Jeep Compass : WHAT'S THE POINT?

Can Jeep's Compass successfully show the brand's softer side? June Neary checks it outâ€¦.

Ask any Jeep dealer and he'll tell you that his wares aren't made for hairy woodsmen from the back of beyond with mud splattered boots and a squirrel for a hat. He'd be limiting his market somewhat if he didn't. He'd be right too. Most modern Jeeps are as civilised as the next 4x4 vehicle but they do have a certain rough `n' ready image which is handy to an extent but can put some people off. If you still imagine the average Jeep owner prowling the forest with a shotgun looking for his tea or playing the banjo on his front porch, it's about time you modernised that view. The Jeep Compass could be the car to help you do it. Jeep enthusiasts were less than keen on the Compass when it was launched. It's the `softest' Jeep yet and they were concerned it might dilute the marque's illustrious off-roading heritage. What it did do is open up the prospect of Jeep ownership to a group of buyers who may not have considered one before - the kind of mainstream clientele who had driven the boom in compact 4x4 sales. The Compass ticks all the basic compact 4x4 boxes, a high driving position, chunky looks, decent practicality and a lack of really heavy duty off-road underpinnings which should lead to decent performance on the tarmac.

From straight ahead, you'd instantly pick the Compass out as a Jeep product: the characteristic grille and lights are highly recognisable. Move round to the rear three-quarter view and things aren't so cut and dried, the tapered C-pillar looking pretty generic. Nevertheless it's a smart piece of styling albeit one that could use some bigger wheels. What's quite remarkable about the Compass is how small it is when you get up close. Despite the beefy styling cues, it's not a lot bigger than a Ford Focus, sharing the same wheelbase as the Dodge Caliber but riding a little higher. That makes is a surprisingly manageable proposition and will appeal to buyers daunted by the prospect of driving a large SUV around town. The Compass is still a Jeep, albeit a more road-biased one, and it can still do better than most compact 4x4s off-road. The approach and departure angles (ie the car's ability to climb onto and descend off steep inclines) are also a good deal more aggressive in the time-honoured Jeep tradition. The interior is a little plasticky but seems very durable with a decent amount of rear leg room. A particularly nice touch is the compass point detailing on the bezels of the main dials in the instrument cluster.

The chassis found underneath the Compass is used extremely widely across the motoring world so there must be something good about it. The car is based on the same architecture as the Mitsubishi Outlander and hence the Dodge Caliber, the CitroÃ«n C-Crosser, the Peugeot 4007 and Jeep's own Patriot. It's offered with the choice of either a Volkswagen-sourced 2.0-litre diesel that's mated to a six-speed manual gearbox or a 2.4-litre petrol engine that gets the choice of a five-speed manual box or a CVT self shifter. The petrol option is really only included to provide an attractive entry-level price. It's thirsty, not particularly fast and the diesel is much better. Although the Compass shares the fundamentals with some other vehicles, it has undergone Jeep's own durability testing and the MacPherson strut front suspension and multi-link rear set-up has apparently proven well up to the most demanding tests. Power is deployed using `Freedom Drive I', a full-time active four-wheel drive system that can squirt up to 60 per cent of power to the rear wheels when needed but in most conditions is operating with virtually 100 per cent of available torque going to the front pair of wheels. The electronic stability control can be disabled if required by holding the dash-mounted button for four seconds.

Want to know the best thing about the Jeep Compass? The sort of money you'll be paying wouldn't even get you close to the entry-level Toyota RAV4 and you're a long way shy of a Land Rover Freelander. In fact, it's about what you'd expect for a reasonably specified Ford Focus 2.0TDCi hatchback. That's a screaming deal for a car that is so much more distinctive than the run of the mill hatch.

I think there's a lot to be said for an all-American Jeep that's affordable and a little softer around the edges. The Compass might not be the last word in sophistication but it's a tough customer that's also reasonably amiable on the road. If you're still of the opinion that Jeep only caters for he-man off-road drivers and well-heeled buyers seeking big luxury SUVs, the Compass can set you straight.