Jeep Compass Review

Two adults won’t have any complaints sat in the Compass’s front seats. There’s good head room – even with the optional sunroof on Limited cars – generous leg room and there’s no danger of rubbing shoulders.

The driver gets a good amount of manual seat adjustment as standard, although there’s no lumbar adjustment and the steering wheel adjustment is less plentiful. From Limited models the front seats become eight-way electrically adjustable, including at the lumbar.

The space in the rear is less impressive. A couple of adults will have just enough head room without the sunroof, but less with it and knee room is tight, while a third rear passenger will make it a squeeze on the shoulder room front.

All-told, a Skoda Karoq and Peugeot 3008 are both better bets if you regularly carry people in the back seats.

The Jeep Compass is pretty poor for storage space. Its glovebox is an average size, its front door bins are really quite small with narrow openings and there aren’t any useful cubbies around the gear lever to speak of.

Just behind the gear lever are two decent cup holders, though, and the central armrest can at least be flipped up to reveal a cubby beneath for chucking your phone and keys into.

In the back, the door bins aren’t any better than in the front, but you do get a pocket on the back of each front seat, as well as a couple of further cup holders on the standard flip down armrest between the rear seats.

The Jeep Compass has a 438 litre boot, which is around 100 litres less than a Skoda Karoq or Peugeot 3008, although a Nissan Qashqai offers slightly less. Ultimately, the Jeep will take a couple of large suitcases or a set of golf clubs or pushchair plus some extra small bags without much fuss, but you’ll get more in other family SUVs.

All models do come with an adjustable boot floor, but in its lowest position it leaves quite a large lip for lifting heavy bags over. Still, it does mean that when you fold down the rear seats (nearly flat in a 60:40 configuration) you can eliminate the step up from the boot floor to the seat backs.

Inside you’ll find a couple of small cubbies for storage and some tethering hooks.

You can get the Compass with two petrol and three diesel engines. You can also choose between a manual or automatic gearbox and front or four-wheel-drive.

Pick a 1.4-litre petrol model if you spend most time around town – the 140hp version with front-wheel drive and a manual gearbox can return nearly 35mpg. It’s not the quietest engine out there but it’s slightly smoother than the rather grumbly diesels.

The 120hp 1.6-litre or 140hp 2.0-litre diesels will suit you better if you spend more time on the motorway. They’re noticeably louder than both petrol models but pull harder from low revs and feel more than powerful enough to keep up with fast-moving traffic. Both will return more than 40mpg if driven carefully, too.

The Jeep Compass struggles to remain composed over bumps in town, and things get worse as you move up the range and the standard wheel size gets bigger. At least its steering is light and seeing out of it isn’t too much of a chore for parking and negotiating T-junctions and roundabouts.

There’s little fun to be had on winding country roads, though. The Compass’s steering is slow and offers very little idea of what the front wheels are up to, while it leans quite a bit through tight corners, which doesn’t inspire much confidence. On the motorway it’s noisier than alternatives too.

However, if you spend most of your time off-road, then the Compass offers something those alternatives can’t – it’s by far the best of its type on the rough stuff with four-wheel drive. Especially if you go for the range-topping Trailhawk, which also gets an even higher ride height, a rock crawl driving mode, hill descent control and underbody skid plates that’ll all help you get even further from the Tarmac.