floor, a must for long-distance drivers.

Does it represent good value for the price? In a word: Yes.

Let’s take a look. The Trailhawk is the most expensive Cherokee you can buy, yet at $48.450 you’ll get stacks of gear. In fact, you’ll get more stuff than is packed in to most of its mid- to high-spec mainstream rivals.

The question is whether you’ll even want it. This is because while the Cherokee might tick key mid-size spec boxes, its real advantage is in the off-road gear sitting underneath it.

This is one of very few front- drive biased, transverse-mounted engine SUVs to get a locking rear differential, low-range transfer case, and a series of rather serious computer-controlled off-road modes.

Impressive stuff if you’re ever going to take it onto sand or scrabbling up gravel surfaces, potentially of little value if there’s no chance you’ll be doing any of those things.

Regardless, the standard road-going kit is great. Included is LED headlights, leather seats, keyless entry and push-start, an 8.0-inch multimedia touchscreen with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, sat nav and DAB+ digital radio, auto wipers, anti-glare rear vision mirror, and 17-inch alloys.

Those wheels might seem a bit small by high-spec SUV standards, but are more focused on being off-road ready.

Our car was also fitted with the ‘Premium Pack’ ($2950) which adds some luxury touches like heated and cooled front seats with memory power adjust, carpeted boot floor, distance control for the active cruise (more on that in the safety section of this review), and black painted wheels.

The Pathfinder is powered a lusty direct-injection 3.5-litre petrol V6. It produces 202kW at 6400rpm and 340Nm at 4800rpm.

It’s paired with a nine-speed torque converter automatic transmission which offers the choice of manual sequential-shifting using steering wheel-mounted paddles.

The full-time 4WD transmission offers seven different drive modes via a rotary-dial on the console, which optimises performance in each selected mode. These include 'Standard', 'Sport', 'Eco', 'Snow', 'Sand', 'Mud/Rut' and 'Tow'.

The Cherokee shows its star-spangled heritage here with a rather old-school drivetrain.

Under the bonnet is a 3.2-litre ‘Pentastar’ non-turbo V6. It produces 200kW/315Nm which you might note isn’t much more than a lot of turbocharged 2.0-litre alternatives these days.

If you were hoping for a diesel as a more attractive option for long-distance travel, tough luck, the Trailhawk is V6 petrol only.

The engine is perhaps at odds with the modern nine-speed torque converter automatic transmission, and the Trailhawk is one of the few front-biased, non-ladder chassis-based vehicles to have a low-range crawl gear and locking rear differential.

The Trailhawk drives all four wheels.

Nissan claims combined cycle average consumption of 10.5L/100km and the Ti’s dash display was claiming 12.9 at the completion of our 213km test, which was mostly city and suburban driving with some limited highway running and from one to five occupants on board at different times.

Our own figure, calculated from actual fuel bowser and tripmeter readings, came in higher again at 14.5L/100km which exceeds the usual 2.0-3.0L/100km discrepancy between manufacturer figures and our own.

In other words, it drinks more than a diesel but is about average for a powerful six-cylinder petrol engine of this size under test conditions.

So, based on our ‘real world’ driving and at-pump consumption figure, you could expect a driving range of around 500km from its 71-litre tank. And it requires premium unleaded.

In the spirit of keeping the hard-done-by fuel conglomerates in business, this V6 is as thirsty as it sounds. This is compounded by the fact that the Trailhawk weighs in at close to two tonnes.

The official claimed/combined figure is already not great at 10.2L/100km, but our week-long test produced a figure of 12.0L/100km. Not a good look when many of the Cherokee’s mid-size competitors are at least in the single-digit range, even in real-world testing.

In a small concession, you’ll be able to fill up (annoyingly frequently) with entry-level 91RON unleaded. The Cherokee has a 60L fuel tank.

A good example of its comfort range is that I’m 186cm tall and my wife is only 165cm, yet we both managed to find comfortable seating positions. However, she said that ideally the range of seat-height adjustment could be a tad higher given her smaller stature.

Even so, she liked the Ti and found it easy to drive, particularly in negotiating busy shopping centre car parks with its various cameras, parking sensors etc.

She also appreciated how easy it is to fold down the trio of headrests on the third row of seats when not in use, to provide a clear view through the rear window.

We encountered heavy rain at times during our test, when the superior traction of its 4WD system was most noticeable and appreciated when cornering.

It also ensured no wheelspin from standing starts, which is reassuring given the V6 engine’s vigorous low-down response. This engine has excellent performance.

We also liked the ride quality, steering feel and braking, along with the nine-speed automatic thanks to its near-seamless shifting and good all-round response. We did try manual-shifting using the paddle-shifters for a more ‘engaging’ driving experience at times.

It also makes a comfortable highway cruiser given its low engine, tyre and wind noise and suitably long gearing, that requires only 1500rpm from the V6 to maintain 110km/h and optimise fuel economy.

The Cherokee drives pretty much exactly how it looks, soft and ‘murican.

As thirsty as the V6 might be, it’s fun in a kind of retro way to be behind the wheel. It makes lots of angry noises and flies up the rev range (into fuel-drinkin’ town) all too easily, although despite that you might notice you’re not going particularly fast the whole time.

This is largely down to the Cherokee’s overbearing weight. Not great for fuel usage, it does have benefits for comfort and refinement.

On tarmac, and even gravel surfaces, the interior is impressively quiet. There’s little road noise or suspension rattle, and even the fury of the V6 is more of a distant thrum.

Gravity takes its toll in the corners, where the Cherokee hardly feels like a confident apex carver. The steering is light though, and the long-travel suspension is soft and forgiving. This makes for a refreshing SUV experience which places the focus solely on comfort over sportiness.

It’s also a nice point of difference from many mainstream competitors which seem hell-bent on making mid-size family SUVs handle like sports sedans or hatchbacks.

A test of the off-road features was a little outside the scope of our regular weekly test, although a thrashing down a few gravel tracks only served to confirm my confidence in the comfort suspension tune and stability of the standard all-wheel drive mode on offer.

In its last update the Cherokee acquired an active safety suite consisting of auto emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian detection, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, blind spot monitoring, rear-cross traffic alert, and active cruise control.

The Trailhawk Premium Pack adds distance control (via a button on the steering wheel).

The Cherokee is also armed with six airbags, a reversing camera and parking sensors. It has dual ISOFIX child-seat mounting points on the outer rear seats.

Only four-cylinder Cherokees have been ANCAP safety tested (and scored a maximum five stars in 2015). This six-cylinder version does not carry a current ANCAP safety rating.

Nissan covers the Pathfinder with a five-year/unlimited km warranty including five years roadside assist.

Scheduled servicing is every 12 months/15,000km whichever occurs first.

Capped-price servicing for the first five scheduled services is $2581 or an average of $516 per service.

Jeep has upped its ownership promise in the past few years with what it calls the “there and back guarantee”. This consists of a five-year/100,000km warranty and matching capped price service program.

It’s a shame the warranty is distance-limited, but time-wise is on par with Japanese makers. While the capped price service program is welcome, it's almost twice as expensive as an equivalent RAV4.

According to Jeep’s online calculator, services varied from $495 to $620 on this particular variant.

Roadside assist is offered beyond the warranty period provided you continue to service your vehicle at an authorized Jeep dealership.