Benefits of Some Benz Beneath the Skin

Photo

INDEPENDENT SUSPENSIONS With the new Durango, you get S.U.V. prowess for off-roading and towing without paying a significant penalty in on-road drivability or fuel economy." data-mediaviewer-credit="" itemprop="url" itemid="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2011/09/04/automobiles/04BLOC/04BLOC-jumbo.jpg"/>

TESTED 2011 Dodge Durango Crew

WHAT IS IT? An American relative of the Mercedes-Benz GL-Class sport utility.

HOW MUCH? $30,045 for base Express; Crew as tested was $43,385 including $1,195 Technology Group (adaptive speed control, forward collision warning and rear cross-path detection) and $5,000 Preferred Package (20-inch wheels, navigation system, leather and heated front and second-row seats).

WHAT’S UNDER THE HOOD? 3.6-liter V-6 (290 horsepower, 260 pound-feet); 5-speed automatic; all-wheel drive.

IS IT THIRSTY? Rating for 2011 is 16 m.p.g. city, 22 highway. For 2012, the addition of electric power steering lifts the highway figure to 23 m.p.g.

I’LL go out on a limb and wager that most people who buy three-row S.U.V.’s and crossovers neither know nor care what’s under the skin. That’s fine — who but a car geek cares what lurks beneath a Ford Explorer?

But nearly all of these vehicles are built on shared platforms, and that incurs compromises. Crossovers are typically based on front-drive cars with limited towing and off-road abilities. Body-on-frame S.U.V.’s are based on pickups, and they (including the original Durango) drive and swill fuel like trucks.

The latest Durango, though, is based on neither a car nor a pickup. Thanks to Chrysler’s bygone hookup with Mercedes-Benz, the Durango (as well as the Jeep Grand Cherokee) shares DNA with the Mercedes GL, a classier fancier relative than a Taurus or a Silverado.

Like the $60,000-plus GL, the Durango uses a rear-drive unibody platform with independent suspensions front and rear. This seems the best of both worlds. You get S.U.V. prowess for off-roading and towing without paying a significant penalty in on-road drivability or fuel economy. In fact, a rear-drive V-6 Durango can tow slightly more than a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid while matching its highway mileage rating.

The Durango’s new V-6 puts out a healthy 290 horsepower, but Dodge also offers a 360-horsepower Hemi V-8 that uses a cylinder-deactivation system to run on 4 cylinders under light loads. Most of these deactivation systems seem to work if you’re only heading downhill with a tailwind under a waning moon, but it’s easy to coax the Durango into fuel-miser mode at moderate speeds. On a highway trip during an earlier test of the V-8 Durango, I got 22 m.p.g., which equaled the rating for the V-6 with all-wheel drive.

In corners, the Durango feels more like a crossover than a truck. Its front-to-rear weight distribution is 50-50, with some trim levels even tipping toward a slight rear weight bias. BMW makes a big deal of its cars’ 50-50 balance, so it’s impressive to see a Dodge S.U.V. achieve that handling-friendly balance.

In stark contrast to its rude predecessor, the new Durango looks like a member of a higher price bracket. The interior, in particular, is emblematic of Chrysler’s newfound willingness (and for that matter, ability) to invest money where you can see it. You might expect heated leather rear seats and adaptive cruise control in a Lexus, but their availability in a Dodge is a nice surprise.

Regardless of its upscale intentions, this is still a beast of burden, and Chrysler says the Durango can carry enough 10-foot 2-by-4s to build a treehouse. This seems like a strange metric for cargo capacity — I mean, how big is the treehouse? — but I like it. If I owned a Durango, I would often boast of its treehouse capacity (one).

And, in contrast to the herd of crossovers, the Durango is still a real S.U.V. During my test drive, a huge storm struck my neighborhood, flooding the main road. The scene was straight out of an S.U.V. commercial: a line of cars trapped at water’s edge while a tow truck on the opposite side winched out a Cadillac SRX that didn’t make it across. I pulled to the front of the line, gauged the depth and plunged in. No problem.

While the Durango starts around $30,000, options can hoist the price beyond $47,000. Even at that level, the Durango strikes me as a reasonable value. Don’t think of it as an expensive Dodge; think of it as an inexpensive Mercedes.