2007 Compass is a gentler Jeep, not a burly SUV

It's not your imagination. There are more Jeeps on sale than ever before -- five nameplates, to be exact.

The newest is the 2007 Jeep Compass, a five-passenger, compact sport utility vehicle that's expected to attract more women than men. The reason: While the Compass has Jeep's characteristic seven-slot grille and round headlights up front, high-profile seating and is offered with four-wheel drive, it's not a burly SUV.

Indeed, the Compass is the first front-wheel drive Jeep with a fully independent suspension, which provides a more car-like ride than might be expected in a vehicle with a Jeep badge.

Jeeps, after all, trace their heritage to rather rough-riding though nimble and capable off-road vehicles used by the U.S. Army in World War II.

With a starting manufacturer's suggested retail price, including destination charge, of $15,425, the Compass is not only a decent traveler, it's affordable. This price is for a base Sport model with front-wheel drive and five-speed manual transmission.

A Compass with continuously variable transmission (CVT), which a driver operates like an automatic, starts quite a bit higher -- $18,585.

Competitors include other compact SUVs such as the 2007 Ford Escape, which starts at $19,985 for a base, two-wheel drive model with manual transmission, and the 2007 Toyota RAV4, which starts at $21,495 for a base model with automatic transmission.

Jeep officials decided to add the Compass after market research showed U.S. sales of compact SUVs -- the smallest SUVs on the market -- are projected to nearly double to 600,000 a year by 2010 from last year's 368,000.

Much of the growth is tied to consumer interest in improved gasoline mileage, and the Compass ranks as the best Jeep in government fuel economy estimates with a rating of 26 miles per gallon in city driving and 30 mpg on the highway for the base model.

Other small Jeeps, such as the Wrangler and Liberty, rate between 14 and 18 mpg in the city and 18 and 23 mpg on the highway.

The test Compass, an uplevel Limited model with four-wheel drive, rode without the truckish bounciness I've experienced in some other SUVs.

No wonder. The Compass platform as well as the independent front MacPherson strut and independent rear multi-link suspensions are used by the Dodge Caliber hatchback car.

Standard tires and wheels are 17-inchers, but the test Compass Limited had the uplevel 18s, and at times I felt some heaviness at the corners as the vehicle rolled over rough pavement.

Still, the Compass felt more like a tallish, five-door wagon than a Jeep, and it maneuvered easily into parking spaces and tight garages and handled the back-and-forth motions of a slalom competently.

I appreciated that side curtain air bags, antilock brakes, stability control and traction control are standard. The Compass has frontal air bags, too, which are required by the government. But side-mounted air bags, which are standard on some other compact SUVs such as the Hyundai Tucson, are optional.

In federal government tests, the Compass rated four out of five stars in frontal crash protection and five out of five stars in side crash testing.

Too bad the interior of the test Compass had so much road noise coming through the tires. I found myself cranking up the radio volume to cover these sounds.

Some small SUVs offer both four- and six-cylinder powerplants.

But there's only one engine for the Compass -- a 172-horsepower, 2.4-liter, double overhead cam, inline four cylinder. It puts out a maximum 165 foot-pounds of torque at 4,400 rpm, but not without some engine buzziness.

Still, the Compass test vehicle, with optional CVT, moved smoothly in traffic.

Note this transmission is an option on every Compass model, even the Limited trim, where it adds $1,150 to the price tag. This is more than the usual markup for a regular automatic transmission.

CVTs are designed to be more fuel efficient, however, because they have no set gears and instead seek to manage power delivery from the engine optimally.

The four-cylinder engine in the Compass has more power than the four banger in the Escape, which puts out 153 horsepower and 152 foot-pounds of torque at 4,250 rpm.

But it's in the range of the RAV4 with four cylinder, which generates 166 horsepower and 165 foot-pounds of torque at 4,000 rpm.

The interior on the test Compass looked chintzy, with a lot of hard plastic pieces and at least a couple with ragged edges.

The Limited model included leather-trimmed seats, but the quality of the leather was such the seat cover could have been mistaken for vinyl.

And drivers should be aware of the thick pillars around the windshield, which can obscure pedestrians in crosswalks in some turns at intersections.

I did like that the front passenger seatback in the Compass can fold forward to provide a flat workspace or, if needed, extra cargo room to accommodate even an 8-foot-long ladder.

And the rear liftgate opening is wide.

Note there is no low gear in the Compass for rugged off-roading. But with a ground clearance of between 8.1 and 8.4 inches, this SUV can handle dirt roads and driveways without worry of bottoming out or scraping something underneath.

Rear-seat legroom of 39.4 inches is on par with the Escape and 1.1 inches more than in the RAV4.

Maximum cargo room, with the 60/40 split rear seats folded, is 53.6 cubic feet, and maximum towing capacity is 2,000 pounds.