Had a 2014 Cherokee Trailhawk and loved it at first.
After many trips to the shop (air cond, elecronic parking brake freezing, and too many transmission updates to count) I traded it in on my 2016 CX-5 Touring.
I liked the Jeeps ride, interior, infotainment and of course off road capability.
The (at the time) new ZF - 9 speed transmission made for horrible driveability.
Numerous recalls could not make that thing downshift or upshift reliably
Many horror stories in the Jeep forum of owners having transmissions replaced multiple times in order to get one that shifted properly.
Each time I brought it in for tranmission complaints they said "operating as designed"
Made my extended warranty basically worthless - at least I was able to get a prorated refund on that.....
I see on carcomplaints.com that transmission issues still generate the most complaints on the 2016s.
I considered trading up to a Grand Cherokee but I believe they also started using the ZF (8 speed) in 2014 as well.
Carcomplaints also show transmission issues on the GC as the most common complaint starting in 2014.
No more FCA products for me thank you very much
The ZF 8-speed and 9-speed are totally different animals. The ZF 8-speed is a conventionally designed longitudinal transmission. It is used by a lot of different manufacturers, and is pretty well regarded. The ZF 9-speed a is transverse unit that fits 9 ratios into the space of a 6-speed unit by packing two planetary gearsets on top of each other and using two dog clutches in place of multiplate friction clutches. Shifts that involve the dog clutches require feedback from the transmission to the engine to momentarily cut or increase power to try to match shaft speeds in the transmission.
Jaguar Land Rover were the first ones to market with the ZF 9-speed in 2013, followed by FCA in 2014, and Honda in 2015/2016. They all had problems with it initially. First year buyers like yourself were unfortunate guinea pigs when the transmission wasn't really ready for prime time yet. But after a couple years of further development they seem to have it sorted now. I've ridden in a 2017 Cherokee and driven a 2017 Pilot and didn't have any complaints with the transmission in either car. Also, my wife drives a 2017 Pacifica and we don't have any complaints with the transmission over 20k miles so far.
It's still a Jeep though. Even if the transmission was perfect there's still plenty to go wrong.