Seven Reasons the 2025 Jeep Grand Cherokee Beats the 2025 Subaru Outback

June 16th, 2025 by

Two 2025 Jeep Grand Cherokee parked off-road

The Jeep Grand Cherokee is one of the most impressive midsize SUVs on the road, giving you bold power, fantastic capabilities, and a gorgeous interior. Of course, it’s easy for us to say all of those things, and we’re sure there’s no surprise coming from us since we’re a dealership that’s proud to offer the Jeep Grand Cherokee for sale near Cincinnati you’re looking for.

But we’re also happy to put our proverbial money where our mouth is and give clear examples of why the Grand Cherokee is so remarkable. Today, we’re going to take you through some of our favorite features of the 2025 Grand Cherokee, and we’ll even compare it to one of its biggest competitors: the Subaru Outback. This way, you’ll be able to see what makes the Jeep Grand Cherokee so special and why so many people choose it each year.

#1 – Impressive Power and Performance

As you’re considering a midsize SUV, you want to choose something with plenty of power to get you around Cincinnati each day and make sure you enjoy yourself. The 2025 Jeep Grand Cherokee features a standard 3.6L Pentastar V6 engine that delivers 293 hp and 260 lb-ft of torque, which is fantastic.

By comparison, looking at the 2025 Subaru Outback, we find a 2.5L BOXER engine that offers just 182 hp and 176 lb-ft of torque. That shows you, in an instant, the kind of power that Jeep is well known for and how far behind it leaves many other models out there. In fairness to the Outback, Subaru offers an available 2.5L turbocharged BOXER engine with 260 hp and 277 lb-ft of torque that is closer to what Jeep provides as standard.

Of course, if you’re looking for massive performance, then the plug-in hybrid Grand Cherokee 4xe model features a turbocharged engine with 375 hp and 470 lb-ft of torque, blowing away even the available engine for the Outback while also giving you limited all-electric range. Whether you’re getting to work in Cincinnati each day or looking to do some camping on the weekend, you deserve a vehicle that feels great on (and off) the road.

#2 – Robust Towing Capabilities

Bold power is about more than just how it feels to drive your vehicle each day; it’s also about the kind of capabilities your vehicle provides. This goes beyond the engine and comes down to overall engineering and how a vehicle has been designed. Jeep gives you incredible power and capabilities in the Grand Cherokee with 6,200 lbs of maximum towing capacity.

To put that in perspective, the Subaru Outback, with its standard engine, offers just 2,700 lbs of towing. Even someone who pays more for the available engine to get better performance is still stuck with just 3,500 lbs of max towing from the Outback. You get a superior driving experience from Jeep and more muscle to tackle everything you need to do each day.

#3 – Remarkable Off-Road Potential

We all know that “Jeep” and “off-road” go hand-in-hand, so it’s no surprise that you can get impressive trail performance here, though not everyone thinks of that when it comes to a commuter SUV like the Grand Cherokee. Sure, this beauty can get you around Cincinnati each day, but if you choose the Trailhawk model, then you get remarkable off-road capabilities, including up to 24 inches of water fording, 10.9 inches of ground clearance, and an incredible four-wheel drive system.

Subaru offers an off-road trim for the Outback—the Wilderness—that’s quite impressive, though specs like 9.5 inches of ground clearance and its all-wheel drive system (rather than four-wheel drive) illustrate how it falls behind the Jeep.

Tan interior of a 2025 Jeep Grand Cherokee for sale near Cincinnati

#4 – A Comfortable, Beautifully-Appointed Interior

As you’re looking for an SUV, it’s vital that you choose something you’ll want to drive, which often comes down to getting a cabin you look forward to hopping into each day. The 2025 Grand Cherokee gives you gorgeous features inside, including available 16-way seating with a massage mode, which is so comfortable you’ll feel like you’re melting into your seat.
Available Palermo leather seating is remarkably rich and sophisticated, with heated and ventilated front and second-row seats to keep you and your passengers comfortable in all kinds of weather.

The Nappa leather-trimmed upholstery available inside the Subaru Outback is nice, with available heated and ventilated front seats, but it’s not quite as gorgeously comfortable as what Jeep offers.

#5 – Great Tech Features Inside

Along with all of that comfort, the Jeep Grand Cherokee also has remarkable technology to enhance your drive. The standard 8.4-inch infotainment display is a great place to start, but the available 10.1-inch screen is definitely our preferred choice, paired with a 10.25-inch Digital Cluster Display for you as the driver. You can also get an available 10-inch full-color head-up display that projects information near your line of sight.

The standard seven-inch infotainment screen in the Subaru Outback is smaller than what Jeep provides, though there’s an available 11.6-inch display that greatly improves on that. Unfortunately for Subaru, the Outback has nothing like the available class-exclusive 10.25-inch copilot display for your front passenger in the Grand Cherokee, giving you three screens in the front row. Finally, Jeep offers a remarkable 19-speaker McIntosh sound system that is absolutely stunning compared to the 12-speaker audio setup the Outback offers.

#6 – A Three-Row Option to Go Further

Both the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Subaru Outback are midsize SUVs with two rows of seating inside for up to five passengers. Someone who wants something with more seats from Subaru needs to go with a different model, which means starting over and looking at new features and options.

If you like what the Grand Cherokee offers but want to have more people along with you, then the Grand Cherokee L gives you a third row of seating inside. This gives you space for up to seven people in your SUV, along with best-in-class second-row legroom and available Quad-Zone Automatic Temperature Control to keep your passengers comfortable while driving around Cincinnati each day.

#7 – Terrific Safety Technology to Protect You

We’re always impressed by the ways that Jeep innovates with its technology, which goes beyond numerous interior displays and stunning sound systems. Safety tech is incredible for the Grand Cherokee with a great selection of standard features like a Full-Speed Forward Collision Warning with Active Braking and Pedestrian/Cyclist Detection, Blind Spot Monitoring, Rear Cross Path Detection, and more.

Taking things further, available options include Parallel and Perpendicular Park Assist, which can steer you into parking spots, a Night Vision Camera, which provides enhanced visibility in darkness, and even Hands-Free Active Driving Assist.

Looking at the Outback, Subaru provides many impressive safety features, which we love to see; no matter what people drive, we want to know they’re safe. Standard safety tech includes Automatic Pre-Collision Braking, Lane Departure and Sway Warning, and Automatic Emergency Steering to help drivers avoid a collision.

Unfortunately, systems like Blind-Spot Detection and a Rear Cross-Traffic Alert are available options, not standard like they are for the Grand Cherokee. You also won’t find things like Hands-Free Active Driving Assist here, which means Jeep once again gives you more.

A black 2025 Jeep Grand Cherokee driving down the street at night

The Perfect SUV for Cincinnati Driving

We would never say the Subaru Outback is a bad vehicle; it has plenty of fine features and Subaru fans clearly get a lot of enjoyment out of it. However, looking at its details compared to the Grand Cherokee makes it clear that Jeep has created something remarkable here. This gives you a midsize SUV that you’ll love driving every day, with great standard features inside and out, plus plenty of options that let you take things to another level entirely.

Whether you want an incredible sound system, outrageously comfortable seating, bold off-road capabilities, or even a third row of seats, the Grand Cherokee is ready to deliver. All you have to do now is figure out what you need in your next SUV, and then we’ll help you find it.