cars news 10: 2017 Jeep Renegade Sport Long-Term Update 4: Road-Tripping the Jeep

In previous updates, we concluded that the Jeep Renegade’s removable MySky roof and go-almost-anywhere off-road capability make for a solid millennial Instagram vehicle. For impromptu urban photo shoots or for traversing the final mile to a photogenic trailhead, the Renegade offers just about everything you need. But what about when those trails are a few states away?

To assess the how well the Renegade handles long-distance trips, my girlfriend and I loaded up for a quick camping trip to Colorado. We fairly easily fit the necessary supplies. And then we crammed in enough stuff for another two people for good measure; we were expecting overnight temperatures to fall below freezing and didn’t want to die of hypothermia. It would’ve been a tight fit for any additional people, but I could see a group of four making it work with some pragmatic packing strategies (perhaps leave the four extra blankets at home, and buy your food when you get there). So on the cargo front, the Renegade earns a passing grade.

It was efficient, too. One of my first impressions upon driving the Renegade around Los Angeles was that it sucked gas just about as quickly as my old Ford Explorer. That’s not a good thing, especially considering how much smaller the Renegade is. The EPA gives this Jeep a 21-mpg city rating, which seems generous. My around-town driving was routinely returning numbers much closer to our Real MPG results of 16.6 mpg in city driving. Once I got on the highway, though, things changed in a big way. Over roughly 2,000 miles of highway driving, I was consistently seeing mpg numbers in the mid-30s, beating both EPA (29 mpg) and Real MPG (30.4) figures—decidedly unlike my Explorer and a blessing on a long trip.

The transmission, though, was less of a blessing. We’ve shared our criticisms of the Jeep’s nine-speed automatic before, but in my own driving (mostly on city streets), I had never had any issues. That changed when I finally got out on the open road, though. The 180-hp I-4 is generally enough power, but on a few occasions when merging into traffic required power in a hurry, the transmission took its time dropping into the appropriate gear to get me there. This was mostly an easily accommodated problem, but it did lead to one scary moment when a semi attempted to move into my lane while I was passing; I attempted to floor it to get around the truck in time, and the Jeep didn’t seem to move. On the plus side, nearly getting sideswiped gave me a chance to test the brakes. In our instrumented tests, stopping from 60 mph took 123 feet. I didn’t bother to break out the tape measure on the side of the road, but in our real-world emergency stopping situation, the Renegade, my fiancée, and I all survived, so I’ll call that a success.