If you’re car shopping for an SUV for your teen, safety is probably at the top of your priority list. After all, everyone wants their kids to be as safe as possible. There are some SUVs that are better than others when it comes to safety, and there is one specifically that you’ll probably want to skip – the 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Here’s what’s wrong with the newest Grand Cherokee and why you probably don’t want to buy it for your teen. 

The 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee doesn’t have great safety ratings 

The 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee‘s safety ratings aren’t that great. The nonprofit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) performs crash tests to evaluate how safe vehicles and shares the results with consumers so that they may make informed decisions. Unfortunately, the Grand Cherokee’s crash test results are pretty bad. Here’s what the IIHS found. 

The 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee’s overall evaluation is only marginal. This is out of a possible good, acceptable, marginal, and poor safety rating. In addition, its structure and safety cage rating is just marginal.

The passenger side of the Jeep Grand Cherokee doesn’t have good safety ratings

The passenger side of the 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee isn’t that safe for your teen, either. The passenger injury measures lower leg/foot rating is marginal, and the driver restraints and dummy kinematics rating is acceptable. Of particular notice is the airbags’ performance. The IIHS says, “The side curtain airbag deployed but does not have sufficient forward coverage to protect the head from contact with forward side structure and outside objects.”

The passenger side of the 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee gets even worse ratings. It has a poor overall evaluation and a marginal structure and safety cage. The passenger injury measures head/neck gets an acceptable rating, while the lower leg/foot gets a poor rating. Even worse, the passenger restraints and dummy kinematics rating for the passenger side has a poor rating. The IIHS notes that while the frontal airbag stayed in front of the dummy, “However, the side curtain airbag did not deploy and the front passenger door opened during the crash, which shouldn’t happen because the passenger could be partly or completely ejected from the vehicle. In fact during rebound, the dummy’s head moved outside the vehicle, leaving the head vulnerable to contact with side structure and outside objects.”

The moderate overlap test results are good – but that’s not enough 

The moderate-overlap crash test ratings are good, but with the other results being not-so-great, this is likely not an SUV you’ll want to buy for your teen. The moderate-overlap crash test measures how well a vehicle would do in “a frontal offset crash between two vehicles of the same weight, each going just under 40 mph.”

In addition, the original side crash test results are good. Unfortunately, the headlights are also not that great. There are three available headlights for the 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and while one is acceptable, the other two are poor. This is important because more than half of fatal car accidents happen at night, and headlights can help prevent an accident.

While the 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee is a popular and stylish SUV, it isn’t one that you should consider for your teen driver. Teenagers tend to get in more accidents, and buying an SUV with good crash test ratings is one way to make them as safe as possible.