The 2015 Jeep Renegade isn’t the budget-friendly baby model we thought it would be. Indeed, this small Jeep is not cheap.
With pricing starting at $29,500 plus on-road costs, the Renegade easily eclipses the base model asking prices of many of its key rivals in the booming small SUV segment. And that base manual won’t arrive until later this year.
MORE: Full pricing and specifications of the 2015 Jeep Renegade.
The model range is, in a seemingly very un-Jeep way, mostly front-wheel drive. In fact, only the flagship Renegade Trailhawk is off-road capable with its 4×4 drivetrain, but we’ll get to that later…
We started our Renegade drive in the three front-drive automatic models: the Sport, Longitude and Limited.
These three auto models come powered by a Fiat-sourced 1.4-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine producing 103kW of power and 240Nm of torque, with shifts taken care of by a six-speed dual-clutch transmission (DCT).
Now, we’ve experienced small-capacity turbo engines paired to DCTs in the past from Alfa Romeo, but there’s never been a Jeep with such a drivetrain. On the whole, though, it is quite a good little mover.
The engine is quiet and refined, it revs smoothly and has enough gusto for most buyers’ needs, and the DCT generally manages to swap between gears in an unobtrusive manner, particularly on the open road.
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