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The other thing I didn't like about the last Cherokee was that it felt very nervous on tarmac, even after Jeep surreptitiously brought the ride height down by an inch in an attempt to improve the on-road handling. The new car is not remotely interesting to drive, but it doesn't feel dangerous, the ride quality isn't at all bad, all things considered, and the steering is unexpectedly smooth. Just don't expect to be able to get anywhere in a hurry.

Yet another improvement over the old model is the increased interior space, though to be honest this still isn't a Cherokee strong point. The floorpan has all sorts of bulges in it, on account of all the transmission gubbins underneath, and this means that the passenger footwell isn't flat but has a large lump - not, admittedly, at a point where it will cause any problem. More seriously, and for a similar reason, there is no rest for the driver's left foot, which makes things less comfortable than they might be for tall fellows such as myself.

Rear passenger room isn't great, but you could certainly carry two full-grown adults in there without them feeling unduly cramped. One advantage rear passengers have is that Jeep has provided them with roof-level grab handles - nothing particularly unusual there, you might think, but the strange thing is that there are no equivalent handles in the front. The front passenger has a large handle straight in front of him or her, but there's nothing higher up, and having sat alongside someone else driving through the off-road course I can say that a regular handle would have been very useful in helping me to stay in place.

As for luggage, there's 419 litres' capacity when all the seats are in place, 1404 litres when the rear seats are folded down. The compartment is shallow (inevitably, because of the axle beneath) and there's a bit of wheelarch intrusion, but at least the floor is flat, and it has a separate section underneath providing extra storage.

All previous Cherokees have been offered in the UK with a choice of engines, but this time you're stuck with a 2.8-litre turbo diesel (a reasonable decision on Jeep's part, given the recent crash in popularity of petrol-engined off-roaders). The 2.8 has been given more power and now produces a maximum of 174bhp, and it's available with either a six-speed manual gearbox or a five-speed automatic.

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