2025 Jeep Avenger 4XE | UK Review

Jeep's much-lauded crossover finally gets four-wheel drive - can it also be a chip off the old block?

By Nic Cackett / Wednesday, 9 July 2025 / Loading comments

Interesting times for Jeep UK. The firm readily admits it enjoys the kind of brand recognition in this country that a Chinese rival would kill to replicate - and yet it sells a comparatively small amount of actual cars. Traditionally, this shortfall could be attributed to the woeful inadequacy of a lineup that continued to focus on North America. So while British buyers certainly grasped the idea of a Wrangler or a Grand Cherokee, they weren’t necessarily minded to buy one over a like-minded European SUV. And this was sensible because, generally speaking, the European SUVs were all better.

However, the benefits of its position inside the behemoth that is Stellantis are finally starting to bear fruit (and this is some slow-ass fruit we’re talking about; let’s not forget Jeep has been a component of FCA since 2014). Range Rover-rivalling flashiness is on the horizon in the shape of the Wagoneer S, but for now, the Avenger is unarguably the tip of its current spear, it being a B-segment crossover based on the Common Modular Platform that underpins everything from Alfa Romeo Junior to Vauxhall Corsa. The car was designed in Italy and it is built in Poland, and could originally be bought as either a fuel-sipping hybrid or a battery-carrying EV (Jeep’s first, in fact). All of which makes it as European as bruschetta covered in bryndza.

Perhaps more importantly than any of that, it looks good. Jeeps of the past have tended to look like the sort of car you might buy from a low-rent tractor dealership, or like something that rolled off a ship onto Utah Beach. Even the ones that did look alright and appropriately modern weren’t precisely good looking - but the Avenger is. It looks exactly like what would happen if you asked an Italian designer to come up with a chic, well-proportioned compact SUV that took its styling cues from a WJ-gen Grand Cherokee. Which is presumably an approximation of what did happen. The result was sufficiently well received to be crowned European Car of the Year in 2023. Last year, not coincidentally, Jeep almost tripled its sales figures.

Despite this success, the Avenger has barely registered on the PH radar up to this point because while we’re happy to concede that an electrified B-segment crossover is an essential part of any mainstream carmaker’s lineup, we’d generally prefer they stayed at the end of a ten-foot pole. But the introduction of the new 4XE - hot from the docks if the UK launch buzz is to be believed - was sufficiently interesting to coax us from our high horse, mostly on the basis that it returns some off-road authenticity to a package which has been exclusively front-wheel drive up to this point.

The Avenger earns this distinction by taking the existing 48-volt hybrid powertrain and replicating the existing 28hp electric motor on the front axle with one at the back. Et voilà, four-wheel drive. Well, sort of. For the most part, in its default mode, the 4XE functions as a FWD model relying mostly on its 1.2-litre three-pot to do the heavy lifting, and calling on the rear only when necessary - and not at all above 56mph. The Sport setting will call upon both e-motors simultaneously to aid step-off acceleration, although when this results in (at best) 9.5-second-to-62mph performance, it’s safe to say your hair is in no danger of catching alight.

This is all by-the-by, of course - if you’re intending on driving your Avenger solely on asphalt, then you might as well stick with the regular hybrid (or better yet, the base model - which we’ll come to in a moment). The 4XE’s true calling is ostensibly the wild. Or at least as close to the wild as Jeep was willing to let us get in Yorkshire. Not every byway it laid on required all-wheel drive - but the ones that did inevitably benefitted from the Sand & Mud mode within the Selec-Terrain system, the Avenger scampering up hill and down dale with the sort of slow-moving efficiency you’d probably expect (aided in no small part by the optional all-terrain tyres that were fitted).

Jeep briefly indulged its own imagination with the idea that a 22.7:1 gear reducer on the back axle meant the Avenger had access to 1,401lb ft of torque - a claim roughly equivalent to you telling your mates that the spinach in your saag aloo has endowed you with superhuman strength - but at any rate the 4XE’s limitations are less to do with traction than ground clearance. You do get an additional 10mm over standard, although when that adds up to only 210mm (and 22- and 35-degree approach and departure angles) clearly you’re not going to be Dakar-ing it around the place. A light redesign has provided the new model with slightly more protection from bumps and knocks, which is good because you’ll hear some of what’s underfoot testing it out.

Credit where it’s due, though: the 4XE will wade through 400mm of water (previously it was limited to 230mm), which is useful; it gets a new seat material that Jeep reckons is completely waterproof (even more useful) and, presumably for packaging reasons, it adds multi-link suspension at the back - so the wheel articulation has almost certainly improved. Again, it really does look the part, too - especially in tinsel-heavy North Face Edition trim, which adds 17-inch black alloy wheels to a ‘nature-inspired palette’ that mostly boils down to grey with just enough Summit Gold to keep things interesting.

Interesting to whom remains a valid question. A million years ago, PH recalls being told by supremely optimistic Suzuki representatives that the then-new SX4 (an early all-wheel-drive petrol crossover that required all the optimism it could get) might suit an imaginary midwife with remote home visits to make. Today, fewer people need convincing that 4WD is a useful feature, although it feels like the £35,219 asking price for the limited edition range-topper does require some sort of regular use case beyond a vague notion that you might need to drive over wet leaves at some point. Jeep UK boldly highlighted the nation’s byways as a legitimate source of fun - which is true - but unless you live next to a moor in Yorkshire, the opportunities tend to be few and far between.

If you can live with the minor dent to the Avenger’s usability (and the more significant dent to its Jeep-based credibility), we’d ditch the 4XE’s gubbins - along with the rest of the hybridised powertrain and the dual-clutch auto - and buy the entry-level model that the customer site simply identifies as ‘Petrol’. Which is apt because it leaves you with nothing but the 1.2-litre in unencumbered 100hp format, mated to the simple and vanishingly rare pleasure of a six-speed manual gearbox. This combination is not precisely new, though Jeep did suggest that the factory needed persuading that a market for such a mechanically simple variant still existed in the UK, where it was assumed that battery power would reign supreme.

Good that it did. Granted, neither the engine nor the transmission is going to be lauded as class-leading, nor even particularly characterful - and you’ll need a long moment to bring them to the boil - but once you’ve reached peak performance, you can remain there almost indefinitely. The Avenger’s fundamentally well-sorted, passive front-drive chassis and a pleasingly deft sense of what primary ride and body control should feel like (as well as having only 151lb ft of torque to manage) make it endlessly accommodating of both British roads and a banzai attitude to progress. Ultimately, there is insufficient feedback or genuine thrill to qualify it as anything like a cult classic - but it is also true that the simplest, most cost-effective model brought to mind a bygone era when virtually any European hatchback worth its salt could be relied upon to raise a smile. How ironic and curiously wonderful to report its resurrection in a Jeep that costs from £26,050. With any luck, your mum might buy one.

Specification | Jeep Avenger 4XE North Face Edition

Engine: 1,199cc, three-cylinder, petrol, dual e-motor
Transmission: six-speed dual-clutch automatic, eAWD
Power (hp): 136 @ 5,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 170 @ 1,750rpm
0-62mph: 9.5 seconds
Top speed: 121mph
Weight: 1,475kg
MPG: 52.3 (WLTP)
CO2: 122g/km (WLTP)
Price: £35,219