News

Sold my Jeep Compass Limited 4x4; bought a 2022 Compass Trailhawk

13th July 2022, 11:02 by Dev Shah

My Compass 4x4 was doing brilliantly and kept my family happy. But after driving a friend's 4wd Tucson AT, I felt the need for an automatic

BHPian sameerpb recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Its been a long time that I have been planning to write a thread on the ownership of my Jeep Compass. I have been addicted about driving off road and also wrote a thread.

Rewinding time to the history of my ownership of cars - My family owned a Willys Jeep left hand drive petrol and due to some reasons, we had to sell it and that left a mark on me. My car ownership started with a Maruti Alto in 2005. Drove it for 4 ½ Years crossing 50+K kms. Then upgraded to a Maruti Swift VDI, and drove it for 5+ years and about 78K Kms. And then I bought a pre-worshipped Skoda Laura with 60+K kms driven and I used it to the completion of 115+K Kms.

About the Skoda Laura, it was one of the best ownership experiences in my journey so far. I bought the Laura in October 2014, a very well maintained car. I got it tuned from Pete’s but after 100,000 the car started giving me some issues and made frequent visits to my mechanic. The nightmare was when I had to tow the car twice for the same reason. Its last break down made me want to switch the car.

When Jeep launched the Compass in 2017, I took a test drive and found it to be a very interesting proposition. The options available were diesel 4x4 and petrol 4x2, I did not find the petrol engine that convenient and I wanted to buy a 4x4. Hence I went ahead with the diesel MT 4x4 jeep Compass.

April 2018:

Jeep came up with a discount offer on the Compass and that made got me to think of an upgrade. I started looking for one.

Here are a few tech specs I looked at:

Jeep Compass - 170 BHP l 2 Liter Engine l 6 Air Bags l seating 5 l 408 liter boot space l 4x4 manual l crawl ratio 17:1
XUV500 - 138 BHP l 2.2 liter engine l 6 air bags l seating 7 l 93 liter boot space l 4x4 AWD continuous mode. l was not sure as I never had the need for a 7seater.
Hyundai Tucson - Did not see the car as I was more keen on an off-road vehicle.
Toyota Fortuner - It was too tall for person who is 5.5 feet height plus pricing was too much so did not even test drive it.

Looking at all the above vehicles, it was an obvious choice to go with the Jeep Compass Limited 4X4.

May 5, 2018:

The above picture is really close to my heart as my Dad and Mom took the delivery of the Jeep ,and this was a big surprise for my Dad as he did not know till he entered the showroom that I had bought the car. I especially bought the Jeep in Pune to share my happiness with my family.

My daughter named my JC as "Lightning Bolt.

The Compass has 208mm ground clearance, 16.8 degree approach angle, 22.9 degree ramp break-over angle and 31.7 degree departure angle, giving it a genuine agility in these unyielding surroundings.

Pic from another thread on Team BHP.

Removing the plate marked in blue circle may give a better approach angle, but one needs to be cautious, as an extreme approach angle and high speed may damage the bumper.

Jeep Compass upgrades:

I added a K&N replacement filter to enhance air intake to the engine, this gave some improvement in performance.

As most of Jeep owners have noticed light issues, I faced similar ones too. Just to overcome the same, I did the following upgrades:

Front fog lamps I used Phillips extreme vision - this I bought from US:

For headlamps, I upgraded to HID's It was a jugaad I did. I ordered bulbs from uglare.com with 4200K and 55W and to installthem, I went to Sainath Auto Ultimate Khar and bought RSR Ballast from them. The entire upgrade was done in Rs. 7 to 8k. It worked really well. The result was outstanding. Maybe not as good as Morimoto or Osram HID KIT, but I was happy with the price point and throw of HID's.

I was wondering who gives yellow lights in DRLs and Jeep did exactly that. I think it was cost saving, but I upgraded them with Excelite PSX which I ordered from The DRIFT Bangalore. Subbu was very supportive, the DRLs were super amazing. They worked like head lights:

Also changed all the yellow lights in the cabin to white lights again from Sainath Auto Ultimate Khar.

Here are some more pics of Lightning Bolt:

Ownership experience of Jeep was enhanced after joining a Jeep community called Jeep Western Wanderers. JWW is a community of passionate jeepers who come together and share ownership experiences, any issues faced by jeepers, provide solutions to members and lastly do trails.

I joined the community in August 2018, and my first trail was in September 2018. Here is a small video of the trail.

Few pictures from Jeep trails:

Every one likes shiny cars, but a Jeep has to be muddy. This is a benchmark for me, and I hope someday I will reach there. The pic is of my friend Akshay's Jeep:

Some videos:

Western Wanderers - Rajmachi Trail

Drive with the wind

JWW Republic Day drive

Feb 2020: JWW and Jeep India organized a trail at 19 Degree North at Aamby Valley - where Jeep India launched Its 2019 Trailhawk. The driving experience was amazing, and it definitely gave me a perspective of approach and departure angles.

Few pictures from the trail:

More to come on trails in future updates.

Apart from doing the trails, I have been doing road trips too.

Few long drives:

Mumbai Pune Indore and Mumbai - This was my first long drive in my Jeep. I did Pune to Indore in 1 day and there was no fatigue. The FSD suspension set up worked flawlessly.
Mumbai - Hubli - Gokarna - Udupi - Bangalore - Belgaum and Mumbai - This was a super fun drive in the Jeep. We did a good amount of off-road as well. Roads were amazing, especially the coastal road from Gokarna to Mangalore.

Few pics from the drive:

And many small drives across Maharashtra and Goa.

In January 2020, I met with an accident where I scratched a Hyundai Creta, The impact was bad, very visible from picture below. But Lightning Bolt had just a minor scratch which I fixed free of cost:

Service updates:

HOW OFTEN DO YOU SEND YOUR CAR IN FOR SERVICE, AND HOW AFFORDABLE DO YOU FIND THE OVERALL SERVICE?

Here is my take : I send it once every year according to the recommended service interval by Jeep. However, I usually prefer sending it earlier as our Indian conditions can be pretty harsh, and I love taking care of my vehicle. The overall cost could have been somewhat more accessible. Still, one has to pay a premium for something as premium as the Compass.

Oct 2018 First service at Landmark Jeep - It was free service, changed engine oil (though not recommended by Jeep) - 4K approx.
March 2019 2nd 15K service at Landmark Jeep - Oil and filter changes and alignment balancing - Cost 9K approx.
Dec 2019 26K kms at Landmark Jeep - 3rd Service - Oil and filter changes, brake pad changes - Cost 26K approx.
June 21 35K kms at Landmark Jeep - Paid service, oil and filter changes and preventive maintenance - Cost 19K approx.
July 21 36K kms at Landmark Jeep - Steering column and rack changed under warranty FOC.

I found Landmark Jeep to be very co-operative and helpful. I always got correct advice from them.

Coming back to trails:

While in lockdown, trails were not happening, WFH was on. I hardly used my Jeep. Most of my trips were Mumbai - Pune - Mumbai.

August -2021 - Freedom Trail - JWW announced a trail at Karjat. It was a long time since my Jeep had seen slush mud and rut.

My daughter did a small vlog on the trail.

Few pics from the trail: