“Underwhelming off-road performance.” That’s what we said about the Jeep Renegade two years ago when it failed to make the finalist cut for SUV of the Year. And with Colorado fourteeners in my sights, that’s what I was hoping to test for myself.
Leading up to the trip, I was worried about the Renegade’s ability to reach trailheads 12,000 feet above sea level, my concern only surpassed by the doubt I had in my own ability to climb the final 2,000 feet to the summit. Features editor Christian Seabaugh, who wrote the above criticism, assured me it would probably be fine. “If you choose your lines carefully and use the Jeep’s off-road modes,” he told me, “I think you should be all right.”
That sounds clean sufficient, but I?D never had to ?Choose my lines,? And I had no experience with off-street modes. I changed into heading into the experience an off-avenue newbie, my information no longer extending beyond the reality that all-wheel pressure was required to get in which I was hoping to go. If you?Re an experienced off-roader, my impressions probably gained?T be of lots fee, but you then?Re possibly additionally no longer the target marketplace for the Renegade besides. My purpose became now not to decide whether my Jeep ought to cling at the Easter Jeep Safari or maybe to check its off-street limits. Rather, I needed to understand if the Renegade has the off-road chops important to get a newbie like me to a trailhead some miles off the crushed course.
In that regard, the Jeep become an unequivocal fulfillment. Over 14.6 general miles of rutted, boulder-strewn roads, a few 3,000 feet in elevation gained and lost again at a 6-mph tempo, and six circulation crossings, the Renegade never neglected a step. The most effective time my ahead development stalled turned into not a result of the Jeep but as an alternative the fault of a group of four-wheelers filling the route. ?Choosing my strains? Usually meant aiming for the locations that seemed least probable to harm the Jeep, and I by no means did bother with the off-avenue modes (one each for sand, snow, and dust) because the 4 wheel drive Lock button seemed sufficient.
I don?T intend to present this as some exceptional feat of off-street mastery. Truth be told, I would bet on any SUV with all-wheel power and similar ground clearance coping with the same trails. Some would possibly take a bit extra finesse, however they?D reach the destination. And that?S the point. The Renegade Sport isn?T probably a extreme alternative for extreme off-roaders. But for the ones millennial consumers searching out some thing to get them to the trailhead on the lookout for the all-critical instagrammable backdrop, this Jeep will do simply first-class.
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