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Renault Megane Scenic 1.4 16V first impression.

Have you ever gone upstairs in your home and then noticed you have dog poo on your shoe? The anger, frustration and contempt for the pond dwelling scum who left poo where someone could step in it in the twenty first century is only over shadowed by the overwhelming disappointment caused by the realisation you have traipsed that poo through your house.

That feeling is the Renault Megane Scenic.



I have previously stated that men driving people carriers are the worst drivers in the world. They cut you up, tailgate, try to kill cyclists instead of pretending to try and overtake and if you ever see a people carrier driven by a man less than 150% of the speed limit it's because they already have nine points or it's as fast as the knackered clutch will allow.



Now I have driven one for roughly three quarters of a mile I completely understand.

It's an elevated seat position like a Transit only without the power, handling or any idea what the clutch, throttle pedals or steering wheel are connected to. So vague driving that car for a few minutes was like watching a box set of Lost. The brakes are superb in an all or nothing kind of way that leaves you stopped six feet before any junction.

No interior shot as it's too distressing. I'll don my bio-hazard suit and give it a wash tomorrow. I think I'll drill holes in the floor and take a pressure washer to it.

Oh god I laughed too hard at this. Please buy more cars to do this with!

A 1.4 with a towbar though - seriously though
Why? did the previous owner think it was a good idea?

Tbh it depends what you want a car for, if you wanted it to be a bash around - scraggy car fine, it'll do the job

But if its to be a family motor with long journeys etc i'd be distressed tooo
Its a Renault, it'll fail soon enough

Ziggy

2001 Daewoo Matiz 800 SE Plus.

This was my 1st car, and I absolutely loved it. Surprisingly nippy for its 50bhp, 796cc engine, it was great fun to drive, the seats were very comfy, and for a Korean car, it was characterful too. The downsides were the fact that it started rusting at the back of the sills at the young age of 8, and due to the very high emissions, the tax was ridiculously expensive.

Ziggy122 said:

A 1.4 with a towbar though - seriously though
Why? did the previous owner think it was a good idea?

Ziggy

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All or nothing brakes and a towbar? I'm looking forward to being tailgated.

Renault Laguna 1.9tdci estate (2002).
It goes roughly where you point it.
In fact it just goes roughly.
Boot is a fairly decent size.
Some of the things that used to work still work pretty well, e.g. the glovebox, three of the electric windows, one of the windscreen wipers.
It's fairly comfortable. Well, it was until about five minutes after buying it when the driver's seat jammed in its most upright position.
It's easy to concentrate on the road because there is very little of interest inside the car to distract you.

Do you have a pathological aversion to used cars? Do you want all mod cons but you aren't that bothered about the car they are attached to? Do you want every journey to feel like a wet monday morning commute in December? You need a Mitsubishi Mirage.


When I had this as courtesy car while they were fault finding on the mazda I had an epiphany. Some people say the death of a loved or a horrible personal tragedy puts things in perspective. This thing had the same effect after 3 days of driving this I went back to the garage to pick up the mazda...the intermittent rattle was still there and god how I'd missed it..

So positives. Hmmmm....

Well the parcel shelf has two levels so I can either hide one or up to three corpses in the back, good anchor points in case you're not transporting a corpse, the back seats only take a few sunny days to dry. fully comp' insurance is very reasonable, parts are abundant and cheap as there are thousands being broken for spares (probably an omen and not a good thing at all) and now the tyres are inflated properly the feedback has gone from nonexistent to as vague as asking a teenager what they want for dinner.

I won a pair of colour coded bumper for 99p and they have made a world of difference.



It's gone from terrible to crap.

Here's the thing and apart from having the same load space as a Transit Connect without the insurance premium. A friend popped round to see me today and I said "It's just a car". She said that since she has known me I have never owned "just a car". Then it dawned on me she was right. All my cars have had something about them, rare, interesting, fun, quick, fast but "just a car" is new territory for me.

I'm looking forward to driving to work completely guilt free in the morning.

Mazda 7 Furano

Unfortunately I no longer have photos of the car, so these internet ones will have to do.


The boy racer's choice of people carrier.



Great sporty car, comes complete with 7 seats so you and your six friends can all roll down to your nearest Tesco extra to park in the carpark and play your sick beats. Which is handy, 'cause this baby has a great stereo system, and a six CD changer. Also has a nice exhaust so now even though you have a family, you can still rev it hard at a set of traffic lights next to a 17 year old in a micra to establish yourself, truly, as the alpha male.

Also comes with a nice green glowing EVERYTHING inside. Great for being blinded on those night time drives home.



Outside the car comes with a spoiler for uber downforce, alloy wheels and a full bodykit, and these nice early 2000s euro style tailights, and sliding doors make for easy kidnappings or drive bys.


Looks great when it's parked on your drive.

Which unfortunately is most of the time due to the suspension set up. I can only imagine whoever designed the suspension only had a few days left to work for Mazda, so made their decisions as a final spiteful act. The tires wear insanely fast on the inner edge, because ya'know. Kids love camber these days. The beauty of it, lies in the fact this can't be changed - and because the car runs tires as wide as a small bus, you'll be forking out more for them than you will the car itself. As a side effect of the sheer sportiness, the ride is rough. But that's also fine, because you'll just have to replace the shock absorbers. Again.


