Update: 3 months later, there are now only eleven new, manual Renegades on dealer lots discoverable via Autotrader. All twelve from Hoblit appear to have sold, so I guess they knew what they had.
The more things change, though, the more they stay the same. Now 1/3rd of the available inventory is at a different dealership, Scott Evans CJD of Georgia. I believe they were one of the four dealerships I identified in September as having 4 such vehicles, so they may not have sold any during that time.
Sadly Scott’s collection is white/white/white/silver, but there is a red Latitude in Iowa I could be tempted to try to buy, if it’s still stuck there later this year and the dealer is willing to haggle. It’ll be, what, 3 years old at that point? Surely they’ve got to be eager to ditch it.
I’ve mentioned a piece of this puzzle in FP comments, but I thought I’d bring it here and expand on it a bit.
Via Autotrader’s search tool, there are fewer than 40 remaining new manual Renegades on U.S. dealer lots. These are all 2018 models, since Jeep dropped the stick shift in 2019 (boo).
(Anyone know what percentage of dealerships are covered by Autotrader? Also worth pointing out that yes, this analysis is subject to the usual problems with self-reported transmission details, but every one I’ve checked via photos is indeed a manual.)
What I find fascinating is the decidedly non-random distribution of these renegade Renegades.
One dealership in California, Hoblit, has twelve! 1/3rd of the remaining examples are in one spot!
There are four dealerships in total with at least four examples each, which means 2/3rds of unsold manual Renegades in the United States are found on just four dealer lots.
Did someone at these dealerships decide to corner the market? Have they been shuffled away from low-selling dealers to ones that have had success? How does this happen?