Cherokee in the Sand
 

Hi All. I have a 2012 2-dr Jeep Wrangler that I take to the OBX fishing and camping as often as I can. My girlfriend likes these trips so much that when it was time to replace her aging vehicle she purchased a 2018 Cherokee 4x4 Latitude with the intention of doing the same. A Wrangler, as spartan as it is, wouldn't work for her. WOW! Is that Cherokee nice! Crazy comfortable. Wonderful electronics. Lots of room. Easy to drive. All the things my Wrangler is not. I'm jealous.

My girlfriend has mastered driving the Wrangler in the sand, and in a few weeks we're taking the Cherokee to get a feel for how it handles compared to the Wrangler. There are of course differences between the vehicles and I wonder to what extent they will affect the performance in sand. Here are some examples that come to mind.

• The Cherokee is an automatic transmission, the Wrangler is manual. I've never driven an automatic on the beach. My concern is that the Cherokee is so comfortable we might not realize how fast we're traveling, and speed is not good on the beach, so we'll have to keep an eye on that.
• Cherokee engine is smaller than the Wrangler. I'm not sure this will matter.
• Wrangle has 4-Lo, Cherokee does not. This concerns me a little, although I've only needed 4-Lo when I was pulling someone out of a hole.
• Wrangler has beefier tires. I don't think this will be an issue as long as we air down properly.

I'm sure we'll be fine. Plus I'm taking all the recovery gear from the Wrangler with us.

Any thoughts? Tips?

I wouldn't worry, if you get stuck it'll just be a different kind of fun day. :headbang:

AWD and independent suspension is pretty awesome in the sand, I had a jeep patriot and it would float on the sand, soak up the bumps and stuff. Absolutely keep an eye on your speed, when I went from my patriot to an XJ cherokee. i had to slow WAY down in my driving style off road...

I ran my patriot at 14psi, Seemed like a good pressure, didn't worry about popping a bead, but had plenty of deformation over rocks and stuff.
what tires are you running? I might suggest going to an A/T tire. on my patriot i went from 215/65r17 to 245/65r17 and it made a HUGE difference in sand, since i had a much more aggressive tread and larger footprint, especially after airing down.

Having only driven on the beaches of OBX once, I don't think you need to worry about it - just air down and keep your momentum up. Since you don't have low range, getting going from a dead stop might be struggle but I doubt it. The beaches around here are not very tough - maybe in the summer time when the sand gets really hot

Update: Things went really well on our trip. The Cherokee was WAY more comfortable than the Wrangler, but it didn't feel as solid/secure on the sand as the Wrangler. A few times we had to change the Select Terrain option on the fly when we started bogging down, but overall it handled the sand well. I'm quite pleased with it.