Swedish car magazine, Teknikens Värld, recently aired a video showing a new Jeep Grand Cherokee up on two wheels during a so-called "moose (or elk) test," but Chrysler quickly responded crying foul about the test's results. In the video, a Grand Cherokee Overland model is driven at about 40 miles per hour and then put into a violent and abrupt lane change maneuver that nearly results in the SUV rolling over. At the end of the video, Jeep is urged to stop selling the Grand Cherokee in Sweden until the issue is resolved, but Chrysler, for now, has had the last word with its own finding about the incident.
According to a Chrysler press release, the Grand Cherokee in question was overloaded by the magazine in an attempt to simulate five occupants and cargo. Chrysler even went over to Sweden to perform the same tests with the magazine, and three vehicles ran through the course 11 different times without reproducing such an extreme result. In Sweden, the Grand Cherokee Overland comes with three different engines (3.6-liter Pentastar V-6, 5.7 Hemi V-8 and the 3.0-liter common rail diesel V-6), and it is likely the three tests vehicles used each one of these engines.
From the tests, Chrysler concluded that " The uncharacteristic result was obtained using a vehicle loaded beyond its weight specifications. The Grand Cherokee’s weight limitations are clearly stated on the vehicle and in the owner’s manual."
In the United States, the 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee is an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) 2012 Top Safety Pick, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gave it an overall four star crash rating. The NHTSA's rating includes a four-star rollover rating for the four-wheel drive models and a three-star rating for the two-wheel drive models.