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Would you buy it again?

46K views 124 replies 79 participants last post by  madreny 
#1 ·
Whats up everyone! hopefully this isn't a long post lol
So lately I've been thinking of getting a renegade, I currently have a 370z and honestly I hate it. I bought it at 19, and Its a great car no doubt but as I get older (now 25) Ive grown a passion for long road trips, camping, photography, Im also trying to become a firefighter and will eventually have to carry my boots and some gear. I think overall something thats a bit more practical and although the trunk space isn't great its better than mine. I also don't have kids, just my gf so I took an interest in the little jeep because I don't need a rubicon. Just something to save me some gas while I get on some trails to camp out, fish, daily driver and groceries.

I was thinking of the 4x4 limited? MAYBE the trailhawk but i suppose id have to get a killer deal for that one. I'm hoping to get 17k for my car.

If you had to do it over, would you buy yours again? or different trim?
just wondering how you guys would recommend it for me, will be test driving one today. thank you!:)
 
#113 ·
I have a 16 Dawn of Justice edition and love it. It has a good ride on the road and you can get around easily with it. I also like that it's 4x4 not AWD. You control it and it doesn't shut down on you in a little bit of sand. No this is no Jeep Wrangler, but I didn't buy it for that thinking. I've also had no problems with mine.
 
#115 ·
"Would you buy it again?"

Hell no, I would rather take public transport. And this will be my last post here on this forum for which I'm sure you'll all celebrate which I'm ok with. ;)

This was the absolutely the worst "new" car experience we've ever had. I'm going to list the pros and cons of the Renegade after ~4 years of ownership that are pretty much a consensus with my wife and I.

Pros:
  • It looks neat
  • The little easter eggs are a neat party trick...for a short time
  • We liked the Mojave Sand color
  • uConnect is indeed still the best infotainment system on the market even with the small ass screen non-Nav units like what we had

Cons:
  • Not economical at all, my 2016 Dodge Charger R/T with a 5.7L HEMI was within ~3mpg of the average of the Renegade--with my wife and her lighter foot driving the Renegade. That's right, my heavy V8 sedan almost got as good of mpg as our Renegade. When we traded the Renegade the avg mpg was 24.9 throughout the life of the vehicle and at that time my Charger was at 22.1. How does a fairly light vehicle and a 4cyl engine have such shitty fuel economy?
  • Slow, and very unsafely slow I might add. I cannot count the number of times we were almost rear ended because pulling out of our neighborhood or on to a frontage road and the damn thing just wouldn't pick up any sort of speed. Felt like 0-60 in days or months rather than seconds.
  • It is a rattle trap, though unsurprisingly so. Some of the plastic parts in the engine bay started to rattle after about ~15,000 miles. The rear driver's side door had a buzzing rattle beneath the door panel. The rear hatch door panel also had a rattle. The rear cover things below the lights rattled. There was a faint rattling sound somewhere buried in the dash. This thing after ~49,000 miles at trade in sounded like a 1980's GM car with how much rattling and such was going on.
  • Extremely uncomfortable for adult passengers over 5ft 9in in height in the front passenger seat and back seats. The footwell intrusion in to the cabin for the front passenger seat is massive couple that with very little leg room to begin with and my 6ft tall self was never comfortable. The back seats were like sitting on boards. The driver's seat was the only half comfortable spot in the vehicle.
  • Once we had a baby in Feb of this year one of the points of having this thing (four doors for the family) was realized and we installed the rear facing car seat. Well the result of that was having to move the front passenger seat almost all the way up just to be able to get the car seat installed on the base and your hand behind the car seat to grab the release lever. And we didn't even get the largest car seat either! I quite literally couldn't even sit in the front seat, my knees wouldn't even get under the dash. My wife, who is 5ft.5in. had her knees physically resting on the glovebox door so even she couldn't even use the front passenger seat either. With this our Renegade was turned in to a 2 seater and thus regardless of everything else I've said in this post it became quite useless to us. I'm not exaggerating here either, quite literally the front passenger seat could not fit a normal sized adult with a rear facing car seat installed. Otherwise we would of paid it off and drove it until the drivetrain broke and then used the lifetime warranty to fix it and traded it in.
  • Brake pedal had an odd behavior where if you even lifted your foot a millimeter it would start rolling forward. You had to keep firm pressure on the pedal to keep it stationary. I've never been in a vehicle with this behavior, and I used to sell cars so I've literally driven hundreds of different models from all automakers.
  • The long skinny go pedal, also known as an acceleration pedal, was way too touchy. Don't put any pressure and you just moved along at 1mph touched it more than a couple inches and you'd break the tires loose. It was impossible to drive this thing smoothly.
  • The 9spd auto never could decide what gear to be in. No really, it was like driving around with a committee in charge of deciding what gear to be in when driving around town and or passing someone on the highway. The 9spd trans also had a huge problem bump down shifting when slowing down for example at a red light. Felt like someone was kicking us in the back every time we went to stop at a red light.
  • A funny party trick but a sad one at that. With a strong headwind or up a slight incline the cruise control could never EVER keep the speed within 1mph of the set speed. There was several occasions where the gutless engine and 9spd transmission by committee just couldn't decide how to proceed and when to drop gears to accelerate to match the cruise speed. Sometimes it was just humorous to watch the ineptitude.
  • So very expensive for so little. We had the Latitude model and it honestly felt like a stripper work truck. Other than wheels I honestly to this day don't know why we even bothered to get a Latitude, there seemingly weren't any "features" we got over a base Sport model beyond better wheels.
  • Last but most certainly not least. The resale value is horrendous, though unsurprisingly if I'm honest. I knew this Jeep skinned Italian Fiat 500x thing wouldn't have good resale (or any reliability). Thank god we only owed ~$1,500 on it or we would of lost our shirts when trading it in.

