Hi everyone, Im a newbie here from the wonderful winter wonderland they call Colorado. Just found this site a few days ago. I had a 1998 Jeep Cherokee for 5 yrs which my dad now has and now I have a 97 Grand Cherokee, wife has a 96 Cherokee and my mom has a 2002 Grand Cherokee Overland so we're a Jeep family.

Just had a brand new 2007 Dodge Caliber for a rental car in South Texas for vacation last week, and all I can say is WOW. The CVT Transmission is awesome and if the Patriot drives anything like the rental we had I will seriously consider doing payments on one. CVT is a whole different animal, the easiest way to describe is it like flying a jet powered car. There was a bit of lag when you gunned it but once it got into the powerband is screamed. There was an L option on the shift lever which kicked it into a different set of ratios which came in handy when having to get into freeways. Power wasnt bad for a 4 cyl, I do hope the 2.4L has more guts than the 2.0L we had though. The seats we're comfy, we took my wifes mother and father for a ride in it and they said the back seat was comfy even after a 3 hr long ride. the cutout in the front seats make a huge difference. The only thing i found was a minor quip was rear visibility, but from pictures, looks likt eh Patriot will be better.

cant wait to see a Patriot in person, its about time Jeep brought back a decent Cherokee replacement.

Welcome. When you say L option do you mean it had the Autostick? I'm curious how well the manual shifting works. I think I read somewhere that you couldn't shift to a gear that it's not supposed to go into.

I'm going to test a Compass tomorrow, I've go to see for myself already.

Hi everyone, Im a newbie here from the wonderful winter wonderland they call Colorado. Just found this site a few days ago. I had a 1998 Jeep Cherokee for 5 yrs which my dad now has and now I have a 97 Grand Cherokee, wife has a 96 Cherokee and my mom has a 2002 Grand Cherokee Overland so we're a Jeep family.

Just had a brand new 2007 Dodge Caliber for a rental car in South Texas for vacation last week, and all I can say is WOW. The CVT Transmission is awesome and if the Patriot drives anything like the rental we had I will seriously consider doing payments on one. CVT is a whole different animal, the easiest way to describe is it like flying a jet powered car. There was a bit of lag when you gunned it but once it got into the powerband is screamed. There was an L option on the shift lever which kicked it into a different set of ratios which came in handy when having to get into freeways. Power wasnt bad for a 4 cyl, I do hope the 2.4L has more guts than the 2.0L we had though. The seats we're comfy, we took my wifes mother and father for a ride in it and they said the back seat was comfy even after a 3 hr long ride. the cutout in the front seats make a huge difference. The only thing i found was a minor quip was rear visibility, but from pictures, looks likt eh Patriot will be better.

cant wait to see a Patriot in person, its about time Jeep brought back a decent Cherokee replacement.


Welcome, There is far more room in a patriot than a caliber and the 2.4 have way more power than the 2.5 rental sxt!!!!

Jason

The selector has PNRDL, instead of the standard PNRD21 ect, so i assume its sort of like a "2 speed" thing, wasnt the auto stick but i was using it like that see the photos maybe it'll better explain, BTW this is the same basic center console in the compass/patriot without the chrome.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y267/AndrewandKimmy/car11.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y267/AndrewandKimmy/centerconcsole2.jpg

Sure is, on the FDII the L is a 19:1 crawl ratio for low speed offroad!!!

Jason

Welcome. When you say L option do you mean it had the Autostick? I'm curious how well the manual shifting works. I think I read somewhere that you couldn't shift to a gear that it's not supposed to go into.

I'm going to test a Compass tomorrow, I've go to see for myself already.

I drove a Caliber R/T and played around with the manual shifting. The shifting was very responsive, I would downshift and it was lighting quick. Same thing with the upshifting. As you say it won't allow you to select a gear that would either over rev the engine or bog it down.