Jeep Renegade

On the inside too, the cabin of the Jeep Renegade feels as funky as it is on the outside, and one can clearly feel the Fiat-esque design theme on the dashboard.

Playing cleverly with colours, the side AC vents on the dashboard, transmission tunnel and door-mounted speakers come with contrasting colour matching the exterior paint scheme, adding some flavour to the all-black cabin. The three-spoke multi-functional steering wheel has been lifted off from the Compass, which goes well with the TFT-enabled instrument console behind it.

The centre console of the dashboard looks chunky and wide, thanks to the protruding touchscreen infotainment system and separately placed AC vents positioned above it. The control housing packing in the buttons of climate control and audio controls placed below the touchscreen looks decent as well.

Despite its compact size, the Jeep Compass a cleverly designed cabin that is decently spacious for five people at maximum. And the presence of features like powered and heated front seats, Apple Carplay and Android Auto, dual-zone climate control, push-button start with keyless entry and more makes it a healthily equipped cabin as well.

While all the SUVs from Jeep have maintained the conventional boxy and upright stance, the Jeep Renegade takes the game one level up, by adding the element of funkiness to the design, while retaining the original attributes of a Jeep SUV’s design.

At the front, the Jeep Renegade tries to add retro flavour with its round projector headlamps and a blackened grille with seven vertical slats, all of which are enclosed in a single frame this enhancing the width of the Renegade. The high raised bonnet and thick body cladding in which the fog and auxiliary lamps are positioned give it a true SUV flavour.

It doesn’t end at the front, as the Jeep Renegade looks very much squared out with vertically designed body pillars and squared window frames, with squared wheel arches and thick body cladding giving it a rugged stance reminiscent of true blue SUVs.

The square-ness in the design of the Jeep Renegade continues at the rear as well, with the tail lamps with LED inserts and large rear windshield giving it a distinctive appeal of its own. The wraparound character line flowing across the width from the edges of the tail lamp looks good as well.

The boxy design might generate an impression of an old school SUV for the Jeep Renegade, but this compact SUV feels nice to drive with sure-footed suspension setup and very well-controlled body roll on motion. The Macpherson struts at both the ends have been equipped with stabilizer bars which do make the ride quality pretty decent. And in the Trailhawk variant, the excellent four-wheel-drive system makes the Renegade a go-anywhere vehicle by all sorts.

The engine powering the Jeep Renegade is a large 2.4-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, which might sound a bit bigger for a vehicle of this size. The engine is paired to a 9-speed automatic transmission as standard, and belts out a maximum power output of 180 PS and a peak torque output of 237 Nm.

Despite being an entry-level product, the Jeep Renegade has been heavily equipped with state-of-the-art safety features like front, side and curtain airbags, ABS with EBD and brake assist, traction control, electronic stability control, electric parking brake, electronic roll mitigation, hill descent control, hill start assist, lane departure warning with lane keep assist system, front and rear parking assist, reverse parking camera and tire pressure monitoring system.

The Jeep Renegade follows the traditional virtues of a typical Jeep SUB by having an upright stance and conventional silhouette, albeit with a lot of funky design elements. And with technically well-advanced powertrain and drivetrain, the Renegade feels one extremely well-engineered product with big aspirations.