I should start this personal review with a confession. I understand the fully capable SUV, perhaps best personified by the Land Rover Discovery, Jeep Grand Cherokee or Toyota Highlander. The idea that there is a car that is a large wagon or estate, can seat seven, , can pull trailers and horseboxes through mud and snow, is comfortable and has a higher driving position is valid, even if many users do not use all the capability. I get the smaller take on it too, such as the Discovery Sport or RAV4 and many others. But I can’t get my head around something that is almost completely a facsimile of a true off-roader and blatantly pretends to be something it isn’t.
I was recently in Glasgow, Scotland’s great industrial powerhouse of days gone by, home of the Clydeside shipbuilders, of locomotive builders and many others, including vehicle building. I spent the weekend on the first in type installation of a Wi-Fi system (or ethernet backbone in the jargon) on a suburban train, and had the pleasure of hire car, a 2016 Jeep Renegade Limited with a 1.6 litre Fiat Multijet 4 cylinder diesel engine and six speed manual gearbox, for the duration.
The Renegade shares a platform with the Fiat 500X, not the regular Fiat 500, but another compact crossover which bears styling cues from the Fiat 500.
The 500X and Renegade trace their lineage back to the 2005 Fiat Punto, based on the GM Fiat small car platform, and which is still available in Europe even now. Power, for Europe at least, comes from a range of 1.4 to 2.0 petrol and diesel engines mounted transversely, with five or six speed gearboxes, or nine speed Chrysler automatic. Suspension uses MacPherson struts and trailing arms at the rear; the wheelbase is 101 in and length 166 in, for a footprint in the midsize market defined by the VW Golf, Ford Focus and Vauxhall/Opel Astra/Buick Verano. The Renegade is not built in North America; for the European market, it is built in Italy
First impressions were favourable – the car certainly gave an impression of strength in its style, with the upright stance, big flared fenders and wheel arch covers, and the obligatory classic Jeep front. Access was easy enough, and the boot decently commodious although short, and there was a high lift to reach it.
Inside, it starts to go astray. The driving position is reasonable enough, and the dash easily understood. But the added details start to seem somewhat unnecessary, and seemingly added only to impress the Jeep heritage (which is substantial I’d agree) on the occupants. A little cartoon of a classic Jeep climbing the inside of the windscreen pillar, the large grab handle in front of the passenger, perhaps the largest car key I have ever used, around the touchscreen “SINCE 1941” is pressed into possibly the cheapest feeling piece of plastic Jeep could find.
The impression of style of substance starts to build, especially as you look at the quality of the interior plastics. As you look further from the driver’s seat and lower down, the plastic quality drops sharply. Jeep heritage based shapes dominate throughout the cabin – in the style of the speakers, maps of deserts on the storage box lid, the redline is a splash of desert mud. It goes on, and doesn’t get less contrived. If, like me, you’re not a great fan of retro styling (MINI, Beetle, Fiat 500, Jaguar S type for example) then this is starting to be a turn off.
Driving is dominated by the vast flat bonnet. This is possibly the highest, flattest bonnet I can remember ever driving behind, aside from an early Range Rover, and gives a strong impression of restricting the view in front. A small child or buggy could easily be immediately in front of car unseen, for example. The wide A pillars do not help. The mirrors are large and square, and of course you’re sitting high, albeit on a rather hard and flat seat with leather that feels like plastic and the ubiquitous folding centre armrest limiting your gear change arm movements. Why do manufacturers fit these?
Some of the exterior details seem contrived too. The X style logo on the rear lights is apparently inspired by the pressings in Jerry cans, but to me seems to be the X in 4X4. It is likely to be lost on many people, or seen inconsistently. Apparently the rear lights are supposed to look as if there are externally mounted, like an early Wrangler or CJ. Personally, I don’t think it works – it just makes the car look even more like a big square box, with bars on the top. The wheels are the expected big and bulky alloys and the tyres impressively chunky. Any and all Jeep or cliché 4X4 styling cues are there.
Some of these probably don’t work as intended. The upright screen, big mirrors, flat front clip and high bonnet leading edge and chunky wheels and tyres do not help the on road refinement. It’s not bad, but you can do a lot better for £25,000. (I admit to being surprised this was a £25,000 car – I’d gueseed at £18-20,000.) Handling is predictably disappointing – small Fiat power steering is often a big vague, especially immediately off centre. Add that to those wheels and high centre of gravity and the steering seems uncommunicative, and the body roll noticeable. The open road was decent enough, given the roll.
