Jeep winners, Patriot, and Compass

The Jeep Patriot managed to beat its successor in sales last month despite a 17% sales drop, logging 9,837 US sales vs Renegade’s 8,832. The comparison may be somewhat unfair, as some dealers said they were not getting ordered Renegades, and the latter is brought in from Italy while the Patriot is made in Illinois.

In any case, the Renegade easily beat the outgoing Compass, despite a huge 53% boost in Compass sales compared with March 2015. (There were practically no Renegades to be sold at that time so the latter’s 2,228% gain can be ignored.) This bodes well for the replacement-Compass, which will reportedly have much the same chassis as the Renegade but with mini-Grand-Cherokee styling.

Looking at the bigger Jeeps, the three-way sales race has been clearly won by the Cherokee, with 19,170 sales for the month — up just 1%. The Grand Cherokee hit the #2 spot with 18,506 sales, and Wrangler trailed at 17,710. The Wrangler may have the last laugh, though, with a production boost planned — and the most traditional Jeep will be kicking the Cherokee out of its factory and taking it over, most likely next year.

Jeep continues to be on a roll for 2016, with sales up by 17% year to date; the Compass has the biggest rise (up 43%) and lowest sales. The only other Jeep to lose sales year to date was the Wrangler, though only by 1%. The profit engine Grand Cherokee was up by 8%, and the Cherokee gained by 3%. So far, Jeep has sold 49,534 Jeep Cherokees in the US alone — a number larger than total Jeep sales in many of the Willys and Kaiser years.

Read more at:http://www.allpar.com/news/2016/04/jeep-winners-patriot-and-compass-31560