For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Jeep Renegade are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The Chevrolet Equinox doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
The Jeep Renegade has a standard driver’s side knee airbag mounted low on the dashboard. The knee airbag helps prevent the driver from sliding under the seatbelts or the main frontal airbag; this keeps the driver better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. A knee airbag also helps keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Equinox doesn’t offer knee airbags.
The Renegade has standard Active Headrests, which use a specially designed headrest to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the Active Headrests system moves the headrests forward to prevent neck and spine injuries. The Equinox doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The Renegade Limited offers optional Park Assist with Rear Stop that uses rear sensors to monitor and automatically apply the brakes to prevent a rear collision. The Equinox doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the Renegade. But it costs extra on the Equinox.
When descending a steep, off-road slope, the Renegade Trailhawk’s standard Hill-descent Control allows you to creep down safely. The Equinox doesn’t offer Hill-descent Control.
The Renegade has a standard blind spot warning system which uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them. A system to reveal vehicles in the Equinox’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Renegade has a standard rear cross-path warning system, which uses sensors in the rear bumper to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side, helping the driver avoid collisions. Rear cross-path warning costs extra on the Equinox.
Both the Renegade and the Equinox have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras, available crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights and rear parking sensors.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does side impact tests on new vehicles. In this test, which crashes the vehicle into a flat barrier at 38.5 MPH and into a post at 20 MPH, results indicate that the Jeep Renegade is safer than the Chevrolet Equinox:
|
|
Renegade |
Equinox |
|
|
Front Seat |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| Chest Movement |
1 inches |
1.1 inches |
| Abdominal Force |
161 lbs. |
195 lbs. |
| Hip Force |
328 lbs. |
357 lbs. |
|
|
Into Pole |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| HIC |
314 |
377 |
| Spine Acceleration |
39 G’s |
40 G’s |
| Hip Force |
625 lbs. |
730 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
For its top level performance in IIHS driver-side small overlap frontal, moderate overlap frontal, side impact, rear impact and roof-crush tests, with its optional front crash prevention system, its “Acceptable” rating in the new passenger-side small overlap crash test, and its available headlight’s “Acceptable” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the Renegade the rating of “Top Safety Pick” for 2019, a rating granted to only 184 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Equinox has not been fully tested, yet.