Can't Decide - Rogue vs Cherokee

[Macinator]

I have been following this forum for several months trying to get every bit of info about the 2014 Rogue as possible. This seems to be the most active Rogue forum but the traffic seems so low compared to the number of people driving these vehicles.

Well on to my point - I am stuck trying to decide between the Jeep Cherokee Limited (4 Cyl FWD) and the Rogue AWD SL. I have test driven each (the Cherokee a number of times) and am still having problems deciding.

Criteria most important to me -

Seat Comfort - Rogue wins for me (the Cherokee Leather seats are excellent too but I want the Luxury Group which ironically makes the seats less comfortable than the standard leather seats to me).

Road Noise - Cherokee is extremely quiet. I was not bothered by the engine noise in the Rogue, it was definitely more noticeable in town and while accelerating but seems to smooth out nicely on the interstate. Acceleration on the Rogue was better than I expected as well. My one concern here is it seemed general cabin noise was louder than the Cherokee when on the same interstate. Does anyone with the Rogue notice this as a problem? Everything I have read talks about the quiet cabin but it did not seem that way to me.

We would be getting rid of a Honda Odyssey and my only complaint about it from day one has been road noise in the cabin (never from the engine). I don’t want to have that problem again. We also have a Chevy Equinox which is one of the quietest vehicles I have ever ridden in, so an SUV can be quiet.

Gas Mileage – This one is killing me – both cars are fairly new – the Rogue w/ AWD is rated better than the Cherokee 4 Cylinder FWD but from what little info there is the Cherokee seems to be doing better in real world MPG. I have been following the Fuelly links some of you have posted – those in the warm climates are doing great. It appears a couple of you are from the Chicago area as well and it doesn’t look promising. I know it’s cold weather driving but that’s what we have 5 months of the year in Chicago. The one trend from the limited Fuelly info is it appears the more refills – the higher the average mileage. Is this just warmer weather, engine break-in, or simply not enough data to be statistically relevant yet?

Heat – I have also seen various post complaining about heat? Thoughts on this you Northerners? Also – I know there are air vents in the rear seat but are there heat vents under the front seats for the rear passengers? My sales guy didn’t think so and I forgot to actually look before leaving the dealership.

What about condensation on the windows in winter? The cabin of the Equinox seems so tightly sealed that we frequently have fog on the windows and either have to run the defroster and freeze our feet, or keep cycling between heat, defrost, or mixed mode.

Tech Package – I think the Cherokee wins this battle but the Rogue is not far behind at all. I have seen a number of people reporting their unit reboots with USB media. Other than that is the head unit stable?

What the heck do you have to do to find a Rogue SL with Premium package and Almond interior – all the dealers seem to be able to locate is the Charcoal interior and the SL w/ Premium seems insanely rare.

Thanks for any feedback,

Scott

[DAC603]

The rear heat vents are behind the center console.

[CapeCodChips]

I have no problems with the heat, many mornings below zero.
Consumer Reports doesn't like the Jeep's transmission: "too much searching".
No condensation on windows.
The rear storage is noticeably larger in the Rogue.

[JLD94]

The heat for me has seemed to be improved recently. Not sure what the difference is.... but for two days we had weather in the 20's recently and it finally seems to be doing a little better, still not as good as I would like, but a lot better.

MPG's, mine has been doing well, but I know a lot haven't and I do have a pretty easy drive. I would compare it to what kind of MPG you get on your other cars vs what they are rated. I think if you get decent MPG compared to their ratings you will probably do ok with the Rogue. Cold does seem to really affect it though, but to be honest this is my first car with a usable current MPG read out. So it could have been the same in other cars and I just not realize.

As far as I know the rear heat, comes only from the AC vents, not 100% on that though. If I have it set to the floor, it is coming out of the rear vents, however only slightly. And obviously if you have it coming out the front wents then it will come out the rear vents.

I have not experinced any condensation.

Quiet? Ummm, I'm not sure about this one yet. I think overall it is pretty quiet, but I have developed a couple of rattles in the rear cargo. Someone on here suggested taking out the rear shelves and see if that helps. I have not done that yet but plan to soon. And I will have the dealer check it out next time I am there. But it is slightly annoying.

I have not driven the Cherokee so can't say much on it. Looks nice enough

[saws]

Owner of a few weeks now.
My Rogue is averaging around 25 with mixed driving.
Road noise is low in this car, yesterday I was looking for a connector for lighted footrest and noticed noise reducing material is used liberally everywhere, behind the front console and throughout the front driver and passenger foot areas.
My SV (and above?) came with Goodyear assurance tires that are very quiet (My Audi Q7 also came with same OEM tires and about 2 years later I am still happy with them on the Q7)
I noticed that the S base had different (continental?) tires.
No problem with heat whatsoever (and I live in PA where temps have dipped to below zero this year)
Loving the tech goodies in the Rogue especially the 360 view camera (like playing a video game) and Google search in my-apps.

[pplepiew]

I was in the same boat although I was considering an AWD limited or Trailhawk. We went with the Rogue in the end because:

- Jeep doesn't have a great reliability record
- The Cherokee is a completely new model with a completely new 9 Speed automatic transmission, as much as I love it I didn't want to pay to become their beta tester.
- Room in the back seat of the cherokee is tight with the sun roof. I'm 6'2" with equally tall family. My head would touch the canvas "blind shade" of the sunroof and fit within the "hole" of the sunroof. Without the sunroof it was fine but that means no luxury group package (and no HIDs)
- cargo room was smaller than the rogue

That being said, I really liked the comfort of the cabin in the front, I liked the tech features and I liked the way it drove, my wife not so much. She didnt like the fact that the 9 speed jumps from 1 to 2 almost immediately from a stop, and the minor "chug" that comes with it. The one tech feature the Rogue has that the cherokee doesn't, and which I really like, is the 360 camera view. Great for parallel parking or reverse parking in a mall etc. Plus you easily see if a kid is running around your car.

Ultimately I decided that realistically I wasnt going to do major offroading and the advantage the Cherokee had didn't justify the price difference or other sacrifices that come with it (like gas mileage and cargo).

So far, other than some minor issues with our radio freezing (3 times in a little over a month, I'm hoping a firmware upgrade will fix this or else I'll get the head unit changed) I've been quite happy with the Rogue.

Phil

[Macinator]

Phil -

Could not agree more with everything you said.

We went and drove them both again this past weekend. I was strongly anticipating driving home the Rogue but the road noise was killing me. We drove our Odyssey van to the stealership (noticing the roads were louder than usual even for the Van) and then drove the Rogue over the same roads. I soooo wanted to love that car - tech is very good, room is outstanding, loved the seats, drove beautifully, heck even loved the CVT and Engine. However, the road noise was terrible (didn't think it was good the week before when we drove a different one at another dealer). I noticed the tires were filled to 44PSI - (thank you all the posters who pointed that out), I returned to the dealership and asked them to adjust. This brought the road noise down to about the same level as our Odyssey Van. It simply wasn't good enough in that department for what we were looking for. This was definitely road noise, the engine growled some but I had no issue with that and not a sound from the CVT.

The Jeep Cherokee was so smooth riding and most important to me very quiet. The stereo also seemed so much more refined than the Bose in the Rogue, both were good but liked the Jeeps better.

I tend to over analyze everything and decided I must go with the heart on this one. I hope that 9 speed trans does not bite me in the rear later.

Thanks for all the replies and best wishes on your Rogues. It seems like a wonderful vehicle and an excellent value. Love the look of it more than the Cherokee as well but hopefully that off look will grow on me.

Scott

[pplepiew]

I'll admit I'll still be a bit jealous when I see a Cherokee on the road, enjoy it. One other perk is that the Jeep's online community is very active with a better laid out forum to find info (in my opinion anyway) Well worth checking out if you haven't already: Jeep Cherokee Club: http://jeepcherokeeclub.com/forum.php

[Macinator]

I have spent way to many hours lurking on both forums for months. The Cherokee Club was very slow in its early days last fall. It's a much smaller customer base but as you said very active.

I've always been confused by this one. There's some great input and feedback from the people here but considering the number of Rogues on the road there's not much traffic. It seams the other Nissan products are all more active.

2014 is new, so maybe more will come.

[slimsol]

I have been following this forum for several months trying to get every bit of info about the 2014 Rogue as possible. This seems to be the most active Rogue forum but the traffic seems so low compared to the number of people driving these vehicles.

Well on to my point - I am stuck trying to decide between the Jeep Cherokee Limited (4 Cyl FWD) and the Rogue AWD SL. I have test driven each (the Cherokee a number of times) and am still having problems deciding.

Criteria most important to me -

Seat Comfort - Rogue wins for me (the Cherokee Leather seats are excellent too but I want the Luxury Group which ironically makes the seats less comfortable than the standard leather seats to me).

Road Noise - Cherokee is extremely quiet. I was not bothered by the engine noise in the Rogue, it was definitely more noticeable in town and while accelerating but seems to smooth out nicely on the interstate. Acceleration on the Rogue was better than I expected as well. My one concern here is it seemed general cabin noise was louder than the Cherokee when on the same interstate. Does anyone with the Rogue notice this as a problem? Everything I have read talks about the quiet cabin but it did not seem that way to me.

We would be getting rid of a Honda Odyssey and my only complaint about it from day one has been road noise in the cabin (never from the engine). I don’t want to have that problem again. We also have a Chevy Equinox which is one of the quietest vehicles I have ever ridden in, so an SUV can be quiet.

Gas Mileage – This one is killing me – both cars are fairly new – the Rogue w/ AWD is rated better than the Cherokee 4 Cylinder FWD but from what little info there is the Cherokee seems to be doing better in real world MPG. I have been following the Fuelly links some of you have posted – those in the warm climates are doing great. It appears a couple of you are from the Chicago area as well and it doesn’t look promising. I know it’s cold weather driving but that’s what we have 5 months of the year in Chicago. The one trend from the limited Fuelly info is it appears the more refills – the higher the average mileage. Is this just warmer weather, engine break-in, or simply not enough data to be statistically relevant yet?

Heat – I have also seen various post complaining about heat? Thoughts on this you Northerners? Also – I know there are air vents in the rear seat but are there heat vents under the front seats for the rear passengers? My sales guy didn’t think so and I forgot to actually look before leaving the dealership.

What about condensation on the windows in winter? The cabin of the Equinox seems so tightly sealed that we frequently have fog on the windows and either have to run the defroster and freeze our feet, or keep cycling between heat, defrost, or mixed mode.

Tech Package – I think the Cherokee wins this battle but the Rogue is not far behind at all. I have seen a number of people reporting their unit reboots with USB media. Other than that is the head unit stable?

What the heck do you have to do to find a Rogue SL with Premium package and Almond interior – all the dealers seem to be able to locate is the Charcoal interior and the SL w/ Premium seems insanely rare.

Thanks for any feedback,

Scott

I was in same situation. I ended up getting a rogue. Please read jeep cherokee forum before you consider buying it. About 30% of users on that forum have serious transmission issues. I liked the exterior looks of cherokee but thats about it. I didnt want to deal with transmission issues in brand new car so went with rogue