Cars

A family car with an authentic spirit of adventure

Jeep has taken the essence of its big tough off-roaders, distilled it into a compact package and called it the Renegade. William Scholes finds out if it gets stuck in a rut or climbs to the top of the class

Jeep Renegade
Jeep Renegade Jeep Renegade

YOU can't accuse Jeep of being coy about its past.

Like the Antiques Roadshow, the National Trust and golf club hairstyles, the company is heavy on heritage.

And well it should be. The original rough, tough Willys Jeep was not only the four-wheel-drive utility vehicle that helped the United States military win the Second World War - or something like that - but also the grandfather of every SUV, off-roader and cross-country wagon that has followed over the last 70 years.

The truth is a little more complex than that, of course, but when it comes to 4x4 authenticity, no-one - not even Land Rover - comes close to Jeep.

Over the years, the company has passed through the hands of a various owners. The tale of how today, this most American of brands came to be owned by Fiat, that most Italian of marques, is a story in itself, but suffice it to say for now it is the happenstance that has made the car on these pages a possibility.

Called the Renegade, it clears the first hurdle that any real Jeep has to overcome by having a proper, strong name. The company already famous for its Cherokee and Wrangler couldn't get away with anything less butch, manly and outdoorsy.

Second, it looks like a Jeep, or at least what Irish people think a Jeep ought to look like. Fiat has form here with its retro-homage 500, and similarly the Renegade draws liberally from a rich back catalogue: round headlamps, a grille stuffed with seven bold vertical slots, a bluff profile and upright windscreen mean it could be nothing other than a Jeep.

If the Renegade hits you between the eyes with its Jeepness from the outside, it slaps you around the face and thumps you with it when you climb aboard.

In fact, you can distract yourself or small children for ages by searching for what must be dozens of clever little Jeep references splashed around the car, from the 'Since 1941' stamped into the dashboard moulding - a reference to the birth date of the Willys Jeep - to the map of the Moab desert in Utah, a favourite of hard-core US off-roaders in the centre console's rubber lining.

The silhouette of an original Jeep appears in the corner of the windscreen, the cup holders have an X-motif, mimicking the shape of a jerry can in a pattern repeated in the headlamps, taillamps and elsewhere, and a grille-and-headlamps badge appears inside the tailgate. For good measure, though for not entirely obvious reasons, a spider with a speech bubble declaring 'Ciao, baby' lurks under the fuel filler flap.

Whether all this is too much for you will, like the khaki green 'commando' paintwork of the test car, be a matter of personal taste. Either way, I think Jeep deserves credit for an imaginative effort and for giving a family car an adventurous attitude.

Size-wise, the Renegade is what is called these days a 'compact crossover'. Or is that 'compact SUV'?

Whatever the marketeers call it, it means the Renegade is pitched up against contenders like the Skoda Yeti and Mini Countryman. That being said, the Renegade's mix of engines, transmissions and trims is so broad, that you could also throw into the mix Citroen's distinctive C4 Cactus, the ugly-stick Nissan Juke, Renault's excellent Captur, Dacia's bargain Duster, the new Suzuki Vitara and even the Audi Q3.

Up against such a wide range of talented cars, Jeep has wisely tried to position the Renegade as offering something the others don't: genuine off-road ability.

That may be a little unfair on the four-wheel-drive versions of the Yeti and Vitara, but you can see where Jeep is coming from. Unless and until Land Rover build something this small, the Renegade has the niche-within-a-niche 'proper' 4x4 compact crossover rock field to itself.

That being said, I imagine most Renegades will be bought in front-wheel-drive form, but to show just how serious Jeep is about its off-road heritage, you can order a four-wheel-drive 'Trailhawk' model with a low-ratio gearbox, skid plates and bumpers and suspension designed to tackle mud and rocks.

The test car was a regular four-wheel-drive model. That means it lacked the beefed-up Trailhawk kit but did come with a selector to flick between snow, sand and mud modes.

I have to confess that I didn't have the opportunity to test any of these properly but by all accounts the Renegade acquits itself expertly in off-road conditions.

In any case, given that the vast majority of Renegades will spend almost all of their time on tarmac, on-road manners are of far more relevance to Northern Ireland drivers, even when our main roads often do their best to rival the Yukon trail for texture.

Equipped with a 2.0-litre 138bhp diesel engine - less powerful petrol and diesels are available - the Renegade moves along well enough and while it grips tenaciously enough, vague best describes the rest of the driving experience: the steering lacks precision, the gear change is woolly, the pedals have mismatched weights, with the clutch in particular lacking feel.

Presumably this can be explained as a trade-off demanded by the Renegade's focus on off-road duties, though only in part - Land Rover, for example, can imbue the controls of their 'proper' 4x4s with real feel.

Other black marks include wind noise from the big door mirrors and a driver's seat in which I could never get properly comfortable.

And then there was the bonkers electrics. I presume this isn't a standard feature - this particular Renegade may have been particularly unfortunate - but nonetheless I share it with you in the interests of full disclosure.

Maladies included a button handbrake that sometimes refused to release and a temperamental boot lock that meant retrieving luggage more often than not had to be done via the back seat.

More alarming, so to speak, was the alarm which sounded for no apparent reason, including when the car was being driven. Nothing tests either your own patience or that of your neighbours than an alarm which WILL NOT TURN OFF. This also happened in stop-start traffic on the Westlink one morning; thankfully, turning the car off and back on sorted it.

Worst of all, however, were the temperamental lights. The sequence usually went something like this: the dashboard would first light up like a Christmas tree, then the speedometer and rev counter went haywire and the little digital display between them would cycle through a long list of dire warnings. Indicators, headlamps and brake lights stopped working through these episodes, a state of affairs which led me to abandon the Renegade.

On the plus side, there is ample room for children in the back seat and the boot is a usefully slab-sided affair. Children also loved the large glass roof, although this is a hefty £1,100 option...

Where does all this leave the Renegade? If you need a little crossover with real 4x4 ability, then it should definitely be towards the top of your shopping list. It positively radiates off-road toughness and competence.

It's a shame, then, that it is bested on-road by other key rivals. There's much that is good, but there is also ample room for improvement. Buyers won over by the Renegade's heritage-rich styling won't care either way, though.

But there is much more to the Jeep than design flair - there's charm and character aplenty here, and for that the Renegade deserves a second look from anyone with a spirit of adventure in the market for a junior crossover.