Actual straight line performance was fine, with the torque of the diesel pulling the car fairly strongly, albeit with a fairly constant aural accompaniment. The car has a slightly erratic Stop-Start system and fuel economy was around 45mpg (from the trip computer, Imperial) for about 150 miles of mostly restrained driving, including some motorway work, but only one up and with little baggage.
Of course, a lot of this is a by product of a four wheel drive system. You can have such a system on your Renegade, but this example and the majority sold in Europe are just front wheel drive. The extra ground clearance and tyres may help in some gentle off–roading if not towing, but in reality this renders the car as likely to be labelled as a high mounted hatchback, awkwardly styled with contrived details, not very refined, not great handling and not actually that commodious for a mid size car.
The four wheel drive Trailhawk versions are reported to pretty capable off-road, though. But overall the front wheel drive version is style over substance. Land Rover have shown that you can create a strong image in this market whilst developing a contemporary style, and personally I find it disappointing that Jeep felt it necessary to resort to such a pastiche, almost a caricature,
Of course, if want a compact 4X4 and can live with, or even like the appeal of, the style and the details, then this is arguably a valid choice, providing you don’t over do the options, like depreciation and can tolerate the endless “Is it four wheel drive?” and “Do you use it off road?” questions. But if you want the capability and format, then £25,000 will get you a 2016 Audi Q3 with 180 bhp, four wheel drive and just 10,000 miles or even a 2015 Land Rover Evoque 2.2 litre, if you want a more prominent style. Buying new, how about a Ford Focus 2.0 litre diesel estate in Titanium trim or a VW Golf GT estate?
Don’t get me wrong – I have no downer on Jeep generally and no reason to assume the Renegade will let you down or fail to meet the expectations that might reasonably be placed on it, but I strongly suspect the appeal of the over done style and of the lack of interior quality will fade relatively quickly. Like the Chrysler/Plymouth PT Cruiser, it could well be seen as a very individual choice of style over capability, and lose its appeal to the owner relatively quickly. I can’t see many people buying a second one.
I considered the NA market version with 4WD, manual “pop-top”, and a manual transmission – not an easy combination to find, let me tell you! But I stopped by our local Jeep store to check out the basics – not impressed, for what FCA is asking for these. I’m sure there’s plenty of incentives and bargaining room but for the MRSP you’re getting a rather cartoonish little box with some weird Jeep styling stuff ladled on top. Maybe they drive better than they look but when I finally located the right Subaru Forester – 6MT, winter package and sunroof – the Renegade was a very distant second place.
To start with, I like the Fiat 500X a lot better than the Jeep based on looks alone. Like you’re pointing out, there’s something about the Renegade that it’s trying too hard. “Look at me, I’m a big, mean off-roader.”
And after my brother-in-law and sister’s experience with their ’14 Cherokee (bought at my suggestion) and that nine speed automatic, there’s no way I’ll touch one of these. The last time Don had a car this bad was his ’70 Austin (aka, Morris) Marina. You can’t get a non-Wrangler Jeep with 4×4 and a manual transmission.
Both Patriot and Renegade are available with 4×4+manual.
And the new-style Compass as well. For a non-truck, AWD with a MT vehicle your choices in the US are rather limited – Jeep,MINI, Subaru, and VW. I was just too wary of buying something from FCA, the VWs and MINIs are just too pricey to buy and/or maintain. Though the VW Sportwagon with 4Motion was pretty tempting – but I really like sunroofs and the Alltrack SE was just more than I wanted to pay. My Forester isn’t particularly stylish – more like the box your car comes in – but it’s really growing on me. Reminds me in a weird way of my 69 VW Bug – honest, mechanical, simple but well thought out.
I think you’ve nailed it, Roger – but then it seems to me that “style over substance” is what sells most Jeeps in the US these days, especially the smaller ones. It continues to amaze me the way Jeep keeps selling cars, but sell they do. I think the essence of this thing is “American” and thus may not translate all that well to the UK or Europe, other than for that very small subset of people who want to “do American”.
My sister just bought a Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon with a stick. That is a Jeep, though it still seems awfully civilized to me. But these strike me as the aroma of a Jeep infused into a not all that satisfactory car.
I still say the shape of these things is very evocative of the International Scout, right down to the Hoffmeister Kink near the rear pillar. The styling is a little aggressive, but I don’t think its bad.
