My Compass is a 2019 Latitude. 2.4, AWD, AF-9spd tranny.
I'm at 130,000 miles and I've only had one repair so far, that was a cracked thermostat housing. Everything else has been normal wear and tear, scheduled maintenance, etc.
Paint has been durable so far. Here in NH the DOT spreads a lot of coarse sand on the roads in winter and so cars get sand-blasted on the highways. The paint has so far impressed me. As for yours peeling, my Dad worked painting cars back in the early 1950s and he told me that 90% of a good paint job is preparation, and about 10% was the application. A skilled painter can compensate for application errors, but poor preparation in even a tiny spot, is unforgiving. Pretty good is not good enough! Autos have some pretty advanced paint coatings and if they aren't totally removed, new paint will not adhere well. If any spot is neglected, the paint will peel in that spot, ruining the whole job. It may be a year before the spot shows up and by then the shop can dodge any warranty on their work.
My Compass is AWD and yes, it is better than FWD in the snow and mud. That said, it's not that much better. My FWD Patriot was an animal in the snow. The one time I got stuck in the snow was my mistake -- in another snowstorm I took the same road under worse conditions just to prove I could do it, and we came through with flying colors. The key here is tires. I always ran the best snow tires I could find: General Altimax Arctics or Dunlop Grandtrek studless -- both are great performers. The Generals on my Patriot are getting worn and I had a bit of a struggle in the last very heavy wet snow we had the end of March, but the ol' boy came through it. My road is muddy in the spring and my Patriot handles it well even with the well-worn Generals. I had two other mud adventures, one with my OEM Goodyears, and while worn and in severe conditions, I got through. The other was on a poorly maintained town road with my Dunlops -- the mud was deep and I was going up hill. I was seriously nervous but I got through with a sigh of relief.
My one negative experience with my Compass in snow was with the OEM Low Rolling Resistance LRR tires. They did deliver much better fuel economy, but they were terrible in snow.
In mud or snow, appropriate tires are as important as AWD. I always run snow tires in winter. Considering the age of my Patriot and the fact that we have our Compass and a Wrangler for deep snow, my Patriot may get all-season tires this time around, but I wouldn't venture into serious snow with all-seasons.
