Strut bars help prevent the chassis from flexing. True, you could argue that a substantial fraction of the Patriot's offroad suspension flex is due to thin sheetmetal holding everything together (I'm joking, guys). All said, whatever you'd lose in suspension flex by adding the strut bar, you'd gain in chassis stability, which would probably not help you offroad (no hurt too terribly bad), but may help keep things from overflexing and getting beat up by offroading.

Ultimately, you're dealing with a unibody chassis with passenger car suspension. You're simply not gonna get a lot of suspension flex (strut bar or not), short of re-engineering the suspension and drivetrain.

People are constantly impressed by what the Patriot can do offroad. It is "surprisingly capable". But that's completely relative. It's surprisingly capable offroad... for a 5-door hatchback. It has impressive offroad capability... considering it shares a platform with the Avenger. All of it's offroad accolades come with the caveat of doing these things despite its nature. No hate, I love my Patriot, but this is just the truth.

 

I put a strut tower brace on my patriot, eliminated torque steer. The suspension is to flex not the body. The Jeep Cherokee and Comanche are unibody and if they have been wheeled as in heavy off-roading a company makes unibody stiffeners that can be welded to the body to eliminate the body flex. Take your Patriot off-road and flex the suspension as much as possible and then check and see how the doors close or line up.

 

I had no idea the strut bar would fix the torque steer, that's awesome. Its just something I've learned to live with, but it'd be nice to eliminate or lessen it. Thanks for the info.

 

yeah... I would say get the strut tower brace... I have done a bit of off roading, and the chassis flexes quite a bit when doing it. That's not good. I don't know why somebody would think that chassis flex would be good off road... If you look at my tail gate, I actually have two dents on the very top from my patriot flexing off road. I would also look into a set of sliders from RRO, I wish I had gotten them back when I had some spare cash to do so.

 

I too notice a little torque steer depending on the road surface and steering wheel angle while accelerating. My convertible has a strut tower bar and it made a pretty big difference for minimal price. I have been seriously considering one for the Jeep but the price is higher since it's a heavier duty bar. It looks like the Massive brand one is Made in the USA which is awesome!!