I’d say the Grand Cherokee is the other “real Jeep” inasmuch it’s the modern version of the Grand Wagoneer and still has off-road chops.
These Renegades are thin on the ground where I live, and I have seen exactly TWO 500x so far, one of which was a white rental car in FL last week, and white paint/base trim doesn’t help the curb appeal in any way.
The diesel sounds interesting, if nothing else.
I snickered at these, but when I checked one out at a dealer I was surprised to find I actually liked it. It was roomier than I thought it would be and I found the fit and finish to be pretty nice. Yeah it’s perhaps a bit of a caricature, but that beats boring anonymity any day of the week for me.
I actually really like the styling of these for some reason, and I’m not an SUV/crossover guy.
The other thing is that you can get these in actual colors! Friend has a gray-teal one and the color is stunning in person. The International orange is nice too.
A customer of mine trade in one of these they were only 11 months into their lease on. Got it after the lease on their Countryman was up because they were going for something more affordable but hated the Renegade and came back to MINI, buying one of the final Paceman All4 we had from me.
I share your opinion of the Renegade’s windshield. It greatly restricts view. I can’t speak for the off-road capabilities of the Renegade or the 500X, but subcompact CUVs such as the MINI Countryman truly offer excellent off-road ability.
Roger, I enjoyed your write-up… and was left with a sense of true disappointment that your experience with the Renegade wasn’t a better one. With every new product that FCA has rolled out since the acquisition / merger / whatever, I’ve been hoping to read of some truly class-leading new products. I wanted to like the Renegade. Yes, its styling is gimmicky, but at least it’s interesting – but its more damning qualities that you outlined (quality of materials, visibility, limited interior space) all seem to run more than skin deep.
With that said, I’d still want to rent one just for my own experience. I get that I tend to be an “up with people” (and cars) kind of person, but I’d like to believe the Renegade isn’t quite as wretched as it sounded from reading this. 🙂
If you want an SUV, front wheel drive only and you can live the tiresome and contrived style and details, it’ll no doubt give decent if unspectacular service. The idea of such a strongly styled, branded and image loaded car but with only 2 wheel drive is slightly baffling.
To me and I suspect many others, it’s the automotive equivalent of a comb over. The owner is convinced; the rest try not to notice, comment or laugh.
But don’t let me put you off.
I’m now laughing because I’ll probably be thinking “combover” the next time I see one.
I would have said the same of the original CRV and RAV4. I don’t think this is any less capable or practical than those were. If nothing else, this is fairly true to the original “cute ute” form.
It’s vehicles like this that help we refer to my wagon by saying “it’s a Willys, not a Jeep”.
I read your review with interest because a month ago I rented a Honda CR-V while my own car was in for service, and it occurred to me that it was the first CUV I’d ever driven.
My feelings were mixed. It was pleasant enough to drive, but the little details were needlessly annoying — such as the fussiest, smallest and most confusing set of controls I’ve ever encountered. I see now why people love CUV’s, but it fell short of the mark for me.
If I have time, I’ll write up my driving impressions of the CR-V, though I get much more enjoyment writing up older cars. Even dull ones.
Incidentally, I also find the Renegade’s “X” logo rear lights to be off-putting. I’m not sure what the Jeep folks were trying to achieve with that design, but I think they failed to achieve it. It just looks silly to me, and rather un-Jeep-like.
To me it looks like it’s trying to recreate the jerry-can look.
As Roger wrote, count me among the masses to whom that reference was lost. To me, it simply seemed that Jeep wanted to give the Renegade an Xtreme image. But now seeing the jerry-cans in light of the greater retro-themed package, I can see this being the inspiration.
Either way, I’m still not a fan.
Wow, I totally missed that part of the article. I blame reading at work while debugging a particularly hairy issue.
I don’t think of Jerry cans when I see one of these Jeeps from behind. The X in the tail lights reminds me of The Christmas Story, after Ralphie shoots the bad guys their eyes close and mysteriously an X appears over their eyes to let us know that they are dead. Despite all of the symbolism that the Jeep stylists worked overtime on, when I’m behind these Jeeps I only think of Ralphie’s victims.
Haha! I know what you mean, though I don’t know the particular story you refer to. Mine was the X in the eyes of the stuffed animals in Thidwick The Big-Hearted Moose by Dr Suess. Creeped me out as a 5 y.o., and no different reaction to those lights now. Quit starin’ at me, deadeye!