All in all, great car if you enjoy spending a lot of time working on a car, but pretending they're in a sports car when it finally does go somewhere.

Renault Estafette 1.3

As is LHD isn't inconvenient enough, try reversing the gearbox layout also. Compound this by not adding a reversing lamp so no one else on the road has a clue that you're coming back at speed.

Further complications include a speedo in kmh only and a gearbox with ratios that would make a 'cento sporting blush resulting in a top speed of approx 50mph.

Dont buy one if you want any ride comfort whatsoever or the ability to hold a conversation with your co-victims.

In mitigation, it has a sliding driver's door with holdback and strap, so you can leave it open UPS stylee come summer and the three-part bootlid is brilliant. Oh and it'd swallow stuff if you wanted it to. Oh, and it's a very good looker.

Renault Grand Scenic 1.6 (Petrol)

Brilliant for carrying up to 7 people and can swallow just about anything you want (limiting is 1.8m x 1m x 0.8m or upto 2.4m x 0.6m x 0.6m) provided you do without needing to carry people. Very capable at absorbing abuse and bodily fluids from children.

Returns 30mpg average, which isnt bad considering it's size. Has an odd variety of squeaks, rattles and is entirely competent at throwing spurious, undiagnosable faults requiring trips to specialist maintainers.

Looks better than the multipla, just.

Chrysler Ypsilon Twinair

No idea why they didnt call it Lancia although all distinguishing marks are there. Looks the mutts, feisty turbo-twinpot sounds like an angry bee, better still when ECO is off. Probably the best sounding engine ever below 2.5L. Goes really well with ECO off, but is generally tolerable with ECO on.

Handling is OK although wet weather shows the rear suspension is well under par.

You'll buy one for the noise and the noise alone above all other factors. You'll never ever regret that decision.

Rear visibility is crap. But it doesnt matter as it sounds great.
Oh, and you can get one that'll park itself, that's kinda scary. Also, I think I forgot to mention the noise.

Fiat Punto 1.2 Active.

A lovely car. The styling looks every bit as good now as it did when it was 1st launched. A bit basic now, but it has most of the essentials: PAS, central locking, electric front windows and twin airbags. A very good car to drive, it handled well, the brakes were good, (even if ABS would've been useful at times) and the engine was lovely: no, it wasn't the most powerful thing on 4 wheels, but it was lovely and responsive, surprisingly nippy, and made a lovely, characterful noise. I loved this car, and only sold it when it developed a PAS fault which would've been too expensive to repair for the age and value of the car. If, for some reason, I found meself having to buy a cheap, old car to get around in, I wouldn't hesitate to try and find a good Punto mk2.

This car actually makes me feel angry, its as though it was designed simply to appeal to people who supersize everything they buy.. as long as its big that's all that matters.
Every time I see one it has one spacesaver spare wheel fitted and the other three are some god awful Halfords multi fit rubbish... nasty nasty ebay led running lights and about ten kids in the back... the driver is always wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and his partner is wearing a Lonsdale tracksuit and a Croydon facelift.
I know people who own them and they have had problems that I've never even experienced on 70's british Leyland junk that I've owned.
Its a style free wasteland of a car and I'd rather crawl than ever have to be transported anywhere in one of these criminal waste of metal and plastic..... how dare Vauxhall foist this crap on the public..how bloody dare they!!!

Gavv8 said:

This car actually makes me feel angry, its as though it was designed simply to appeal to people who supersize everything they buy.. as long as its big that's all that matters.
Every time I see one it has one spacesaver spare wheel fitted and the other three are some god awful Halfords multi fit rubbish... nasty nasty ebay led running lights and about ten kids in the back... the driver is always wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and his partner is wearing a Lonsdale tracksuit and a Croydon facelift.
I know people who own them and they have had problems that I've never even experienced on 70's british Leyland junk that I've owned.
Its a style free wasteland of a car and I'd rather crawl than ever have to be transported anywhere in one of these criminal waste of metal and plastic..... how dare Vauxhall foist this crap on the public..how bloody dare they!!!

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Could be worse, lol!!

The Megvan is going. I've driven it three times and hate it more than I ever thought I could possibly hate anything. It's gutlessly slow, handles like the tyres are flat all the time, more body roll than Eddie Murphy's entire Clump collection, the controls are as vague as asking a teenager what they want for dinner and the smell has come back. Grrrrrr!

One massive redemption that's going to save it from the scrapheap is I've been offered four times what it owes me and some interesting part exchanges.

Liquid Knight said:

The Megvan is going. I've driven it three times and hate it more than I ever thought I could possibly hate anything. It's gutlessly slow, handles like the tyres are flat all the time, more body roll than Eddie Murphy's entire Clump collection, the controls are as vague as asking a teenager what they want for dinner and the smell has come back. Grrrrrr!

One massive redemption that's going to save it from the scrapheap is I've been offered four times what it owes me and some interesting part exchanges.

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Why did you buy it in the 1st place, lol?

puntofan01 said:

Why did you buy it in the 1st place, lol?

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I took it as a part exchange and thought it would make a good van but it's just terrible.

Liquid Knight said:

I took it as a part exchange and thought it would make a good van but it's just terrible.

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I see, lol!