Hi all- New here, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on the performance of the manual Renny on trails. It seems pretty capable, but I've had some difficulty climbing hills here in Colorado without stalling the engine. It seems like the turbo needs to have high RPMs to get enough power, but I can't get those RPMs without keeping my speed up, which means approaching hazards faster than I can handle. I damaged my exhaust and rear diff trying to clear some rocks at speed on Mt. Antero. When I slow down to a manageable speed, I start to lose power and stall on the hill, making a restart difficult and burning the clutch. Meanwhile, my friend in an automatic Ford Escape just shifts to 4WD Low and crawls up no problem. My ideas for managing this (short of getting a Trailhawk or Wrangler) are to scout hills before taking a speedy ascent (hard to do on long ascents in CO) or really try to modulate the clutch more to manage the transmission (difficult to pull off). Any thoughts? Thanks. By the way, I have been driving manuals my whole life, but I am new to Jeep. I got my 2016 Renegade in March of this year.
Stay in first gear as long as possible? We haven't done any trails in our manual Renegade, but lots of hills. The clutch in the Renegade is tricky, though. I'm sure Jeep would say it wasn't made for the trails anyway, cause it isn't trail rated...blah blah.
Yeah, this is all in first gear for sure. The Trailhawk has the rock mode, which is just lower gearing for exactly this,but I enjoyed the manual too much to get a trailhawk. I've heard on some other forums that turning off the traction control can help so that you can get full power to all the wheels. I might try this next time.
FCA might do something silly like... void your warranties for taking your non-trail rated 4x4 off the pavement..
Coming into this late, but i'm a newer Renegade owner and also a die hard manual fanatic and i have felt your pain! I'm in SD and all our trails are romps up and down rocky hills and the wimpy 1st gear along with the small displacement of the 1.4 does make you want to keep the jeep in the 2k+ RPM range, but that has us going a bit fast. According to the sheet we're making max torque (184lb-ft @ 2500) my current strategy is when necessary provide a minimal amount of clutch slip to keep the RPM around the 2k mark. This eliminates my stalling problem and with a good line/scouting allows me to get off the clutch as quickly as possible to prevent as much premature ware as I can. I'm currently in the market for some larger tires and this discovered "problem" is really making me consider my tire size. Have you found a better way to tackle this problem?
