Instrumented Test
From the March 2015 issue
This little Jeep Toontown trucklet is a veritable bouillon cube of cuteness.
From the Jeep Renegade’s big, innocent peepers (bearing a little Jeep grille and headlights logo) to its saccharine-sweet taillights molded with an “X” in the middle to look like the side of a jerrycan, the Renegade is 166.6 inches of concentrated adorableness. Naturally, the taillights also have little Jeep grille-and-headlights logos embedded within them. Open the rear doors and you’ll see NO STEP! molded into the flared, black-plastic rocker panel. For chrissakes, the speaker grilles in all four of its doors have little seven-slot Jeep grilles and headlights molded into them. That’s right, the Renegade’s grilles have grilles.
We eventually stopped trying to find all of these whimsical Easter eggs that have turned this latest Jeep into a vehicular version of a page from an old Highlights for Children magazine. Just as our photographer put away his gear we would find another little cartoonish detail. We gave up at 3 a.m.
By then, only the chatty security guard (on an almost-as-adorable three-wheeled scooter) remained at the mall. Well, he and Scott, the long-suffering manager of the Rainforest Cafe who had offered up the vine-covered, gift-shop–equipped, themed eatery as our photo location. What better place to drive this cartoon Jeep from Melfi, Italy, than in an animatronic version of the rain forest in an outlet mall in Auburn Hills, Michigan? Exactly.
Crabby people will think that the overwhelming number of Easter eggs hidden in the Renegade is silly. Most buyers won't.
But if it seems we’re being too dismissive of the Renegade because of its silliness, we don’t really mean to be. We are not unmoved by silliness and whimsy. We understand what this playful little ute replaces. We remember the sadness box that was the Jeep Patriot. We remember also the Compass, which looked very much like the wad of stuff longtime smokers cough up during their morning showers. Those two things are still on sale, if you can believe it. And though Jeep has never officially said that the Renegade will replace them, it will. So we’re happy to be happy.
And surely Jeep is overjoyed to have something that actually looks kind of cool in the low end of the SUV/crossover market—a market that will soon be thick with entries from Chevy, Fiat, Honda, Kia, Mazda, and, possibly, all other carmakers. And hey, this li’l Jeep isn’t saddled with the dreadful CVT automatic that its forebears were. So buck up, kids! Have another Jurassic Chicken Tidbit™ (dinosaur-shaped chicken strip) and marvel at the motorized crocodile jawing away in his tap-water bath.
This Jeeplet has a version of the nine-speed automatic that sees duty in the Chrysler 200 and Jeep Cherokee. Well, you can also get a six-speed manual transmission, but not in high-end Limited versions such as our test Renegade. The lower-level Sport and Latitude models come standard with the stick. They also are fitted with the 160-hp turbo 1.4-liter inline-four from the Fiat 500 Abarth. Our test car came with the “Tigershark” 180-hp 2.4-liter inline-four (also found in the Renegade Trailhawk), which is as much like a tiger shark as Jurassic Chicken Tidbits™ are like dinosaurs.
Unlike actual tiger sharks, the Jeep’s 2.4-liter engine loves to give foot massages. Every time you press your right foot deeply into the accelerator the engine sends waves of soothing vibrations through the pedal. At idle, the 2.4-liter gives your hands the vibro-treatment through the steering wheel. Thoughtful. Its soundtrack, however, is somewhat less soothing than the whale songs performed by Enya that invariably accompany spa massages. This is not what you would call a smooth engine. As in its earlier application in the Cherokee, the nine-speed is a decent piece of work with an absolute aversion to ninth gear. It is clearly tuned for fuel efficiency, as it swaps cogs madly in an attempt to get to the highest possible gear as soon as possible. This allows the Tigershark to take a nap—one from which it’s reluctant to wake. The big four feels as if it’s lugging until it drops a gear or two. On the upside, with 175 pound-feet of torque peaking at 3900 rpm, the engine has decent grunt. And it needs it because, at 3454 pounds, our loaded four-wheel-drive Renegade is not light. It is heavier by 84 pounds than the last four-wheel-drive Buick Encore we tested, and it’s hundreds of pounds heavier than a Kia Soul or four-wheel-drive Nissan Juke. Consequently, the Renegade is not quick. It needs 8.8 seconds to arrive at 60 mph and gets through the quarter-mile in 16.8 seconds at 81 mph. That’s about a half-second slower than a Soul and about 1.5 seconds slower than a Juke. It is, however, quicker than a four-wheel-drive Encore, which at 10.0 seconds to 60 mph is officially slow.
