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 Taos 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 Taos doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the Renegade. But it costs extra on the Taos.
The Renegade’s standard lane departure warning system alerts a temporarily inattentive driver when the vehicle begins to leave its lane and gently nudges the vehicle back towards its lane. A lane departure warning system costs extra on the Taos.
The Renegade Limited offers optional ParkSense to help warn the driver about vehicles, pedestrians or other obstacles behind or in front of their vehicle. The Taos doesn’t offer a front parking aid.
Both the Renegade and the Taos have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, height adjustable front shoulder belts, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras, rear cross-path warning, available crash mitigating brakes and daytime running lights.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rates the general design of front seat head restraints for their ability to protect front seat occupants from whiplash injuries. The IIHS also performs a dynamic test on those seats with “good” or “acceptable” geometry. In these ratings, the Renegade is safer than the Taos:
|
Renegade |
Taos |
Overall Evaluation |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
Head Restraint Design |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Distance from Back of Head |
14 mm |
38 mm |
Dynamic Test Rating |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
Seat Design |
Pass |
Fail |
Torso Acceleration |
10.7 g’s |
13.3 g’s |
Max Neck Shearing Force |
0 |
0 |
(Lower numerical results are better in all tests.)
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 Taos was not even a standard “Top Safety Pick” for 2016.