Jeep could make the Compass even more affordable: Here’s how

The Jeep Compass, which was launched a couple of months ago, wowed everyone with its 14.95 lakh rupee starting price tag. Jeep has since revised the price to 15.16 lakhs after the GST cess kicked in. Now, there’s a possibility of the American automaker actually reducing the prices of the hot-selling SUV. Here’s how.

Over the past few days, Jeep has been caught testing the Compass with the 1.6 liter Fiat Multijet turbo diesel engine, the same engine found on the top-end Maruti S-Cross Diesel. This engine makes 120 Bhp-320 Nm, and offers great pep on the S-Cross.

On the Compass, this engine may be offered for international, right hand drive markets, particularly the United Kingdom. In fact, the test mules of the Compass even had labels specifying United Kingdom on them. So, it’s very likely that the Compass 1.6 is headed to the UK shortly.

Coming back to the Indian angle, Jeep now has an option to slip in a cheaper, cut-price version of the Compass, powered by the 1.6 liter diesel engine. Such a variant, priced about 50,000 rupees cheaper will make the SUV even more popular in India.

Automakers have been known to launch such cut-price variants in a past as a means of spurring demand. There’s no reason why Jeep shouldn’t go this way with the Compass. Currently, the Compass sold here is available with the 2 liter Multijet diesel engine making 170 Bhp-350 Nm, and the 1.4 liter turbo petrol engine with 160 Bhp-250 Nm.

While the petrol engine is available with 6 speed manual, and 7 speed twin clutch automatic gearbox options, the diesel engine makes do with a 6 speed manual. By early 2018, Jeep plans to add an automatic gearbox to the Compass Diesel as well.

The SUV, Jeep’s most affordable in India, has already racked up over 10,000 bookings. Waiting times sit at 2 months. Soon, the Compass will be exported from India (a production hub for this SUV), to multiple right-hand drive markets such as the United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia.

Spyshots courtesy Team-BHP