I’ve had the same reaction since seeing dead ‘X’ eyes in the comics that I used to read as a child – I think they used to use them in MAD magazine as well.
X does NOT mark the spot for me, either.
The X reminds me of old race cars with the taped over headlights to prevent shattering, only on the taillights. I never ever would have made the jerry can connection until it was pointed out.
Interesting comparison to the ’66 Mustang here. The Stang had the model unique “running horse” emblem plastered all over it, the fake sports car steering wheel holes, slightly kitschy tail lights of its own, not a particularly good driving experience (though nothing horrible except the drum front brakes, which could be optioned away), and you sat down low in a high silled car. The trunk did not hold a lot, for its size, because of the full size spare tire was plonked down in the middle of it.
So, like the Renegade, the overall package was attractive enough, but the devil was in the details. Yet the Mustang succeeded like nobody’s business, and the Renegade is not a particularly big seller. Why? Two things, IMO. First, the buying public was hungry for a nicely styled car of a particular size and package, and there was little out there like it. The Barracuda, perhaps. Second, there was a status thing about having a Mustang. This was early in the baby boomer adulthood cycle, and having the latest, greatest thing, built exactly for your demographic, was a no-brainer of a purchase. Especially as you could configure it to any particular look, sporty, elegant (sorta), cute. The Renegade has neither of these things going for it, so a nice car with nothing really negative about it, goes begging on dealer lots, while the old one sold as fast as they could build them.
So I would argue that the Renegade is not filling many people’s needs and wants, and the Mustang did. What are people’s real automotive needs and wants today? Are they already met by a bunch of good cars already?
Sitting down low in a high silled car is relative. If you sat in the average modern rental car, Chrysler 300C for example vs. the original mustang (which was rental grade at the time), you would have a much less restricted view.
This begs the question, what is behind the current high sill, thick pillared gun slut window trend. My guess would be structural passive safety?
I prefer more glass for good old active safety.
My personal anecdote:
I test drove a ’90 BMW 525i (e34) while my current daily was a ’90 accord. I remember thinking that the dash and sills on the e34 were high in comparison to the accord, and the visibility on the BMW was relatively restricted. Having just gotten rid of the ’94 525i that I daily drive for 9 years and spending lots of time in rental cars, a 300C for example, the BMW now seems like the glass area is HUGE (UGE?).
Will the big greenhouse ever come back? That’s my favorite style and from my personal COAL, I had an ’88 Prelude, ’90 accord, ’94 LS400, and now have a ’88 560 SEL among others. All of these cars have GREAT greenhouses.
No, it won’t for multiple reasons:
1) Pedestrian front-impact regulations – this will forever mandate a high front-end, so those low, sloping Honda/Acura hoods of the 1980s-early 90s where you can see the road three feet in front of the bumper are gone forever.
2) Rollover protection means thicker pillars.
3) They have to put all of those side-curtain airbags somewhere!
Some of my favorite cars of all time were built in the golden era of Japanese cars in the 1990s. The visibility out of those cars was unparalleled.
For visibility, nothing matched the 59 & 60 GM flatops, 60 & 61 Ford Starliners or 66-67 Chrysler 6 windows. Wish the someone could find a way to.make the concept compatible with modern safety standards
In short, A faux Jeep.
Kind of like calling the Kia Soul a CUV. To me, it’s a cute little car with no trunk. Maybe I’m behind the times, but I believe a “utility” vehicle should be able to drag at least a small camper or boat down the highway.
Those come across to me as a toy one would hang on the keyring of a real Jeep. A bare bones rubber floor mat vinyl seat diesel 4×4 with the manual would be interesting but please do away with the horrid taillights. NA has just two engine options with a manual available only behind the small one. The 9 speed auto has been garbage with multiple recalls for poor driveability. FCA really failed on these. No surprise.
Sorry but I stumbled on this line and never recovered — the highlander is a fully capable SUV?? Have you ever seen a highlander in any “off road” situation? Cause it ain’t pretty, but it is hilarious!
He’s possibly never seen one in any situation – they don’t sell Highlanders in the UK.
Quite possibly not, but it got a good review on CC and fits the definition of a big wagon/7 seater pretty well.
I’d also say that the Highlander is not an SUV in any true sense of the term, though a quite capable crossover. But back to the Renegade, it’s good to read a British and CC-er perspective. I was intrigued by the Renegade at first, but it does end up feeling less serious than its spec-sheet (in Trailhawk form) suggests, and it doesn’t seem particularly popular in the US. However, I’m always surprised at the popularity of Jeeps in other countries, based on my limited recent travels as well as watching European (especially British) TV shows. And in fact, my first Renegade spotting two years ago was in Turkey.
