On my way into a creek bed I realized why some say rigs with independent suspension aren’t real off-roaders. You simply don’t get the articulation and so there was a bit of three-wheel action going on. With electronic trickery and a well-braced chassis, though, the lack of articulation is not an issue – you still have traction to continue on your way and the chassis doesn’t suffer from carrying a wheel for a moment or two.

Bouncing along ultra-rough rutted roads my backside was well protected and supported by the leather seats – they’re cooled and heated by the way – and the suspension was well damped, settling back down to earth with little fuss. On regular tarmac the Trailhawk does drive more like a truck than a car compared to other cute utes and even next to the non-Trailhawk variants of the Cherokee, but that’s to be expected when you beef up the suspension for dirtier duty.

Want stats? From my first drive:

“In this fully off-road edition you get ground clearance of 22 cm (8.7 inches), an approach angle of 29.8 degrees and a departure angle of 32.1 degrees. Break-over angle – the angle between your tires and the underside of your vehicle which determines how sharp a rock or crest you can clamber over – is 23.3 degrees. The front suspension provides 17 cm (6.7 inches) of travel while the multi-link rear moves through 19.8 cm (7.8 inches), all this with an 11.89 m turning circle (39 feet) on the Trailhawk edition.”

A rotary dial on the console operates the Selec-Terrain system with four preset modes: Sport, Snow, Mud/Sand and Rock, which each alter the gear selection and torque split as well as the ESC response to make the most of the traction available.

The Trailhawk’s crawl control is dubbed Selec-Speed control. To operate it you press the 4WD Low button on the Selec-Terrain rotary dial and then either the descent or crawl buttons. You choose your speed in nine 0.96 km/h increments by sliding the gear selector to the left and then moving it up and down to adjust your speed. It will go as quickly as 8.65 km/h or as slow as 0.96.

Out on the road the shifter works as normal, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it set up correctly – forward for down, back for up. The nine-speed automatic transmission fitted to the 3.2L Pentastar V6 was inconsistent in its shifts, sometimes firing them off with precision and other times sluggishly. On a few occasions I experienced rough shifts (both down and up) during sedate urban driving. This is one of the least-smooth transmissions in this segment.

The V6 is a $1,595 upgrade from the base-model 2.4L four cylinder, and it’s a necessary one. The 271 hp and 239 lb-ft of torque produced by the V6 was adequate for getting up to speed but only just. With only 184 hp and 171 lb-ft of torque the four-cylinder models are frustrating to drive and also cut towing capacity from a respectable 2,041 kg (4,500 lb) to a pointless 907 kg (2,000 lb).

Connect with Autos.ca