The Jeep Renegade is the subcompact SUV that almost doesn’t fit well into the Jeep lineup. From the front, the Renegade has some iconic Jeep features, like the headlight shape and grille, but it is much smaller and somehow less practical than the popular Jeep Cherokee and Wrangler. There is something else that the Renegade lacks that might be even worse to consumers — reliability.

Low-reliability scores for the Renegade

The Renegade hasn’t changed much over the past few years, from style and design to overall problems, and that isn’t necessarily a good thing. According to Consumer Reports, it’s not just the newest 2020 model that has questionable reliability, because if you look into buying a used model of previous years you’ll be shocked to see that the Renegade is in the red.

For the 2020 model, there are already two official recalls out, and while they aren’t life-threatening problems that really affect your overall safety it is still annoying to be in and out of the shop. After all, when you’re buying a new car you expect to not have problems right away.

The past few years haven’t been much better with reliability, with similar recalls or worse on earlier model years. Customers for all of the model years haven’t had too many nice things to say about the car overall, and it not only has low-reliability scores it also has poor customer reviews.

Weird interior and poor handling

The interior for the Renegade isn’t exactly the SUV’s saving grace either. The awkwardly small infotainment screen rises awkwardly from the dashboard and sits nestled above very standard climate control knobs. The seats are comfortable but not anything to write home about, and after a few hours, you’ll probably be stopped to stretch as they aren’t ergonomic or designed for lumbar support.

Some people may really love the awkwardly trimmed, overly simplistic design of the Renegade’s interior, but there isn’t much about the material that you could claim is nice. All of the material is hard plastic, with plastic trim, and — you guessed it — more plastic. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you want something that you can take off-road without worrying about damaging, but the Renegade doesn’t live up to the off-road expectations we’ve come to love from the Wrangler.

It isn’t the Jeep Renegade is a bad SUV, and it’s definitely not the worst car you can get into for the price, but it doesn’t exactly live up to our hopes and dreams when we imagine owning a Jeep. If you go into a Renegade knowing exactly what to expect, including the lack of luxury, poor ride quality, and reliability problems, then chances are you just like the Renegade for what it is — an affordable Jeep — and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.