2015 Jeep Renegade
Complaints about this year name fan far more often than the model's other years — 15% of them, about 14× the usual rate of 1.1%.
First year of a new generation. The Jeep Renegade was redesigned for 2015. A first year carries problems nobody has found yet, and they are found by the people who buy it — which is worth knowing before you become one of them.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 511 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 78 |
| Involving a crash | 8 |
| Involving a fire | 8 |
| Recalls | 4 |
| EPA combined | 25.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- transmission — 21.9% of this year's complaints, against 6.4% across the model's other years (3.4×).
- gear — 20% of this year's complaints, against 7% across the model's other years (2.9×). Owners wrote it as: gear, shift, 2nd, service transmission.
- hard — 11.2% of this year's complaints, against 3.5% across the model's other years (3.2×). Owners wrote it as: hard, shifts, jerks, hard shifting.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
Also unusual this year
- transmission — 22% of complaints, 4× usual
- shift — 12% of complaints, 7× usual
- gear — 13% of complaints, 5× usual
What owners wrote
TRANSMISSION HARD SHIFTING INTO 1ST 2ND AND 3RD THAT CAUSES VECHILE TO SLOW DRASTICALLY THEN LUNGE INTO GEARS.
9 SPEED AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION IS NOT ENGINEERED PROPERLY. GEAR SHIFTS ARE VERY HARD AND SUDDEN, ESPECIALLY IN 1-3 GEARS. ACCELERATION IS DELAYED.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 16V529000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 16E013000 SUSPENSION Fixed free of charge.
- 16V545000 TRAILER HITCHES Fixed free of charge.
- 15V508000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Jeep Renegade was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2015 Jeep Renegade? What happened to yours?
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