By the way, the fact that one can rent (aka hire) an American-branded vehicle with a 4 cylinder Diesel engine and 6 speed manual transmission in the U.K. is absolutely mind-blowing to us American readers (at least this one).
When I worked for Avis in the UK, they had more boring Vauxhalls than anything else, but there were quite a few oddballs on the fleet too.
As for manual transmission, the vast majority of rental cars here are manual, and you have to pay extra for an auto – many Brits would refuse to drive an auto, not through snobbery but because many have never even seen anyone drive an auto and wouldn’t know what to do with it. We got a few automatic vehicles at work recently and some people responded with mild panic!
Interestingly, I had a booked a “Vauxhall Aatra or similar” and the agent tried to upsell me into Nissan X-Trail. An automatic anything would be a premium, and likley to be a Mondeo/Passat or larger
My understanding is that the daily rental market is a way to get cars on the road and then the manufacturer takes them as CPO or similar.
I’ve had 2 Ford Focuses that were 8 moths or so old, 12000 miles and previously registered to Hertz for example, for significant savings over the new price.
Yeah my father in law just rented an X Trail at Glasgow Airport. Was listed as Mercedes wagon or similar. (he didn’t mention which Mercedes)
There seem to be loads of badly driven, brand new X Trails careering around the highlands right now too.
I’ve rented cars in the U.K. a few times and was always offered an automatic, probably because I’m American. I took one once, as it was an opportunity to get a Mercedes A class. The other automatic choice that day was a Corolla.
I think you point something at D and press the go pedal.
This is a $16,000 car with nine grand worth of options plus what seems to be the usual American-car-in-the-UK pricing where they replace the $ with an £ in front of the same number.
I rather like the basic looks of the Renegade, but am also put off by the detailing…you didn’t mention the Bigfoot on the back window or the spider by the fuel filler. Most SUVs in the US are used as boulevard cruisers. Look at the adverts and, the vast majority of the time, you will see a woman driving one on clean, dry, city streets, though there are a couple that coo about safety and security when those paved city streets are damp from a little rain. The Jeep ads do tend to show the cars running off pavement…gotta maintain that “rough, tough” image, but I’ll wager that is not what the majority of buyers ever do with them, intentionally.
I read some of the owner reviews of the Renegade and 500X on Edmunds and a rather frightening picture developed. The only engine option with the 6 speed manual is the Fiat 1.4T. The clutch doesn’t seem to be able to take the torque of that engine combined with the car’s weight as I saw several complaints of smoked clutches in only 20-30K miles. Seems it starts with a chatter when going uphill in reverse, then the chatter starts showing up in forward gears. The cars are well within warranty, but the dealers generally refuse to replace the clutch under warranty and there are reports of quotes of $4-5,000 to replace the clutch.
Most are delivered with the 2.4/9 speed auto. Many complaints about the engine not starting, or stalling, and the slow response of the transmission. One woman bought a new Renegade and it took three tries to get the 20 odd miles from the dealer to her home without the car breaking down.
However, the Renegade sells in respectable numbers here. I wanted to check one out at the Detroit show last January, but did not feel like fighting the crowd around it.
Headed over to the Fiat section to check out the 500X and was foiled again. The guy that was already in the 500X had adjusted the seat for a comfortable reach to the wheel and pedals, but then couldn’t get out. With the seat adjusted, he could not pull his foot rearward far enough to get it past the humongous bin in the lower part of the door, and this was with the door wide open. It would be even worse if the 500X was parked in a narrow garage, like mine, that did not allow the door to be opened very far.
Like some other models FCA has introduced lately, it seems they never invest the time and effort to really sort anything out.
If you have an opportunity to drive a Fiat Tipo, I would like to see your comments. Everything I see on the Tipo seems typical of the US market FCA products. One Tipo test summed up words to the effect “the Tipo has everything it needs to be a nice car, but due to either incompetence or indifference, nothing was refined enough to live up to it’s potential”. But the Tipo is really cheap, and Fiat seems to be selling a lot of them in Europe.
