Off-roading with the Jeep Grand Cherokee: My experience

May 18, 2025

I recently attended the off-roading event organised by the Jeep dealership in Chandigarh

Bhpian harjot37 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Dates: 26th-27th April, 2025 (attended Day 2)
Venue: Forest Hill Golf & Country Club Resort
Location: Chandigarh
Organiser: WSL Jeep Chandigarh (dealership)

Hello, respected members!

I recently attended the off-roading event organised by the Jeep dealership in Chandigarh, and it being my first such experience, I apologise in advance for not being technical. I’m penning down this post thanking God for opening doors to such avenues and experiences. I’m truly grateful for the life I live, and I live for cars!
Thanks to this forum, too, for giving people the opportunity to share their know-hows and experiences, with each post having a personal, human touch in the vast landscape of sterile, digital information (stress on information) age.

That being said, this event, or marketing format, should be made popular, especially by brands as iconic as Jeep; the more people experience your vehicles, the more they see your cars on the road, the more it will translate into sales. I won’t venture into their product strategy, but the only comment I have is that this was the best display of cars & their capabilities I have ever seen (makes the Auto expo irrelevant to much extent)! This is where the marketing budget should go.

Jeep Grand Cherokee: Off-roading experience

Now, on to the main event.
The BOSS car I drove:

I mean, just look at it! Isn’t it something?

The track was engineered by the dealership, specifically tailored to the capabilities of their cars, meaning even a Jeep Compass could go around it with ease, which by no means was easy. During the drive I got to know that the Compass 4×4 is more capable in off-roading conditions than the Grand Cherokee I was seated in, and I was shocked!
This was the car doing the rounds of the track for 2 days:

The Cherokee is a full time 4WD, but does NOT get 4L or locking differentials. But it does get various terrain modes, of which Auto was engaged most of the time, barring once or twice when the Mud/Sand was engaged. Hearing how the Compass is more capable with its 4WD lock and 4L modes, I momentarily regretted not going for the 4×4 AT when we bought the car. But that’s a story for another time.

The track had ruts, pits, inclines of more than 20°. The car handled it all with aplomb! When I deliberately came to a halt on an incline, the car was able to recover itself, though with greater throttle input, and on a decline, it just stuck to the terrain like a lizard on a wall looking directly at a fly waiting to go full-send like there’s no tomorrow! It’s a mammoth, no doubt, and you can feel the whole shift of the weight while off-roading, but the suspension just handles it gracefully. There was sideways incline driving, too, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There was no water-wading involved, and that was a big miss IMO. The car had developed a rattling sound in from the boot during its past 2 days of off-roading, as per the instructor.

I was accompanied by 2 representatives, one of them the instructor himself. There was not a lot of instruction, though, other than to drive the car below 10 kmph. If a beginner like me could complete the track without much input, it’s a testament to their cars’ capabilities. I will attend off-roading school in future, seeing how I have grown a fondness for off-roading even on our FWD Compass. Since I was the one behind the wheel, I could take any videos or photos. Though, here are the links (1, 2, 3) to their coverage of the event on their Instagram page.

The entrance: