The Jeep Grand Cherokee has been slapped with a split safety rating in Australia.
The Grand Cherokee L range and the five-seat Grand Cherokee PHEV earned a five-star rating from ANCAP, but the petrol five-seat range (SWB) were awarded only four stars due to a “nil” rating for rear passenger chest protection.
In testing carried out by Euro NCAP, there was a difference “in the performance of the seatbelts fitted to second row outboard seats compared with performance of the LWB petrol and SWB PHEV” between the five-seat petrol Grand Cherokee.
UPDATE, 5:25pm 03/07/2023 – Jeep Australia has issued a statement about the Grand Cherokee’s ANCAP result. It’s been inserted into our story.
Because of that, “a nil score was achieved for rear passenger chest protection” – and ANCAP says a nil score for a critical body region “automatically limits a vehicle’s overall star rating to four stars irrespective of the overall percentage score for Adult Occupant Protection”.
Both four- and five-star cars earned ratings of 81 per cent for adult occupant protection, 93 per cent for child occupant protection, 81 per cent for vulnerable road user protection, and 84 per cent for safety assist.
ANCAP says the active safety assistance systems across the Grand Cherokee range “performed well”.
“Jeep takes customer safety very seriously. The new Jeep Grand Cherokee has more than 110 available safety and security features, meets Australian safety requirements, and is compliant with Australian Design Rules (ADR),” a Jeep Australia spokesperson told CarExpert.
“As the Grand Cherokee Short Wheel Base five-seat petrol variant meets seatbelt safety and design requirements we won’t be retrofitting the existing product. However, modifying the rear outboard passenger seatbelts for future productions is something we are actively considering.”
This isn’t the first time Jeep has fallen foul of ANCAP; in 2019 the Wrangler was slapped with a one-star safety rating.
It’s also not the first time ANCAP has issued a split rating. The Kia Cerato Sport+ and GT have a five-star rating, while the base Cerato S and Sport have a four-star rating unless optioned with the Safety Pack.
