Jeep Renegade Review 2025: Price, specs & boot space

You’d struggle to tell that the Jeep Renegade shares its platform and engines with the decidedly unrugged Fiat 500X. For its smallest model, Jeep has pulled out all of the stops, with quirky looks, a rugged interior and genuine off-road ability (if you buy a four-wheel-drive version).

It’s easy to see the appeal when rivals range from the competent (if a bit bland) Renault Captur to the rather naff Ford EcoSport. The Jeep badge alone will be enough to attract the attention of a lot of crossover buyers, with its military off-roader connotations and slightly brash image.

The good news is that the Jeep Renegade is a fairly affordable way into Jeep ownership. An early model could cost you less than £5,000 (depending on specification), while even as-new examples start from around £15,000. That’s tempting value, and it shouldn’t cost a lot to run, either.

There are numerous petrol and diesel engines available, with some of the most frugal capable of late-40s mpg. The diesels are a little unrefined, though, (it’s almost like Jeep’s done away with some of the sound insulation to make the Jeep Renegade feel like a proper off-roader), so we’d stick with a petrol - particularly if you don’t cover many miles.

The Jeep Renegade range was updated in 2018 with the addition of new 1.0- and 1.3-litre petrol engines (as per the Fiat 500X), while in 2020 a plug-in hybrid version was also added called the Renegade 4XE, alongside a mild-hybrid 1.5-litre petrol. 

The 1.3-litre is let down by its standard automatic gearbox, so we’d go for the little 1.0-litre three-cylinder unit. It might sound small for a car like this, but it’s quicker than you’d expect and also the most refined choice.

The Jeep Renegade 4XE PHEV uses the same 1.3-litre engine but adds a 60PS electric motor driving the rear axle to give it four-wheel-drive, and a total of 190PS or 240PS in Trailhawk spec. That gives it a useful performance boost, and it can cover a claimed 26 miles on electric power alone.

The mild-hybrid version is also worth a look if you drive a lot in town. It’s unusual among mild hybrids in that it can drive for short distances on electric power alone, which could reduce your fuel bills considerably. It’s also a good chunk cheaper than the PHEV.

With light steering and compact dimensions, the Jeep Renegade is an easy car to drive around town. The numb steering and notchy gear change mean it’s a bit frustrating to drive out of town, though, while a surprising amount of body lean through corners adds to the old-school feel.

If you fancy a bit of mud-plugging, the off-road-biased Trailhawk model is the way to go. This adds the kind of things that’ll appeal to 10-year olds: extra underbody protection, bespoke off-road wheels and hill descent control to help tackle steep slopes. It also comes with four-wheel-drive, of course, which provides plenty of reassurance in poor conditions but increases fuel consumption the rest of the time.

The Jeep Renegade feels fairly spacious inside, although it’s a long way from being a premium alternative to cars like MINI's Countryman. You could be forgiven for thinking it’s a much older cabin than it actually is, with lots of harsh plastics and chunky (but low-rent) buttons. An updated 8.4-inch infotainment system arrived in 2018, though, bringing with it Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The system was overhauled again for 2024, with a 10.1-inch scheen and wireless Apple Carplay and Android Auto.

Should you buy the Jeep Renegade? As a new car it’s very hard to recommend, as it’s the best part of a decade old, but there's plenty going for it as a used car. For instance, it’ll stand out on your driveway more than Renault Captur or Nissan Juke, and it’s available in some bold colours. It’s also the best-value Jeep on the market, and it won’t cost a fortune to run.

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The layout is fairly conventional and intuitive, with all the main controls easy to operate. The instrument dials are simple and, on Limited models and up, include a large colour display between them, giving you all the trip information in an easy-to-read and nicely designed fashion. Lower trim levels have to make do with a smaller monochrome display, unless you’re looking at a 2024-onwards model, in which case all versions get the 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster as standard.

The Jeep Renegade has been available with a variety of different engines over the years. At launch, there was a 1.6 petrol with 110PS or 1.4 MultiAir turbos with 140PS or 170PS. The 1.6 is best avoided unless you mainly travel around town on your own, because if you need to go faster or carry people or stuff, it starts to feel rather underpowered. The 1.4s are fine, though. Diesel choices included a 1.6 with 120PS or 2.0-litre units with 140PS or 170PS, but we never got to try these.

Things changed with a facelift in 2018. The petrol range then began with a 120PS three-cylinder 1.0-litre petrol. It's a thrummy little motor that works fine in town but can feel a little lacklustre when speeds rise. Sure, it'll handle motorway slogs with no issues, but if you're planning on overtaking streams of traffic on A roads then, well, you might want to rethink that strategy.

Then came the more powerful 150PS, four-cylinder 1.3-litre petrol, which wasn't much better, because it was hamstrung by its standard six-speed automatic gearbox. Perplexingly, 0-62mph takes 11.8 seconds, exactly the same as the 120PS model with its six-speed manual.

Next up are the 170PS four-cylinder 2.0-litre diesel and the 180PS version of the four-cylinder 1.3-litre petrol. Both get a smooth-shifting, nine-speed automatic gearbox and four-wheel drive – so they're good for off-roading and towing – but they were expensive when new and so are harder to find on the used market, although if you can, they're good value due to the Renegade's steep depreciation.

Things have since changed again. The entry-level motor is now the 1.5-litre mild-hybrid Jeep Renegade E-Torque petrol, which offers a modest 130PS. It makes a decent fist of getting the Renegade where you want to go, but it needs to be driven with care to get anywhere close to the official combined fuel consumption of 48.7mpg.

From 2022, this system was upgraded to allow small amounts of electric-only driving – this version is badged e-Hybrid and should deliver considerably better fuel economy. It’s decent to drive too, with extra oomph from the electric motor that’s incorporated into the seven-speed automatic gearbox.

Probably the best of the bunch is the plug-in hybrid option, the 4XE, which takes the 1.3-litre petrol engine and adds a 60PS electric motor, giving either 190PS or 240PS depending on the trim level. That gives it useful performance: in the top spec Trailhawk, the 0-62mph sprint is dispatched in a sprightly 6.9 seconds. Fuel consumption is given at as much as 141.2mpg, and the car can travel up to 26 miles in EV mode.

The 120PS 1.6-litre diesel officially returns up to 48.7mpg with the manual gearbox, dropping to 47.1mpg as an automatic. The 140PS 2.0-litre 4x4 provides up to 40.9mpg, falling to 37.7mpg with the automatic transmission. The off-road Trailhawk model with a 170PS version of this engine returns 35.8mpg.

There’s not much difference in fuel economy between the 1.0- and 1.3-litre petrol models. The 1.0-litre officially returns 37.2mpg while the 1.3 achieves up to 39.8mpg in WLTP tests. Whichever way you slice it, none of these figures are particularly dazzling. Things are better with the Renegade e-Hybrid, which promises up to 49.5mpg – it’ll be better if most of your driving is stop-start around town, and it’s not a huge jump up in price, either.

The official WLTP fuel consumption of the Jeep Renegade 4XE plug-in hybrid versions is anything between 141.2mpg and 156.9mpg, but as you'll probably know, this is not especially representative of the real world because the official tests are unrealistically flattering to plug-in hybrids. If you can charge at home and spend a lot of time running around town on short journeys then you can use EV mode for a large proportion of the time, but on longer journeys you'll find a diesel engine will almost always be a better bet.

Plug-in hybrid variants are thinner on the ground given that they were introduced a lot more recently, but if you can find an early one from 2021 or thereabouts, it can be yours for around £18,000.