The 148bhp 1.3-litre unit feels far stronger, endowing the Renegade with the kind of performance you expect from a small SUV. In-gear flexibility is genuinely impressive, and despite having the drag coefficient of a Georgian house, the Renegade is capable of venturing above 80mph with minimal fuss – just be prepared for a cacophony of wind noise generated by that bluff front end and huge door mirrors.
But don’t go thinking that the new 1.3 is faultless. Oh no. Despite offering up quite a bit more punch than the 1.0-litre, it’s let down by a jerky and surprisingly dim-witted dual-clutch automatic gearbox. Around town, the six-speed unit has a tendency to hesitate when trying to find the correct ratio, and then when you finally get moving and want to modulate the throttle, the engine often holds onto boost for a fraction longer than you’d like, resulting in unintended acceleration.
The end result is a car that's very difficult to drive smoothly, which is a shame because there’s nothing wrong with its objective straight-line performance. The range-topping 178bhp 1.3 comes with a more suitable nine-speed automatic gearbox, but it wasn’t available to test at launch.