Comparsion review: eight compact SUVs (eighth place)

The 2009 Jeep Patriot looks like a traditional Jeep SUV, but it drives like a compact hatchback. A bad compact hatchback.
See more photos of the Patriot in today's slideshow below the article.

When Chrysler asks for federal assistance to help it weather the recession, products like the Jeep Patriot seem to beg taxpayers to remind the automaker you reap what you sow. 

The Patriot – like the mechanically related Dodge Caliber and Jeep Compass – feels cheap and unrefined, giving the overwhelming sense that it was half-baked and halfheartedly designed. It’s also smaller inside than its competitors, despite the highest price of these eight even when it’s discounted under the Chrysler Employee Pricing Plus deal. 

It’s not easy to pitch to taxpayers that you need their money when you can’t offer them a car worth buying, but Chrysler is trying with the Patriot. But regardless of how you feel on automaker loans, this SUV’s lack of refinement and cargo space make it unworthy of a $22,000 bailout from your pocketbook.

Get into the Patriot, and you land on a flat, spongy, and narrow seat with a rock-hard head restraint. Reach out to close your door, and you’ll find that you can only use your finger tips for the door pull. (Reach all the way in and you’ll hit your fingers against the hard plastic; it’s shallower than in most cars.) 

The door armrest is also solid, uncomfortable plastic, but careless assembly on the base-model Patriot driven for this review left the crank for the manually-operated window sticking up to block the armrest on two of the car’s doors when the window is fully closed, so you wouldn't get to use those doors' armrests anyway.

The Patriot got a redesigned dash for 2009, but the changes only improved the quality of the materials to the point where nothing seemed poised to break; competitors are still better. The rest of the interior was unchanged, and remains decidedly unpleasant. Panels fit well everywhere, but like many other Chrysler products, the plastics all feel very cheap.

At least the front seat is high enough to offer good thigh support, but the driver’s view out is blocked by small windows and thick roof pillars, despite the Patriot’s boxy styling. The rear seat is acceptably roomy for two passengers, though the cushion is spongy and shapeless. The bench seat is too narrow for three people to sit comfortably – the result of tighter exterior dimensions than its competitors – and the middle passenger would need to straddle a footwell-mounted cupholder.

The compactness of the Patriot – at just 174 inches long and 69 inches high, its exterior footprint is smaller than any of the other seven – hurts it even more in cargo volume, where the 23 cubic feet of space it offers behind the rear seat barely distinguishes it from some subcompact hatchbacks. The rear seat folds flat easily to expand that to 54 cubic feet, which remains unimpressive.

The Patriot’s proportions are similar to its competitors, both on the outside and in its cargo space, and its miniaturization is not immediately noticeable, especially in pictures. But the competition packs in much more cargo space.

The Patriot’s tidy dimensions do keep the car more maneuverable than most SUVs, though a few of the other seven do match its tight turning radius. Even more than the competition, this Jeep drives like a car rather than a truck, despite its traditional Jeep-like appearance. 

That’s not to say, however, that it drives like a good car. It just drives like a bad car instead of like a bad truck.

The Patriot’s ride is generally smooth enough but doesn’t suppress bigger bumps well. And while the it handles like the compact vehicle that it is, the light steering lacks feedback, and the car lacks a sense of agility. 

The 2.4-liter engine, the biggest available on the Patriot, brings the driving experience from mediocre to worse. While instrumented acceleration tests from other reviewers show this car can be acceptably quick, the roaring groans that result from even moderate acceleration discourage drivers from pushing it harder, and make it feel like it’s struggling. Moreover, its continuously variable transmission lacks a set of shift points, so the engine’s drone simply increases steadily with extra speed. Wind noise is also excessive on the highway. 

Gas mileage is good for a four-wheel-drive SUV at least, at 21 miles per gallon in the city and 24 on the highway, but one might rightfully ask for more considering the Patriot’s sacrifices in power and refinement. A few competitors get even better mileage, too.

All this mediocrity doesn’t even come at a low price. The Patriot driven for this review looks like a bargain, with a sticker price of $18,470 that Chrysler will mark down no-haggle to $16,993, but that was just the vehicle the dealer would offer for a test drive, a stripped-down version without the same equipment as the others in this comparison. A Patriot equipped comparably to the others in this comparison – one with four-wheel-drive, power windows, side airbags, and other features – would cost $22,153, making it the most expensive of these eight. 

One strength the Patriot does offer over most competitors, however, is its crash-test performance. It earned the maximum five stars for frontal and side impact protection from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as well as the highest rating of Good from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in its own frontal and side evaluations. 

More significantly, the Patriot is one of only four of twelve small SUVs – and only one of two in this comparison – to earn the IIHS’s Good rating for roof strength. Its rear-impact protection, however, was just Acceptable, the second-highest of the IIHS’s four ratings. Also, torso-protecting front-seat side airbags are only optional, and the Patriot earned a low IIHS side crash test score without them. 

But that strength isn’t enough to come close to justifying the purchase of an overwhelmingly mediocre vehicle. The Patriot would be a tough sell even if it were the least expensive; it’s the most. The tight dimensions make it tempting for consumers who’d be parking in close quarters, but a few competitors are pretty close and even smaller vehicles offer equal or better cargo capacity. And more refinement. And better interior quality. And nicer interiors. 

Chrysler definitely needs your money to avoid going under. But it hasn’t earned it with the Patriot.