Jeep Compass Limited 4X4 Buffalo NY

Badges? We don't need no Jeep badges. Anyone can tell the Jeep Compass is a car, indeed, a station wagon pumped up to SUV dimentions, and not a Jeep. At least, not a Jeep in the high-Sierra, mud-slinging, rock-crushing definition of the term Jeep. Forget about the Halls of Montezuma — the Compass is about the malls of Petaluma, about boldly going where sweaty-necked road-paving crews have already tread.

Jeep is busy having kittens. By the end of the year, the brand will have grown from four to seven models. Joining the Wrangler, Liberty, Grand Cherokee, and Commander are the Compass, Patriot, and four-door Wrangler Unlimited. The 2007 Compass is on sale as you read this. The Patriot, with a more conventional shipping-box SUV shape, is due this fall. The "Compatriots," as the Compass and the Patriot are practically twins, are the first truly soft-road Jeeps, very much cars with lower-hanging bellies (the Compass has ground clearance of 8.1 to 8.4 inches, depending on the tires) and limited appetites for dirt and slick rock. They are about as GI Joe as the Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V, and Kia Sportage, against which the Compatriot twins are pitched.

To its credit, Jeep isn't denying it. Compass chief engineer Matt Liddane freely acknowledges that everything below the Compass's waist — including the strut and multilink suspension; unitized floor-pan stampings; transverse 172-hp, 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine; and available five-speed manual or continuously variable automatic — is shared with and assembled alongside the Patriot and Dodge Caliber in Belvidere, Illinois. Recall that the Caliber hatchback replaced the Neon/SRT4 sedan.

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