Jeep is part of Fiat Chrysler America, which, like me, has deep Italian roots.
I mention this because several times during the week I test drove a 2016 Jeep Patriot Latitude, I could almost hear my late grandmother Batalia's oft-repeated words when dealing with a recalcitrant child.
"What'samatter for you?"
This thought crossed my mind when, after 225 miles of city and highway driving, I had to gas up the compact SUV, which came as a surprise because anything compact shouldn't need gas after 225 miles.
Three days earlier, when the Jeep was delivered, I had noticed that there was no fuel economy monitoring software onboard, which is usually a tip-off that the manufacturer doesn't want someone, especially a potential buyer, attending to trivialities such as miles per gallon.
I did the math and my suspicions were confirmed: 225 miles, 14.1 gallons, equals 16.03 miles per gallon. The EPA estimates a similarly equipped 4WD Latitude will get 21 mpg. Guess their foot is lighter than mine.
"What'samatter for you," I asked the Jeep. "I could go get a full-sized pickup with crew cab and get better mileage."
The Jeep just sat there. Silent. Which, coincidentally, happens to be best way to handle an Italian grandmother. By the way, Grandma never said that to me. It was usually the middle child who heard it, but let's not go there. That particular middle child is still around and I'm still afraid of her. Maybe not afraid, but respectful of the havoc she can wreak.
Come to think of it, I am quite happily married to a middle child, and right now I'm recalling something Grandma did used to tell me.
"Billy, you a smart kid, but you gotta learn when to shutta the mouth."
Zip.
So, if you want to stop reading now, here's the deal on the Jeep Patriot. It has two great features: affordability and, when equipped right, true off-road capability. The front seats are comfortable, after that, meh.
The Patriot comes in five models. A basic Sport, with front-wheel drive, manual doors and windows and no air conditioning starts at $17,595. Right now Chrysler is offering $500 cash on Patriot purchases, $2,000 on leases.
Go to a 4x4 with a 6-speed automatic transmission, and you're right at $21,000, before any dealer discount. Toss in $500 for a tow prep package, and you've got a darned good camping-hunting-fishing vehicle for less than $400 a month on a four-year note.
If you want to go for a maxed out top-end model, like a Latitude, 75th Anniversary edition or High Altitude, now we're talking leather, power everything, off-road package, nav system, satellite radio, about the most you can spend on a Patriot is $30,000. That's a good $4,000-$5,000 less than a similarly equipped Honda CR-V, generally acknowledged as the leader of this very competitive class.
By they way, Jeep.com lets you easily spec out and estimate financing. Nice tool.
The Patriot has not been redesigned since 2007, so it lacks some of the refinement introduced into the automotive world in the last decade. On the other hand, as FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne often points out, this is an expensive business. What with design, engineering, testing, retooling factories and marketing, bringing a new vehicle to market is a mulitbillion-dollar proposition.
So continuing to crank out the same vehicle with only cosmetic differences is smart business. Year-after-year, the profit margin only expands.
The quality-price proposition says that if you build a better widget, you can charge more for it. Conversely, if you build an inferior widget, you charge less. Depending on production costs, there is profit to be found on both sides of that equation.
Give Marchionne and his team credit. Using aggressive pricing strategies, and the cache' of the Jeep name, they've seen Patriot sales double in the past five years, from 55,000 units in the U.S. in 2011 to 118,000 in 2016, and last month was the model's best January on record.
So, in a period when new-vehicle prices skyrocketed, the Patriot went the other direction and found gold.
Two engines and four transmissions are available. Standard is a 2.0-liter I-4 producing 158 horsepower and 141 lb.-ft. of torque mated to a five-speed manual transmission. Chrysler says this power train will deliver up to 30 mpg. Critics say it is painfully slow.
Step up to AWD and you get a 2.4-liter DOHC 16-valve dual VVT I-4 engine, which produces 172 horsepower. A six-speed automatic is available, as are two CVT transmissions. If you want the Freedom Drive II Off-road Package that delivers a highly desirable 19:1 overall crawl ratio, you get a CVT.
Acceleration with this package is acceptable, but all that extra weight, which our tester had, exacts a penalty in fuel economy.
The Patriot has not fared well in frontal crash testing, so try not to hit anything. And wear your seat belt.
As an everyday driver, the Patriot's ride and drive characteristics lag behind other affordable compacts, such as the Hyundai Tucson, Mazda CX-5, GMC Terrain, Ford Escape, Nissan Rogue, Toyota Rav-4.
Once you get into the upper end of the price range, the Jeep Cherokee becomes a worthwhile option. It has better road manners, and a much more refined interior than the Patriot, which is loaded with cheap feeling plastics.
The Patriot has won a Kelly Blue Book 5-year Cost to Own Award as the least expensive compact SUV for the past three years.
Bottom Line: If you have a long commute or need to haul soccer players, groceries and who-knows-what-else all over creation, this isn't your car. If you want something dependable and affordable that you can take out to play on weekends, the Patriot is like a middle child, maybe not perfect, but perfectly lovable.