2011 Jeep Liberty Sport
MSRP $23,250
The 2011 Jeep Liberty is between a rock and a hard place. The rock would represent its off-road image, while the hard place would represent the pavement of city streets. Sometimes, a “tweener” vehicle represents the best of both worlds. Sometimes, it fails miserably on both counts. Let’s see where the Liberty ends up.
The 2011 Jeep Liberty Sport is a compact SUV. It is the lowest of three trim levels. It has a 3.7 liter V6 engine that produces 210 horsepower and 235 foot-pounds of torque. It has 16-inch alloy wheels, rear wheel drive that can be upgraded to four wheel drive, and a 4-speed automatic transmission. It is rated at 16 mpg in the city and 22 mpg on the highway.
It comes with a tilt-only steering wheel, keyless entry, cruise control, a split folding and reclining rear seat, standard air conditioning, automatic headlights, and heated mirrors. The sound system has 6 speakers, a CD/MP3 player, satellite radio, and an audio jack.
The Liberty Sport comes with traction control, stability control, anti-lock brakes, side front airbags, side curtain airbags, and active front head restraints. It got perfect scores of 5 stars all around in government testing under the 2010 standards, but the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety disagreed, giving it only its second-lowest score of marginal for side-impact protection.
Conclusions and driver feedback:
The Liberty tries to be too many things to too many people. It tries to be an urban vehicle, but the interior pays too much homage to its mainly off-road sibling, the Wrangler. In other words, it is featureless. It is made to have mud splashed into it and be washed off with a hose. This works great in the Wrangler, but terrible in the Liberty, because the Liberty isn’t solely an off-road vehicle.
There is plenty of both headroom and legroom in both the front and rear seats of the Liberty, though. Unfortunately, the rear seat isn’t all that comfortable.
The handling is good off-road. The problem is that most who buy this won’t be using it off-road as much as in the city or on the highway, where it is lacking in performance. Once you get it back into civilization, you won’t like the handling or the body roll.
The ride isn’t all that great, either, giving an off-road feel even on the highway. In addition, the engine does a rare double-whammy: terrible gas mileage and a lack of power. For some reason, the headlights don’t give off enough light, either.
All in all, the Liberty tries to be everything to everybody and ends up being nothing to anybody. In its defense, it is a decent off-road vehicle, and it is great for towing. The problem is that its own company makes a better off-road vehicle for less money, and everyone else makes a better city and highway vehicle for around the same price.
The verdict: Jeep has taken too many “liberties” with this vehicle.
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