I have been very fond of the Jeep brand and was looking forward to buying one. But something shocked me during the test drive. I am evaluating petrol automatic compact SUVs. It takes good reasons to demotivate someone who is already half-sold on the vehicle. Read on to learn why. I am only writing about few key points that might be otherwise non-obvious.
Hill Climb Ability: I tried to drive the vehicle up our apartment's ramp with 4 other people with me in the car. The car could not climb the ramp unless I maintained a good speed on my way up. The hill assist feature didn't let it slide back, but the car simply stayed at the same place. I finally had take it fully down on reverse and climb at a good speed. I tried this multiple time with the same result. The sales guy told me that it this is expected behaviour and I should either climb at a good speed for the automatic transmission to manage the climb. This was shocking for me. Imagine what would happen if you are in a position where you can't maintain that speed or can't go back if you stop midway. So much to all the safety talk about the car. To make sure that I am not expecting something wrong, I tried a Creta on the same ramp with 5 people on board. I could climb the ramp at any speed; I could even stop completely in between and the car could again climb from there. This is something basic I would expect. So, please try this out before you buy. BTW, on paper, both the torque and BHP of compass looks much better than Creta, but the real performance was a shocker. Honestly, for me, this was the deal breaker. I would also like to mention that the automatic transmission took a fair couple of seconds to move the car when I had to start it at a traffic signal on a sloping road - I got honked by the vehicle behind me. I didn't find this problem in Creta.
Sitting comfort: The suspensions of Compass are far better than that of Creta. Compass was much smoother on a bad road. Both cars have similar feeling of space inside. But the front seat of Creta has slightly more space below - if you stretch your legs from the back seat, you are marginally less likely to touch the bottom of the front seat in a Creta. But the rear middle seat of Compass is much more comfortable than in Creta. The plastic used inside Creta is really bad - it is so hard that it hurts your elbows when the elbows touch the door. And Creta doesn't give you the option of door padding in Petrol Automatic, even if you pay for it; door padding comes only in diesel manual. On the contrary, the plastic used in Compass doors and dashboard is soft plastic which is quite nice. BTW, Creta's petrol automatic version doesn't come with leather seats, but you can get it for an additional cost. However, the quality of leather in Compass seats felt quite good, and getting such good leather seats in Creta will cost you a descent additional amount.
Air conditioning: Compass's air conditioning felt weaker than Creta's. Note that I tried Compass Limited without a sunroof, and Creta SX AT 2018 facelift version that comes with sunroof. If you want to go for the Compass Limited Plus model which has a panaromic sunroof, expect it to be much hotter as the entire roof is of glass with a cloth-like thin screen underneath. Creta's sunroof is smaller (and I think wiser for Indian heat) and comes with a hard insulating sliding cover below which cuts of the heat fairly well.
Hope these points help you in your decision making.