I'm being as literal and honest as I can be here. I really am not trying to exaggerate, we really did not have a good experience with this. Funny thing, I had a brand new Jeep Compass Limited as a rental car for two months and while it really isn't much different per se half of the above issues I mentioned were solved. It was light years better to drive, a passenger could ride in the passenger seat with the car seat installed and I had no issues with the transmission by committee like we had with the Renegade. I think had this current brand new Compass generation model been brought out in 2015 as-is our experience just may have been better. Plus it looks better than the Renegade and the interior is nicer and more comfortable.

So if you're shopping for a Jeep Renegade buy a Jeep Compass (Trailhawk, especially) instead, it'll be a much better buy and easier vehicle to live with. Otherwise save up some more money and buy or lease a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo and be much better off. :)

Hope everyone has a happy life. Cheers!
 
#116 ·
"Would you buy it again?"



Hell no, I would rather take public transport. And this will be my last post here on this forum for which I'm sure you'll all celebrate which I'm ok with. ;)



This was the absolutely the worst "new" car experience we've ever had. I'm going to list the pros and cons of the Renegade after ~4 years of ownership that are pretty much a consensus with my wife and I.



Pros:

  • It looks neat
  • The little easter eggs are a neat party trick...for a short time
  • We liked the Mojave Sand color
  • uConnect is indeed still the best infotainment system on the market even with the small ass screen non-Nav units like what we had



Cons:

