A small SUV with a big heart, the Jeep Renegade upholds the family name. Yes, it’s built in Italy and shares many components with its kissing cousin the Fiat 500X, but Jeep managed to bake enough of its well-tested off-road engineering into the mix to put Renegade at the head of its class in capability.
The top-end Trailhawk grade’s segment-exclusive 4-wheel-drive system has 4-Lo gearing for serious rock crawling. All 4WD versions have selectable drive modes—Auto, Snow, Sand, and Mud—to maximize capability in various terrains. Additionally the Trailhawk has a fifth mode: Rock. Renegade is no Jeep pretender.
Think of the Renegade as that sassy, care-free youngin with a tattoo or two and a nose piercing that shows up a little late to Thanksgiving dinner with a bottle of cinnamon tequila for holiday shots. Rowdy, fun, and ready to party, Renegade is just a tad irreverent. It looks every bit as at home in its Omaha Orange, Solar Yellow or Commando (Army-tank green) skin as it does in more traditional white, sand, and red.
Pricing begins at a respectable $17,995 for the entry-level Sport grade and accelerates to $25,995 for the top-of-the-line Trailhawk. My test Renegade was the $21,295 Latitude version. Adding 4WD tacked $2,000 to the bottom line. Another $1,340 in option packages brought the total retail of my Renegade to $23,295 before adding the $995 factory delivery charge.
My test Jeep came with the base 1.4 L turbocharged 4 L engine. It puts out 160 hp and 184 lb-ft of torque. This is the engine that powers the Sport and Latitude models. A 6-speed manual transmission hustles engine output to the wheels. A $1,400 option on those two grades, but standard on the Limited and Trailhawk trims is a 2.4 L 4-cylinder married to a 9-speed automatic transmission. It generates 180 hp and 177 lb-ft of torque.
