Another Test Drive!

"Frenchlicker" (frenchlicker) 04/16/2015 at 16:54 • Filed to: Jeep Renegade, Chevy Equinox, Test Drive

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I test drove a Jeep Renegade Latitude today. I liked it better than the limited for some reason. Maybe it was the clothe seats, maybe it was that the overhead area wasn't cluttered by a thing with lane departure buttons and such. The upside to today's test drive was that the salesman allowed me to go alone due to company association. One thing of note is a sound system with solid base a smooth acceleration for a small suv. I'm falling in love with this thing. Currently I am about to test drive a Chevy Equinox just for the sake of cross shopping.

450X_FTW > Frenchlicker 04/16/2015 at 16:58

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Drove an early development Renegade about a year ago. One thing that i thought took some getting used to was cruising on the highway in 9th gear, then doing a WOT and seeing the gear display go all the way down to 3. Takes a while to get there too

G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 > Frenchlicker 04/16/2015 at 17:02

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Don't cross-shop wit the equinox, cross-shop with the Trax. Then buy the Renegade.

nermal > 450X_FTW 04/16/2015 at 17:04

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Do these actually use 9th gear in normal driving?

450X_FTW > nermal 04/16/2015 at 17:06

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Yes, unlike the Cherokee, these actually do use 9th. BUT. That's because they do not use 1st unless you go into "low range" mode and it uses 1st as a crawler gear. The problem with the 9 speed is that the ratio is spread so damn wide you either gear your rear axle so you can use 1st or 9th, but rarely both. Not unless you have a huge amount of torque at the low revs available

nermal > 450X_FTW 04/16/2015 at 17:16

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Ahh, that makes sense. So they start out in "2nd" as a general rule.

This saves them from putting an actual low range in the transfer case - That effectively only adds one or two extra gears anyways, since in most other cases with a 2.xx low range, 2nd or 3rd in low works out to the same ratio as 1st in high.

450X_FTW > nermal 04/16/2015 at 17:26

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Correct. 1st gear is geared super low, over 4:1. So if you were to use it daily driving you'd just go right thru the gear because of how fast it revved thru it

Frenchlicker > G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 04/16/2015 at 18:50

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Theydidnthabe a Trax on the lit. The equinox was depressing.

G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 > Frenchlicker 04/16/2015 at 18:51

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Isn't the Equinox bad? It feels cheap, and doesn't drive very well.

Frenchlicker > G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 04/16/2015 at 18:55

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It was very cheap feeling. The plastic everywhere down to the buttons for entertainment, and the little screen between the gauges looks like it's several generations old.

G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 > Frenchlicker 04/16/2015 at 18:57

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Yeah. It still feels like Old GM.

Frenchlicker > G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 04/16/2015 at 19:22

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Not even pulling your leg here. I literally just said that while talking about it to my parents.

G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 > Frenchlicker 04/16/2015 at 19:23

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Even my dad sat in an equinox and said it was "marginally better than a Cavalier."

Frenchlicker > G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 04/16/2015 at 19:25

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they also didn't want to give much off for it having over 3k miles due to it being used as a service use vehicle.

G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 > Frenchlicker 04/16/2015 at 19:26

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That's pretty ridiculous. For the money, the Renegade is the much better vehicle.

Frenchlicker > G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 04/16/2015 at 19:55

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You can tell the designers cared more with the Renegade too. I don't know nor do I think that it would be super reliable but it is at the top of the list currently.

NunchuckWoolery > Frenchlicker 04/16/2015 at 20:02

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Trax rides well, but could use another 30hp and outside of the LTZ model you're stuck with 16 inch wheels that look too small. And the version of mylink in it doesn't always respond to inputs on the touchscreen.