[Trailfirst]

Hi all. So we got our new red TH last weekend and are loving it so far - tho I'm havin a bit of heartburn about the tranny stories that keep cropping up from time to time (of course I only started hearing about all this stuff AFTER we bought it!!! - no excuse tho as clearly the info has been online for all to see for some time - I just didn't...).

We'd been looking at getting a Territory or Ranger or perhaps Santa Fe but as I poked about I tripped over info on the new Cherokee and one thing led to another. Actually, my wife and I fell in love with it as soon as we saw the first picture.

We ended up buying on spec from long distance - my first view and hands on of the real thing was when I flew to the dealer to take delivery and drive it 1280km home.

As I say, we're loving it so far and just have fingers and toes crossed. It didn't miss a beat on that first trip - and even better, I realised when I got home and actually read the manual that I ended up more or less accidentally following the run in procedure fairly closely! - ie. for the first 100km I was fairly careful - then at about an hour and a half into the trip I actually slowed to about 50kph every now and then and pedalled reasonably hard back up to the 100kph limit - ie. not exceding 4000 or so rpm. Did that every 20 mins or so for the next couple of hours - more to keep awake than anything as it was wee hours - then did the rest of the trip thru the day steady steady but not babying it - or thrashing it - each time I stopped and got under way again (did several overtakes during the course of the day as well). All seemed sensible way to handle it - I'm an aircraft mechanic by trade.

The only things I have observations / criticisms of - and still trying to figure out how to actually tell Chrysler / Jeep themselves - is there a feedback system? are:
1. No left footrest (what?!?!) - on that initial long trip this had me venting rather noisily and often - tho in the privacy of my own company in the car.
2. Disappointed at the "lazy" RH Drive conversion - ie. leaving the transmission select on the now passenger side - and indicator / washer stalks on the "wrong" side for RHD.
3. Trans etc. settings don't stay where you had them on last shutdown (means a sort of "preflight" checklist before you go anywhere).

Otherwise, like I said we're loving it and only hope it lasts!! - in fact we're in the can if it doesn't as we've REALLY extended ourselves to get it!!