The Tipo is indeed the kind of product Fiat needs to offer. It’s image has now deteriorated so much (yes, even here in Europe) so that it competes with Dacias and Seats, not Mazdas, Renaults or even Skodas. When you get to that point the only way up is to be competitive price wise. It really ought to learn from Hyundai’s experience in the US (or Renault’s, with its Dacia subsidiary here in the EU), button down and start the long climb up (including sorting out any reliability issues). With the Tipo it seems there is some understanding of this, but it has to apply across the board (see my comment below).
Fiat…competes with Dacias and Seats, not Mazdas, Renaults or even Skodas.
From the reports I have seen, while a Seat Leon or Skoda Rapid has a plain interior of cheap materials and the driving experience is not as engaging as a VW, they are at least competent, compared to the howls I see about the Tipo’s particularly poor performance.
The Tipo does not do well in European safety ratings either. While the European system gives credit for active safety features, optional on the Tipo, boosting it to a 4 star rating, the basic smack the thing into a barrier testing yields a relatively poor 3 star rating.
I have read that some of the Tipo’s engineering was done by TOFAS, rather than Fiat, I would suspect because Turkish engineers are cheaper than Italian, so the Tipo not only suffers from lack of development, it suffers from engineers that do not have the depth of experience their counterparts in Turin have.
All that being said, the Tipo appears to be selling well. iirc the different models were introduced in stages, so that the full line has only been available for a few months. For all of 16, the Tipo ranked 12 in it’s class, but in March of 17, if I remember my figures correctly, the Tipo had risen to 9th, launching it to double the Rapid’s sales as well as far head of comparable models from Kia, Hyundai and even nudging ahead of the Toyota Auris.
So the question is will Fiat run out of people who only care about price and be faced with attracting people who demand some degree of competence from their cars?
Meanwhile, the Panda and 500 own their segment, each selling at double the volume of the #3 VW Up!. Supposedly, the next gen 500 will debut in Q2 next year. Let’s see if it has the relatively engaging character of the current version, or if it will also be cheapened and be downgraded to a second rate driving experience.
An Aussie colleague calls these type of vehicles Tourak tractors. Evidently a very posh Melbourne suburb where off-road means going off the edge of a driveway onto the gardeners well manicured lawn.
Completely in line with manufacturars like BMW, Mercedes Benz, Audi, Rover and so on.
No man will take his $ 150000 Range Rover Vogue up the muddy hill, they’d rather park it outside Harrods just to be seen there.
I once left the road in a traffic jam down the dyke into the meadow and escape in my old mkI Range. The X5 man and Touareg did n’t. Simply because they could n’t.
These cars are mainly bought to bring the kids to school and to show off in a shopping mall.
That said, I do like this Jeep, it is not too big and I like its shape.
If I need something which is capable for off roading I’ll buy something which is 20 years old at least.
I actually find the styling refreshing when compared with many of the blob-like SUVs in this class. When these were first released here in Austria I too was hoping it would give FCA the break it desperately needs. I even went to the local dealer to have a look, although I’m not generally an SUV fan. But then I saw the list price. And that was it. € 20,000 for a bare bones, 2WD 110 hp example is w-a-y too much, particularly when an only slightly smaller Dacia Duster – see pic below – starts at € 11,000 (for € 20,000 you’d get a fully loaded 4X4 Duster). Again FCA hubris reared its ugly head to ruin any success chances. FCA simply refuses to accept that these days – with the exception of one or two specialist products – it’s seen by most here in the EU as a second or third tier manufacturer. You cannot ask for Mazda prices when your competitor is Dacia. The result is that Renegades are a very rare sight on the roads here, and I do not see this changing.
FCA’s days are numbered. That is all.
I got a Fiat 500X as a rental some time back and I recognise a lot of your sentiment. Like the Renegade, it’s not bad, but it’s not good either. Its silly styling, cheap feel, poor space utilisation, and high price do not make it very attractive, although I quite liked the seating position, the handling was ok if nothing special, and it was more than adequate on the Autobahn.
Unlike the 500X, quite many Renegades on the road here seem to be privately owned. The different styling must tick some boxes.
Someone once mentioned that a lot of young women were driving Wranglers. I’m guessing that wasn’t lost on FCA’s marketing department. The Renegade, to me, seemed aimed squarely at the free-spirit lifestyle demographic that is so critical to Jeep but, unlike the Wrangler, focused on being ‘cute’, as well, to appeal more to young single women.
25 grand? For a Fiat pretending to be a Jeep? They’re having a laugh. The Golf GT is massively better and you won’t get laughed at.
I wonder what Avis pay for these?