  • Not economical at all, my 2016 Dodge Charger R/T with a 5.7L HEMI was within ~3mpg of the average of the Renegade--with my wife and her lighter foot driving the Renegade. That's right, my heavy V8 sedan almost got as good of mpg as our Renegade. When we traded the Renegade the avg mpg was 24.9 throughout the life of the vehicle and at that time my Charger was at 22.1. How does a fairly light vehicle and a 4cyl engine have such shitty fuel economy?
  • Slow, and very unsafely slow I might add. I cannot count the number of times we were almost rear ended because pulling out of our neighborhood or on to a frontage road and the damn thing just wouldn't pick up any sort of speed. Felt like 0-60 in days or months rather than seconds.
  • It is a rattle trap, though unsurprisingly so. Some of the plastic parts in the engine bay started to rattle after about ~15,000 miles. The rear driver's side door had a buzzing rattle beneath the door panel. The rear hatch door panel also had a rattle. The rear cover things below the lights rattled. There was a faint rattling sound somewhere buried in the dash. This thing after ~49,000 miles at trade in sounded like a 1980's GM car with how much rattling and such was going on.
  • Extremely uncomfortable for adult passengers over 5ft 9in in height in the front passenger seat and back seats. The footwell intrusion in to the cabin for the front passenger seat is massive couple that with very little leg room to begin with and my 6ft tall self was never comfortable. The back seats were like sitting on boards. The driver's seat was the only half comfortable spot in the vehicle.
  • Once we had a baby in Feb of this year one of the points of having this thing (four doors for the family) was realized and we installed the rear facing car seat. Well the result of that was having to move the front passenger seat almost all the way up just to be able to get the car seat installed on the base and your hand behind the car seat to grab the release lever. And we didn't even get the largest car seat either! I quite literally couldn't even sit in the front seat, my knees wouldn't even get under the dash. My wife, who is 5ft.5in. had her knees physically resting on the glovebox door so even she couldn't even use the front passenger seat either. With this our Renegade was turned in to a 2 seater and thus regardless of everything else I've said in this post it became quite useless to us. I'm not exaggerating here either, quite literally the front passenger seat could not fit a normal sized adult with a rear facing car seat installed. Otherwise we would of paid it off and drove it until the drivetrain broke and then used the lifetime warranty to fix it and traded it in.
  • Brake pedal had an odd behavior where if you even lifted your foot a millimeter it would start rolling forward. You had to keep firm pressure on the pedal to keep it stationary. I've never been in a vehicle with this behavior, and I used to sell cars so I've literally driven hundreds of different models from all automakers.
  • The long skinny go pedal, also known as an acceleration pedal, was way too touchy. Don't put any pressure and you just moved along at 1mph touched it more than a couple inches and you'd break the tires loose. It was impossible to drive this thing smoothly.
  • The 9spd auto never could decide what gear to be in. No really, it was like driving around with a committee in charge of deciding what gear to be in when driving around town and or passing someone on the highway. The 9spd trans also had a huge problem bump down shifting when slowing down for example at a red light. Felt like someone was kicking us in the back every time we went to stop at a red light.
  • A funny party trick but a sad one at that. With a strong headwind or up a slight incline the cruise control could never EVER keep the speed within 1mph of the set speed. There was several occasions where the gutless engine and 9spd transmission by committee just couldn't decide how to proceed and when to drop gears to accelerate to match the cruise speed. Sometimes it was just humorous to watch the ineptitude.
  • So very expensive for so little. We had the Latitude model and it honestly felt like a stripper work truck. Other than wheels I honestly to this day don't know why we even bothered to get a Latitude, there seemingly weren't any "features" we got over a base Sport model beyond better wheels.
  • Last but most certainly not least. The resale value is horrendous, though unsurprisingly if I'm honest. I knew this Jeep skinned Italian Fiat 500x thing wouldn't have good resale (or any reliability). Thank god we only owed ~$1,500 on it or we would of lost our shirts when trading it in.



I'm being as literal and honest as I can be here. I really am not trying to exaggerate, we really did not have a good experience with this. Funny thing, I had a brand new Jeep Compass Limited as a rental car for two months and while it really isn't much different per se half of the above issues I mentioned were solved. It was light years better to drive, a passenger could ride in the passenger seat with the car seat installed and I had no issues with the transmission by committee like we had with the Renegade. I think had this current brand new Compass generation model been brought out in 2015 as-is our experience just may have been better. Plus it looks better than the Renegade and the interior is nicer and more comfortable.



So if you're shopping for a Jeep Renegade buy a Jeep Compass (Trailhawk, especially) instead, it'll be a much better buy and easier vehicle to live with. Otherwise save up some more money and buy or lease a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo and be much better off. :)



Hope everyone has a happy life. Cheers!


That’s why I waited 5 years to buy one. I would never buy a used one either. My new 2019 is the complete opposite of yours thankfully.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#117 ·
Our 2016 has been very reliable and fun. We don't have any of the problems you have...except the car seat issue. Thankfully it's not necessary to grab the back of the rear-facing car seat, cause it's pressed right up against the back of the front seat. Maybe our car seat is smaller, cause my husband 5'10" can sit(uncomfortably) in the front passenger seat if he has too. But we would get something bigger if the Renegade wasn't paid off and we could easily afford it. Our 10 month old is already bigger than average, and they want kids in rear facing seats forever these days. The car seat was have has extra leg room, but we can't even use it since the Jeep is so small. Car seats are huge. I would tell anyone considering buying a Renegade to think of that if kids are in their future. Ours was an accident, but....I understand many are??
 
#118 ·
Although I have always wish that this little Renegade hadmore power, for the priced paid it is a great little Jeep.
My 2016 Jeep Renegade Trailhawk hasn’t been without its quarks,but it has been a reliable commuter for up in the mountains, where it doespretty darn well in the snow.
You get what you paid/pay for, and for a mid 20K vehicle,you can’t go wrong with the Renegade.
So yes, I would buy another Renegade.
I have no regrets buying my Renegade.
 
#122 ·
No.
I'm happy with the one I have. 2017 sport 4×4 6 speed. Purchased new for $21,772 total. 15k miles and so far, trouble free.
I wanted to trade up for a new one, but automatic only is an automatic no. Standard features that are not wanted, poor packages, few options and much higher prices.
I'm currently looking at other brands.
 
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