For enhanced safety, the front and middle seat shoulder belts of the Jeep Grand Cherokee L are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The Audi Q7 doesn’t offer height-adjustable middle seat belts.
In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the Grand Cherokee L are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Q7 doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Jeep Grand Cherokee L has standard driver and front passenger side knee airbags mounted low on the dashboard. These airbags helps prevent the driver and front passenger from sliding under their seatbelts or the main frontal airbags; this keeps them better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. Knee airbags also help keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Q7 doesn’t offer knee airbags.
The Grand Cherokee L has standard Active Head Restraints, which use a specially designed headrest to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the Active Head Restraints system moves the headrests forward to prevent neck and spine injuries. The Q7 doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
The Grand Cherokee L Summit’s driver alert monitor detects an inattentive driver then sounds a warning and suggests a break. According to the NHTSA, drivers who fall asleep cause about 100,000 crashes and 1500 deaths a year. The Q7 doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the Grand Cherokee L and the Q7 have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras, rear cross-path warning, available all wheel drive, night vision systems and around view monitors.
A significantly tougher test than their original offset frontal crash test, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety does 40 MPH small overlap frontal offset crash tests. In this test, where only 25% of the total width of the vehicle is struck, results indicate that the Jeep Grand Cherokee L is safer than the Q7:
|
Grand Cherokee L |
Q7 |
Overall Evaluation |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Restraints |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Head Neck Evaluation |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Head injury index |
87 |
225 |
Peak Head Forces |
0 G’s |
0 G’s |
Chest Evaluation |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Max Chest Compression |
22 cm |
30 cm |
Hip & Thigh Evaluation |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
Femur Force R/L |
1.3/.1 kN |
5.5/.1 kN |
Hip & Thigh Injury Risk R/L |
0%/0% |
4%/0% |
Lower Leg Evaluation |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Tibia index R/L |
.42/.46 |
.57/.7 |