Who was it who fancies a Renegade?

Didn't you like (or were at least impressed by) the 500X? As the Renegade is the same underpinnings. 

A neighbour had one. It lasted about six months before he got shot. He liked the car and disliked the reliability. They are well equipped and not badly priced, but quality in terms of electrics isn’t great by all accounts. I’m not a fan of the styling.

t'was me. I think they look a good different, slightly more rugged than the usual fair and an (albeit Fiat based) interior which is less bland than say a Ford Ecotwat or Captur.

Yep, the prev gen Corsa VXR is a still a fine looking car and the new gen from at least the front is too and having driven the new VXR I can say it's a hoot to drive, the interior is bland, needs more sporty touches and the rear lights are too large and spoil to rear but otherwise more than acceptable

Must admit, not my kind of thing but I can see the appeal, they are rugged and chunky looking and seem a good size, there does seem to be a hell of a lot of them out there too.

So, how was it?

Well, I had booked a "Golf or similar" and Avis at Malpensa initially translated that into a Fiat Tipo estate, which I turned down on the basis (a) that we didn't want or need anything that large and (b) it was a deeply uninteresting car. So they had another look at what they had available and came up with the Renegade, which seemed more suited to tackling Verona and the hills around Lake Garda. It was a 120bhp 1.6 Multijet diesel with a 6spd manual 'box and 2wd, and in up-market "Limited" trim, which retails at a whisker under £25k. The battleship grey colour is an optional non-metallic shade called "Anvil" that I would not have picked from the catalogue but which, over the course of the time we had it, we actually decided really quite suited the styling.

On the styling front, well you either like it or you don't. It's odd in the sense that it looks quite small until you park it next to a "normal" car and then it suddenly can look unexpectedly huge. It's tall and wide, but quite short. It also looks a touch under-wheeled, even on the 18" Limited alloys. But overall, the Jeep styling cues work quite well and it's sort of cute but macho at the same time. I think the grey paint and Limited trimmings helped make it look a bit less "my first Jeep".

Inside it's all very black (albeit with a light headlining thankfully) and styled to look chunky and utilitarian, which is clever because you can be much more forgiving of swathes of indifferent black plastics in something styled to look chunky and utilitarian. It's also by no means a bad place to sit – the overall effect is quite attractive and there are all sorts of matt silver accents and Jeep logos which somehow manage not to look cheap (although I wasn't sure about "Since 1941" embossed in large letters above the nav screen), and whilst the ergonomics aren't perfect (eg the sat nav screen is sited too low), someone has thought about usability (my wife commented on this several times – eg it has two USB sockets and the one in the arm-rest has a built-in gap under the lid for the charging cable to exit, which is not something that has occurred, for example, to BMW).

You sit high but not especially high, and there's ample headroom. It's comfortable (steering wheel is rake and reach-adjustable) and decently spacious as well (both inside and in the boot). The switchgear all feels robust and well-located. The instruments, which include a TFT display between the main dials, are clear and reasonably attractive. Being a Limited, there was plenty of FG, including built-in sat nav, hands-free this and that, lane guidance warnings, all-round proximity sensors (neurotic but thankfully you can switch them off), Bluetooth, etc etc.

Chris will be thrilled because a chance look under the boot-floor in search of a lost item elicited the discovery that it had a full-size spare 18" alloy wheel.

And so to the driving experience. Well, no escaping that it was a turbo-diesel, but it wasn't overly clattery and smoothed out well once at speed. It was well run-in, with nearly 23k kms showing when we picked it up, and over 24k kms showing when we dropped it off. And 120bhp gave it more than enough punch for mild torque-steer to make itself felt (probably not helped by the fact it was wearing Mud+Snow tyres). Certainly it could pull off with plenty of zip and didn't mind being revved. It will pull in sixth at motorway speeds and lopes along very comfortably and securely at over a ton. The six-speed manual gearbox is a little rubbery in feel but otherwise light and actually quite snickable. Clutch is light and the brakes worked just fine. Ride quality could be a touch pattery on poor surfaces but it dealt with bigger holes well and it was noticeably smooth and well-behaved on motorways.

Handling, for what it is, was also absolutely fine – grippy and competent, despite being rather oddly on Mud+Snow tyres. Never any sense that it was wobbly or tippy-toed. In fact it was notably stable – it felt very planted at motorway speeds and reacted very well at one point when we were in the middle lane with a large Audi hoofing past in the fast lane and an old codger in a small Fiat in the slow lane tried to overtake an HGV into us, requiring a pretty tricky swerve/not swerve/stand on brakes/honk reaction at over 80mph to avoid becoming the pastrami in a nasty A6-Punto sandwich. The main take-away is that it feels completely motorway-capable. No sense that you are in a smallish or budget-ish car, or some sort of rough 'n ready SUV. The main complaint would be wind rustle, but that's perhaps unsurprising since the wing-mirrors are the size and shape of a small briefcase and the styling is generally blocky.

It's also pretty economical. Over 1,400 kms (870 miles), it required two 40 litre (8.8 gallons) fills of diesel in order to be handed back with a full tank, so that's about 17.5kms / litre or approx. 50mpg. Which, given much of its time with us consisted of either being stuck in rush-hour traffic in Milan or being caned at high speed down autostradas, isn't at all bad.

So, scoff as much as you like, but I can see why you would pick one of these. Asides from being practical, comfortable, spacious, economical and decent to drive, it just feels more distinctive and interesting to look at and sit in than just any old identikit hatchback; it also shares with the Fiat 500 an air of classlessness in the sense that (to me at least) it projects the image of being the sort of car you might actually have chosen to buy because you actually wanted one, rather than have simply bought it because it was more affordable than other alternatives. It's got charm and it doesn't feel like a budget choice. Up until now, I had dismissed it as a rather silly car and I did not expect to be keen on it. But it turns out that it isn't a silly car and both my wife and I really rather liked it. Nelson, you should go try one if you like the look of it. Get some scrappage out of the Mondy!?

Great write up. I quite like these and for some reason they remind me of my old Fiat Punto Sporting in the sense that they're just a bit fun. I agree they seem classless too, I'd like to try one sometime.

I'm well disposed towards these on the basis that they're interesting and a bit different. I like the idea of a small 4x4 with proper styling and capability.

I wonder what the chances are of car hire firms giving you a stated option when booking, of spare wheel or not?
I kind of like the look of the new Tipo and it would be an experience to have one for a few days on hire, whereas a few days in a Jeep doesn't exactly get my pulse racing (pun intended)

I cycled past a white one this morning in Chelsea absolutely caked in mud.

Talking of which, what I didn't yet mention is that Renegades are apparently not difficult to break into.

Thieves managed to break into this one in broad daylight whilst it was parked outside a museum in central Milan on Friday afternoon without causing any visible damage to the car. As such, we assumed that they must have been loitering nearby when we arrived and somehow intercepted and copied the code from the remote key-fob. It was only when we handed it back to the rental company and mentioned it, that they checked the car thoroughly and worked out, by virtue of the fact that the flip-out key wouldn't go more than half-way into the external lock on the driver's door handle, that the thieves must have somehow forced their way in through picking that lock. There was no visible external damage at all, even to the metal lock surround.

Good write up. I see you even managed to go "off road" in it.