Well we needed a one-way ride to the beach from the north side of Sao Paulo, as my wife's cousin and family that we were staying with were coming a day later to the family beach house in Peruibe, Brazil.
So I got voluntold to drive my wife's cousin's daily driver 2017 Jeep Compass from their flat to the family beach house, approximately 141km per Google Maps. The vehicle had 119,xxx kilometers at the time of my drive. They take extremely good care of their vehicles, so I was amenable to it.
The first thought I have about driving this vehicle is that it seems better screwed together than the Jeeps in the US. Despite the roads in Sao Paulo being pretty rough in many parts, this vehicle does not seem to have any squeaks or rattles whatsoever. Of course it gets kept in a parking garage at their apartment building and at her work, so, it's somewhat protected from sun damage, so that may have been a factor. But still, kind of wondering if they use more glue at the Jeep factory in Brazil. Which is probably the Renalt factory, but anyway I digress.
The room inside at the driver position was better than I expected, I'm used to my Lightning which has an absolutely cavernous interior, but it really wasn't that bad in the Compass. I didn't feel like my knees were overly splayed out to avoid the steering wheel and not bent too far either due to lack of legroom. I'm 6'7" for reference. However, I doubt an adult could sit behind me at my comfortable seating position.
This vehicle has leather seats and they seem to have held up pretty well over 8 years and 119K KMs, only minor wear noted. The seats were decently comfortable, I didn't feel like my (backside) was overly sore when we got there.
The brakes seemed overly touchy on this vehicle. We made a quick stop on the way there in central Sao Paulo for my wife to get a cosmetic treatment and there was a lot of opportunity to use the brakes in town. You really had to be careful feathering them as to not overly jostle your occupants. Not sure why. I didn't ask my wife's cousin as to whether the rotors and pads had ever been changed out. There seemed to be no pulsation of the brake pedal or steering wheel upon usage, even hard usage, so maybe they had been changed out.
This vehicle has CarPlay and Android Auto but my wife brought the wrong cord to use them, she brought a USB-C that was charging only from some household accessory like the fly fans and it would not connect. I was unwilling to go back to the the apartment to get a data cord when we realized our mistake and unwilling to stop and buy another cord, so we lived with it. The cord did charge my phone though which was helpful as I was using it to navigate.
Tires were Nexen and were well balanced, appeared fairly new, no shaking noted at speeds up to 140Kmh.
Handling and ride were pretty decent, up to normal crossover standards I'd say. Roads are definitely not great in spots, some of the freeway is super smooth, but the BR101 along the coast is not the best, patchwork in spots.
I noted an oil change sticker on the upper left of the windshield that indicated oil changes every 8000KM/5000Mi, an agreeable regimen for a BITOGer.
The engine itself purred like a kitten. Some minor pinging was noted at lower speeds, speaking for myself personally I'd probably run a few tanks of E100 through it to see if that cleaned up the combustion chamber some if it were my vehicle, but that's neither here nor there. There is a ton of low speed travel involved in driving around Sao Paulo and lots and lots of gridlock. So I imagine this vehicle doesn't get driven hard a lot and has a lot of idle time.
The gasolina (E27) is around R$6/liter and the etanol (E100) around R$4/liter average, if you shop selectively though I saw both around for less.
I did my best to help to give it an Italian tuneup once we were headed out of town as I floored it several times trying to stay in the 130-140 kmh range after passing each traffic camera, which are noted on Google Maps while driving on the freeway. Slow down to 120 for the cameras, then go as fast as the traffic will allow after that, was the strategy.
On that note, let me tell you, I don't know if they use a smaller engine in the Brazilian compass than they do in the USA Compass, but this thing is absolutely gutless. Maybe I'm just used to driving electric cars, but if you floor it going any speed above around 100kmh, the tach and the noise go way up, but not much of anything happens. Accleration from 110kmh to 130 kmh (68 to 82mph) probably takes a minimum of 20 seconds. Worse if going uphill.
But to go slow in Sao Paulo gridlock, you don't really need that much power, so I guess there is that.
Overall arrived in about two and half hours, was definitely ready to get out when I got there, but ended up being more livable than I thought it would be. Drove pretty nice as well. I've had worse rental cars for sure.
Would I own this car in the USA? Probably not. although I note what they sell new in the USA has 200HP/221Tq, so it probably moves out a lot better than this older one I drove. But they are pretty pricey in the US for what they are.
Would I own this car in Brazil as a little runaround to get around Sao Paulo? Maybe. It's definitely not advantageous to have a big car in Sao Paulo.
I would probably favor one of the Chinese EVs available in Brazil over these, but it would have to be one with a good crash rating, I noted that the BYD Dolphin Mini starts around R$58K which is around $9000 US, but the Latin American crash ratings for the Dolphin Mini are terrible. There are some big Chinese EVs like the Leapmotor C10 that is sold at Stellantis dealers but I never saw what the cost was on the billboard ads I saw for them. Leapmotor is definitely trying to make a big advertsing push in Brazil, saw their ads all over the place on the road, while walking around, and on the domestic flight I took in Brazil both in the airport and on the plane.
