The event co-ordinators at Jeep must have envisaged clear, sunny skies when they planned the launch of their two new engine offerings in Nelspruit. If you’ve been keeping an eye on the news lately, you’ll know that conditions were far from idyllic: unrelenting rain was responsible for chaos in the province. But the precarious weather was conducive to a real adventure – and that’s what Jeep products are all about.

Heavy downpour, potholes, unplanned stops, detours and getting lost. That was what we endured in our testing of Jeep’s more powerful Wrangler and Grand Cherokee models. We also found an embarrassing way to test the keyless Enter-N-Go system, but more on that later.

With the miserable weather, we decided to enjoy the comforts of the opulent Grand Cherokee, which gets a 3-litre turbo-diesel engine under the hood.  The figures extolled by the marketing team at Jeep inspired awe -  177kW, 550 Nm of torque and a range of 1000km is impressive by any standards.

After settling into the heated seats, we hit our first stumbling block – trying to set the trip meter to zero, in order to follow the directions of the planned test route.  While most cars would have a simple button on the instrument panel to set the trip meter to nought, the Grand Cherokee uses a confusing maze of menus, navigated through by buttons on the steering wheel.  No points for this user-unfriendly interface.

The score chart begins to change on the road, though.  It’s important for big cars like these to have plenty of power on demand, and this torquey diesel ‘plant has the muscle to push the heavy Jeep forward with immediacy. A feeling of lethargy would usually be expected from a vehicle of such heft, but the Grand Cherokee feels expedient. Then there’s its frugality – the fuel needle barely moved after a full day of driving and exploiting the Grand Cherokee’s smooth power delivery.

On the outside, it looks ready to tear the beaten track apart, but a luxurious interior means you won’t be perturbed when the Grand Cherokee’s big tyres are throwing up mud and gravel. Chrysler products from the past didn’t have the best of lounges – cars like the Neon, with tawdry fake wood trim spring to mind. You can doff your hat to the designers, as the Grand Cherokee is truly classy: no corners have been cut, even the dashboard is wrapped in nice-to-touch leather. A solid block of polished wood features on the top section of the steering wheel rim, the rim itself is also heated, which should make for comfortable driving on chilly winter mornings.

It also has the gadgetry to make conquering the great outdoors easier. The Uconnect system – think of it as an equivalent to iDrive from BMW or the MMI from Audi, comes with voice command, navigation and integration for iPods and other media. We liked its easy touch screen operation. Keyless entry was a feature that made huge sense to this scribe, until a misfortunate incident in the middle of the Kruger National Park.

Our convoy came to a stop, as the bridge we were going to drive across had been swept away.  Being a curious bunch of journalists, we hopped out to inspect and take pictures. My driving partner decided to follow after me, and quite sensibly brought the Grand Cherokee’s key fob from the center console where I had placed it during my time behind the wheel. He returned to the vehicle,  put the key in his door pocket on the passenger side, got out again to get more snaps, closed his door and just like that, the Jeep became a vault that we couldn’t enter.

Pockets were checked, emptied and checked again, as the helpful guys from the support team insisted it was impossible for the car to lock with the key inside. We were getting ready to have a vehement roasting session of this Enter-N-Go system,  when the support team realised that it wasn’t the car’s fault, but the fact that the key was too far away to be detected – it’s always supposed to be kept in the vicinity of the steering wheel. The archaic method of using a coat-hanger to gain access was out of the question, since the Grand Cherokee was engineered to resist those underhanded techniques used by thieves. In the end, the support team had to break the boot-lid window – a sound that cost around R5000, we were told.

Of course, jokes were made about what happened when we got to the hotel that evening,  but I thought seriously about keyless-go technology: it’s something that needs to be treated carefully. It’s very easy to forget about, or misplace the key fob somewhere in the vehicle – outside the range of detectors.

After the drama of the Enter-N-Go system, we switched hands to the Jeep Wrangler – which came with a conventional key system, thankfully.  Under the boxy front-end is a beefy new 3.6-litre V6 Pentastar engine, with 209kW and 347Nm of torque. While it is powerful, it doesn’t gather steam with the same ease as the Grand Cherokee. The Wrangler is a more purposeful beast: it does without the plush luxuries, staying serious about its status as the definitive, no-frills American off-roader. Some effort is required in the driving process, as you tug at the tall, truck-like gearlever and enjoy the loud roar of the V6.

The interior is basic and functional, although ergonomics could be better: electric window switches, for example, are on the dashboard, not where you would expect them to be, on the door. Air-conditioning vents are placed below the touch-screen Uconnect interface, pointing directly at the torso, chilling one’s belly. But I suppose none of this will matter when you’ve got the top removed, and you’re using the Wrangler as a leisure-activity companion, driving off road, or cruising along the beach. The doors can be removed too, creating a beach-buggy type of ambience.

Overall, we were impressed by Jeep’s two new engine additions. What left a lingering impression, however, was the diesel Grand Cherokee. At just under R600 000, it’s a lot of car for the money, coming standard with many of the goodies you would have to order as extras in most of its German competitors. It’s an offering to be considered strongly, when you’re shopping around for a luxury SUV that’s also adept off-road.