What's Next For Jeep's Wagoneer And Its Premium Ambitions?
The Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer are the largest and some of the most expensive vehicles Jeep has ever produced. These big and luxurious vehicles came with equally big and luxurious promises in both the sales and customer service departments — but the sub-brand experiment looks like it’s over. Jeep is bringing the Wagoneer name back into the fold.
Mitchell Slaggert’s Rainbow-Colored Jeep Wrangler
Via a post on X, MotorWeek reports that Jeep CEO Antonio Filosa says that once the Wagoneer S EV launches later this year, Wagoneer will no longer be a Jeep sub-brand and will be folded back into the Jeep brand. This means that going forward, all Wagoneer models will wear Jeep badges.
So, what does this all mean for the work Jeep has done to make Wagoneer into a premium brand? It’s confusing, as these things usually are.
When Jeep debuted the Wagoneer models, it promised that the big price tags would be justified by a special customer experience. It was a big selling feature, as the company was targeting people who had never considered a Jeep before; after all, the Wagoneer line was meant to be cross-shopped with Cadillac Escalades, Mercedes GLSs, and Range Rovers. Knowing this, Jeep seemed to say that their dealer would be committed to providing an upscale buying experience.
Dealers that sold Wagoneers were “Wagoneer certified” dealerships. These dealers apparently had a dedicated sales staff that would accompany the buyer every step of the way. We’re talking white button-up shirt-wearing, tablet-holding people that Jeep calls “Wagoneer Ambassadors.”
These ambassadors had to be certified in Wagoneer sales training before they could even try to sell one of the SUVs, and they were so integral to the sales process that former Jeep CEO Christian Meunier said it would “be almost impossible for a salesperson to sell that car without that training, and without the Wagoneer Ambassador certification.”
Along with this certification at both the dealer and salesperson level came a more literal set of promises. Jeep rolled out 10 that Wagoneer-certified dealers would follow, including things like providing complimentary WiFi and snacks along with the buying experience:
Screenshot: Jeep
Another key component of the buying experience is Wagoneer Client Services. These are concierges who handle certain concerns that Wagoneer owners may have. Need to schedule an oil change for your Wagoneer? Get in touch with Client Services, and they’ll schedule it for you with the dealership. Dealers were also supposed to have dedicated sales and vehicle presentation areas specifically for the Wagoneer.
2024 Jeep Grand Wagoneer L Image: Jeep
So, are all these premium features going to stay with the Wagoneer once it wears a Jeep badge? It looks like that’ll be the case. Jeep’s Senior Vice President Bill Peffer told Jalopnik that the move to rebrand Wagoneer as Jeep came from feedback from both customers and dealers.
“We’ve listened and look forward to making Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer vehicles more accessible and inclusive across Jeep Dealers while maintaining a premium experience customers anticipate, delivered by our certified Jeep Wagoneer Ambassadors,” Peffer said.
So even though Wagoneer models will wear the Jeep badge, Jeep still expects dealers to continue to invest and maintain the premium experience for Wagoneer customers — just without the prestige and exclusivity of it being its own sub-brand.
But will dealers listen? Because it doesn’t seem as if the dealers were ever actively participating in this premium exercise in the first place.
Jeep informed me that customers can use the “find dealer” tool on Jeep’s site, which includes a Wagoneer Certified filter that you can select to filter out the more standard Jeep dealerships. Using this tool, I was able to find nine dealerships across Southern California that are listed as Wagoneer Certified.
But this really meant nothing once I got in contact with four of those dealers. I asked the first dealer if it was Wagoneer Certified; the dealership simply responded with information about the Wagoneer lineup itself. The second dealer more or less did the same thing.
The third dealer was the most irritating. Upon asking whether or not they were Wagoneer Certified, the salesperson’s answer was “I’m not sure what you mean.” After rephrasing the question, he then said, “I’m not familiar with that program.”
The fourth dealer showed promise… at first. The salesman seemed to be super excited to get me the information I was asking for.
“Oh, yeah, sure! Give me a few minutes, and I’ll get that information over to you,” he replied when I asked him whether the dealer was certified or not. An hour later I got the answer he was referring to: A walk-around video of one of the seven Wagoneers the dealership had on its lot. It’s safe to say that many of the supposedly “Wagoneer Certified” dealers are unfamiliar with the Wagoneer perks.
While Jeep would like to maintain this premium-ness with the Wagoneer even though the models will now wear a Jeep badge, maybe it’s for the best that it’s not a sub-brand anymore. Throw in the usual disconnect between what automakers want and what dealers actually deliver, and you’ve got something that’s not really worthy of a premium brand or buying experience. Jeep deciding to go the sub-brand route with Wagoneer this late in the game might not have ever really been a good idea.
