Jeep Avenger - long-term review

It was all going so well, for about a week. Jeep re-flashed the software on RX73 GAO - which fixed the intermittent heater fault that meant it only blew Artic air - and swapped it back for the petrol Avenger I’d been using in the meantime. This all happened just in time for it to take up arms against the Volvo EX30 and every rival on the planet in our big EV crossover test – which you can watch below.

First day of the shoot? Not a problem - the Avenger held its head high, made most of the other stuff there look a bit boring and generally went about its business calmly and quite slowly (yes, when you compare it to the competition Jeep has been very measly with the bhp). The issue came when Ollie Marriage took it home that night and hooked it up to his home charger. Here’s Ollie, clearly avoiding the fact that his home charger may have poisoned the Jeep. “I charged it at home, but it cut out at 76 per cent overnight. I then drove to Dunsfold, tried to charge en-route but it refused to take anything from any public chargers… and started flickering up a worrying variety of dash warnings. Although it continued to operate, just, they got worse throughout the day.”

It was at this point that Ollie, being the most senior member of staff on location and head of car testing did what anyone who takes their management role seriously would do… he palmed the problem off to Greg Potts who had to try and nurse it from the depths of Surrey back to the office car park in west London. Here’s Greg: “I was left with the short straw and had to take the already ailing Avenger away from the shoot. I brought backup with me to a fast charger in the form of Peter Rawlins in an almost fully-charged e-Niro, and again the Avenger failed to accept any charge with a red light coming on by the plug socket.

“With 30 per cent battery left I decided that with a feathery right foot I could make it back to the office. Made it back (despite the parking sensors randomly flaring up when there was nothing near the car on a dual carriageway) with 11 per cent charge remaining, easy, but when I then tried to move spaces to get access to a three-pin plug, it wouldn’t budge. The car was switching on and seemingly going into drive/reverse but wasn’t sending any power to the wheels.

"Next day I disconnected the 12v battery and connected it back up again (the old switch it off and on again trick, classic) and power returned. It still wouldn’t charge though so it went back to Jeep in Coventry on the back of a recovery truck for another software update.”

A harrowing tale, you’ll agree. Jeep instantly replaced the Avenger with an identical Sun Yellow car, and did offer to swap it back again for RX73 GAO once the software was reinstalled (again), which supposedly fixed everything. But it’s not good is it? Software is the new battle ground for EVs and while Jeep has got the design and driving manners nailed on for the Avenger, it’s all for nothing if the code that sticks it all together is riddles with gremlins. Fingers crossed it’ll be a smoother ride from here.