The Chevrolet Corvette and Ford Mustang are both iconic, but I would actually argue the Jeep Wrangler is probably the most iconic American car. If you look at the sales figures from last year, Americans seem to agree, since the Wrangler completely buried both the Corvette and the Mustang. Most of the people who buy them won’t actually use their Jeep’s legendary off-road capability, but they also usually don’t pretend they will. They just like the vibe. The question is, though, are Jeeps actually reliable enough to be worth buying?
Sadly, there’s no national reliability database that tracks every single vehicle ever sold, but thanks to its massive annual owner survey, Consumer Reports might have the next-closest thing. You can argue with how it weighs the importance of each category, but with reliability data from hundreds of thousands of readers, it’s probably the most, well, reliable source available if you want a better idea of how fraught a car’s ownership experience will be.
So what does the latest Consumer Reports data say about Jeep reliability? As a brand, it’s not great. Jeep ranked 19th out of the 22 automakers included in its latest reliability list, putting it slightly ahead of GMC and Cadillac but slightly behind Volkswagen and Tesla. That doesn’t mean you’d be wrong to still buy a Jeep, but it’s important to at least know what you’re getting yourself into before you do, so you hopefully get fewer nasty surprises as a new owner.
It’s a gamble
That said, Jeep’s reliability isn’t the same across the board, either. In fact, it varies wildly depending on which model you choose. Among the vehicles Jeep currently sells (that Consumer Reports also has enough data to rank), the Gladiator pickup is by far the most reliable. Since it’s so closely related to the Wrangler, you’d probably expect them both to be equally reliable, but as it turns out, that hasn’t been true for the owners CR surveyed. In fact, the otherwise terrible Compass even did better than the Wrangler in this reliability survey.
As far as how each model’s reliability stacks up against the competition, the Gladiator slots in right behind the Ford Ranger and Honda Ridgeline, while way outperforming the Nissan Frontier and the Chevrolet Colorado/GMC Canyon. Meanwhile, the Wrangler can’t match the reliability of any serious off-roader, including the Ford Bronco, Toyota Land Cruiser or Toyota 4Runner. Then there’s the Compass, which does have the Dodge Hornet and Ford Escape Hybrid beat on reliability, but that’s about it. Even the Mitsubishi Outlander performed better in this survey than the Compass. As for the Grand Cherokee(s), they’re about as close to the bottom of the barrel as you can get in that segment, with the plug-in hybrid Grand Cherokee actually coming in last place.
Sadly, there wasn’t enough data to provide reliability ratings for Jeep’s other vehicles, such as the Wagoneer, Grand Wagoneer or the new electric Wagoneer S, but based on how the rest of the lineup fared, don’t expect great reliability in any of those cars, either. Of course, there will always be exceptions, and it’s entirely possible you know someone who’s never had a single problem with their Jeep, but based on the experiences of the owners included in this survey, if you care about reliability, buying a Jeep that isn’t the Gladiator is going to be a gamble at best.
