[wbw]

So I finally got a few minutes today to stop by a dealer and got a test drive. It was a Latitude 4x4 with auto trans. I was impressed with the ride over rough surfaces. I'm in a Hyundai Veloster Turbo now which is more stiffly sprung, so the Jeep was nice riding in my opinion. The Jeep is only one inch longer than the Veloster but the Renegade felt much larger to me. I also get to drive my wife's Santa Fe which is a good bit larger than the Renegade, but the Renegade felt large for some reason. Not used to seeing a hood when driving. The storage area in the back was also larger than I expected it to be. That was a good thing.


Then there was that nine speed trans. It was actually better than I was expecting after reading so much about it. It did upshift early to get to a higher gear for economy. And it did downshift slowly. I wasn't thrilled with it but I could live with it. Although we did have a Ford Windstar minivan one time that upshifted very early if you didn't plant your foot in it and I hated that car. We didn't keep it very long.


So overall, it was a good ride but I'm not head over heels in love at this point. In all fairness, it wasn't a very long ride and the salesguy was with me.


Next up for me will be a Mazda CX 3 ride. They look promising also. Six speed auto, quicker (according to September Car and Driver) but doesn't have near as much storage. I believe they are just hitting showrooms. I'll have to check one out.

 

[LittleRedJeep]

If you have the time you should take it the Renny back out.

I've gotten ver used to using the manual shift in my auto-9 when I want it to perform outside of the "Econo" mode that it seems to default to. Over time the auto-9 has grown to my driving habits a bit. Each gear seems to rev a little longer, shifting a bit later - more how I like like.

I took out a Latitude three times before finally signing. The last test drive was probably a good 20 minutes. I zipped through main streets, side streets, parking lots with speed humps, and a mostly dirt+gravel construction area. Sales guy was inthe back seat, wifey in the passenger. Whether or not the sales guy minded was furthest from my thought process,

 

[LittleRedJeep]

If you have the time you should take it the Renny back out.

I've gotten ver used to using the manual shift in my auto-9 when I want it to perform outside of the "Econo" mode that it seems to default to. Over time the auto-9 has grown to my driving habits a bit. Each gear seems to rev a little longer, shifting a bit later - more how I like like.

I took out a Latitude three times before finally signing. The last test drive was probably a good 20 minutes. I zipped through main streets, side streets, parking lots with speed humps, and a mostly dirt+gravel construction area. Sales guy was inthe back seat, wifey in the passenger. Whether or not the sales guy minded was furthest from my thought process,