| Road Test Jeep Commander 3.0 CRD Limited |
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by David Finlay (26 Jan 07)
We've dealt with the Commander before, both in a launch report and in a short test of the 3.0 CRD Limited which we've returned to here. If you want more details - particularly about the off-road ability provided by the Quadra Drive II 4x4 system - by all means read those. This time round we've spent a full week with the CRD to see what it's like to live with. Potential buyers who wanted a more butch alternative to the Grand Cherokee can be reassured that there's nothing pansy about the Commander. It isn't actually constructed from a series of right angles, but it looks more like it than almost anything else on the road. The effect is heightened by the use of exposed bolt heads on the wheelarches and dashboard. They give the impression that, with the aid of a chunky spanner, the Commander could be reduced to its component parts, fettled in whatever way seemed necessary, and reassembled again before the kettle on the bonfire had come to the boil. Actually, it couldn't. The bolt heads are fake. But this is the 21st century, and appearance is everything.
Or perhaps not, because despite that appearance, the Commander is really quite refined. The boxy shape creates quite a lot of wind noise, but mechanical racket is kept to a minimum. The excellent 215bhp three-litre turbo diesel engine - transferred across from the Mercedes-Benz half of the DaimlerChrysler partnership, and also available in the best examples of the Chrysler 300C - is never allowed to speak of its presence more than it should. Even from a cold start, it provides little more than a background hum.
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