So I got voluntold to drive my wife's cousin's daily driver 2017 Jeep Compass from their flat to the family beach house, approximately 141km per Google Maps. The vehicle had 119,xxx kilometers at the time of my drive. They take extremely good care of their vehicles, so I was amenable to it.
The first thought I have about driving this vehicle is that it seems better screwed together than the Jeeps in the US. Despite the roads in Sao Paulo being pretty rough in many parts, this vehicle does not seem to have any squeaks or rattles whatsoever. Of course it gets kept in a parking garage at their apartment building and at her work, so, it's somewhat protected from sun damage, so that may have been a factor. But still, kind of wondering if they use more glue at the Jeep factory in Brazil. Which is probably the Renalt factory, but anyway I digress.
The room inside at the driver position was better than I expected, I'm used to my Lightning which has an absolutely cavernous interior, but it really wasn't that bad in the Compass. I didn't feel like my knees were overly splayed out to avoid the steering wheel and not bent too far either due to lack of legroom. I'm 6'7" for reference. However, I doubt an adult could sit behind me at my comfortable seating position.
This vehicle has leather seats and they seem to have held up pretty well over 8 years and 119K KMs, only minor wear noted. The seats were decently comfortable, I didn't feel like my (backside) was overly sore when we got there.
The brakes seemed overly touchy on this vehicle. We made a quick stop on the way there in central Sao Paulo for my wife to get a cosmetic treatment and there was a lot of opportunity to use the brakes in town. You really had to be careful feathering them as to not overly jostle your occupants. Not sure why. I didn't ask my wife's cousin as to whether the rotors and pads had ever been changed out. There seemed to be no pulsation of the brake pedal or steering wheel upon usage, even hard usage, so maybe they had been changed out.
This vehicle has CarPlay and Android Auto but my wife brought the wrong cord to use them, she brought a USB-C that was charging only from some household accessory like the fly fans and it would not connect. I was unwilling to go back to the the apartment to get a data cord when we realized our mistake and unwilling to stop and buy another cord, so we lived with it. The cord did charge my phone though which was helpful as I was using it to navigate.
Tires were Nexen and were well balanced, appeared fairly new, no shaking noted at speeds up to 140Kmh.
Handling and ride were pretty decent, up to normal crossover standards I'd say. Roads are definitely not great in spots, some of the freeway is super smooth, but the BR101 along the coast is not the best, patchwork in spots.
I noted an oil change sticker on the upper left of the windshield that indicated oil changes every 8000KM/5000Mi, an agreeable regimen for a BITOGer.
The engine itself purred like a kitten. Some minor pinging was noted at lower speeds, speaking for myself personally I'd probably run a few tanks of E100 through it to see if that cleaned up the combustion chamber some if it were my vehicle, but that's neither here nor there. There is a ton of low speed travel involved in driving around Sao Paulo and lots and lots of gridlock. So I imagine this vehicle doesn't get driven hard a lot and has a lot of idle time.
The gasolina (E27) is around R$6/liter and the etanol (E100) around R$4/liter average, if you shop selectively though I saw both around for less.
I did my best to help to give it an Italian tuneup once we were headed out of town as I floored it several times trying to stay in the 130-140 kmh range after passing each traffic camera, which are noted on Google Maps while driving on the freeway. Slow down to 120 for the cameras, then go as fast as the traffic will allow after that, was the strategy.
On that note, let me tell you, I don't know if they use a smaller engine in the Brazilian compass than they do in the USA Compass, but this thing is absolutely gutless. Maybe I'm just used to driving electric cars, but if you floor it going any speed above around 100kmh, the tach and the noise go way up, but not much of anything happens. Accleration from 110kmh to 130 kmh (68 to 82mph) probably takes a minimum of 20 seconds. Worse if going uphill.
But to go slow in Sao Paulo gridlock, you don't really need that much power, so I guess there is that.
Overall arrived in about two and half hours, was definitely ready to get out when I got there, but ended up being more livable than I thought it would be. Drove pretty nice as well. I've had worse rental cars for sure.
Would I own this car in the USA? Probably not. although I note what they sell new in the USA has 200HP/221Tq, so it probably moves out a lot better than this older one I drove. But they are pretty pricey in the US for what they are.
Would I own this car in Brazil as a little runaround to get around Sao Paulo? Maybe. It's definitely not advantageous to have a big car in Sao Paulo.
I would probably favor one of the Chinese EVs available in Brazil over these, but it would have to be one with a good crash rating, I noted that the BYD Dolphin Mini starts around R$58K which is around $9000 US, but the Latin American crash ratings for the Dolphin Mini are terrible. There are some big Chinese EVs like the Leapmotor C10 that is sold at Stellantis dealers but I never saw what the cost was on the billboard ads I saw for them. Leapmotor is definitely trying to make a big advertsing push in Brazil, saw their ads all over the place on the road, while walking around, and on the domestic flight I took in Brazil both in the airport and on the plane.
