Not a Jeep Patriot Fan

by Riley
(Massachusetts)

I have a 2008 Jeep Patriot and it really stinks.

I owned two Wranglers before this but needed something a little sturdier for the kids. My husband has owned two Grand Cherokee's and also a Wrangler. Are you starting to notice a trend?

We are a hardcore Jeep family. That was before I bought this terrible car. I knew about three weeks into it that this wasn't a great car. You might wonder why I didn't just sell it and start over? Easy to say when you don't have kids and a mortgage etc. and you have a car payment that you can afford.

So I have been sucking it up and complaining about it constantly. Then last week, the engine light came on and it pretty much hit the fan. At 69K miles the transmission is done. Over. Dead. I have had two quotes to fix it for around $4,000.

Wow! Of course my warranty recently ran out. Awesome! So basically I drive this car to and from work for about 25 miles a day and I go back roads so I hit max speeds of 40 mph. Really disappointing.

We are serious about buying American made so we are looking at taking a Ford for a test drive.


Larry's Comment: Riley...it seems that as a family vehicle the Patriot and the Compass have about as many fans as they do detractors.

I personally have not been a great admirer of any newer Jeeps outside of the Grand Cherokee and the Wrangler. (Loved the old Cherokee XJ's).

Now with Fiat mixing their "econo-box" technology and style into Jeeps...who knows how much damage will be done in the future.

Sadly, the Jeep Patriot and the Jeep Compass could have been great vehicles in the classic heritage of older model Jeeps...especially if Chrysler had stayed true to what actually makes a Jeep unique.

The more that the Jeep division of Chrysler is forced to design and build vehicles from the same "cookie-cutter" as other manufacturers...it would appear inevitable that Jeeps of the future will lose more of that unique essence of what was started, and remained successful over the past 70+ years.

Sorry you bought a lemon with a Jeep badge on it, Riley. As I've said many times I'm not knocking these particular models called Jeeps. I just don't think they should be called "Jeeps" at all.