OK, drove a couple of hundred miles or so in the Scenic over the weekend, and I've got to know it a bit better. These are my thoughts:
Engine and performance:
The smooth, relaxed nature of the 1.9 dCi engine suits the car perfectly. Apart from a slight vibration and a little clatter at idle, it's completely inoffensive and largely inaudible when on the move. It's a little "dead" at the very bottom of the rev range, but nothing compared to the bottom end chasm of the Mondeo. It does lack that "pull from nothing" feel and bottom end welly of a VAG PD unit though. That said, from 1500 RPM the boost builds smoothly, and from 2,000 RPM, it responds instantly to small changes in throttle [sic] position with a smooth, linear wave of torque. It will pull smoothly to an indicated 4000 RPM without any apparent tail off in acceleration. NVH levels are among the lowest of any diesel I've ever driven, and noise levels from inside the car are lower than the 1.6 petrol version we also drove.
Performance is fine in the context of an MPV. Performance figures vary depending on where you look, with 0-60 being quoted as anything between 10 and 12 seconds in various magazines. I would guess the lower half of this range to be accurate, as the Mondeo was quoted as 12.1 and there is just no comparison on the road.
As always with a diesel, it's the midrange where things gel best, and despite a hugely tall 6th gear, you don't need to drop out of top at anything above 50 mph on the motorway. If you do need to pull out in a hurry, dropping to 5th sees swift, effortless motorway overtakes at all half legal speeds. The gearbox itself is surprisingly short of throw, and the change quality is very good -it's no hardship to change down.
As of the end of yesterday, the computer reckoned we'd averaged 41.9 mpg since we picked it up. Haven't refilled it yet, so can't say how accurate this is. I don't think that's bad for a tonne and a half of car though.
Handling and ride:
The car is very softly sprung which translates into a very comfortable ride around town. At higher speeds, the suspension is less convincing, and the ride can feel a little fidgety over motorway bumps. Float over undulations and crests is well damped generally, but again at higher speeds it can feel a little flustered. I guess this shows how superb the Mondeo was in that even with 130k on the clock it had better composure at speed, and better bump absorption, but the Renault is by no means a duffer. It's just not as polished.
I was very critical of the electric PAS early on, but familiarity has improved my view slightly. It does actually have some feel, although the weighting is artifical and there's a horrible "rubbery" feel to the self-centring action. Again, the Mondeo (and our Fiesta) "chatter" through the steering constantly in response to surface changes and bumps, and the Renault in comparison seems to filter all this out as if it were an unwanted nuisance. I miss it, for one, but maybe I'm in a minority. A little gets through, but it definitely lacks that feeling of directness and near-perfect weighting that I'm used to with both Fords.
Handling itself is actually very competent, but any confidence is reduced because you can't really feel what's going on. Body roll is nowhere near as bad as the soft springing would suggest, and for a tall vehicle, stability feels very good. It understeers gently at the limit, and the nose will come back into line with a lift. That's the extent of the throttle adjustability on offer, but I keep reminding myself it's an MPV and not built for such things. The benefit of this isolation from the mechanical bits is a fantastic sense of refinement. There is virtually no road or suspension noise, and this combined with the quiet engine mentioned earlier makes for a relaxed car with general noise levels that wouldn't be out of place on a £30k exec car.
Equipment and comfort:
This is the Scenic's trump card, along with practicality. It has superb seats which feel a little squishy on first encounter, but support in all the right places. The driving position cannot reasonably be faulted with a huge range of adjustment on both seat and wheel, and a little stubby gearlever which falls neatly to hand, and can be moved by a flick of the wrist with your arm resting on the perfectly placed centre armrest. Visibility is excellent, the digi-dash very effective, and overall it's just a very pleasant place to be.
The dash plastics are of good quality and the trim seems to have shrugged off 36,000 miles of use without showing signs of wear. There's an intermittent squeak from somewhere down in the driver's footwell and another from the load area, but they're not intrusive. Build quality in comparison to the Renaults of yesteryear is in a different league, although it somehow doesn't feel as robust as the Mondeo, despite nicer touchy feely plastics. This is just gut feeling though, and I have no evidence to back it up.
The panoramic sunroof is superb, allowing huge amounts of light into the car when the blinds are retracted, and giving an almost convertible feel when fully retracted. The kids are smitten with it. There's a little wind noise from it over 80 mph, which the dealer is looking at when it goes in for a service on Wednesday. They didn't seem concerned by this over the phone, and reckoned it could be sorted easily.
As for the kit list, the only things I can think it doesn't have are cruise control, leather, electric seats and full climate (it has "basic" air-con). Everything else you could reasonably think of, and a lot you couldn't, are present. It all works too. We have already fallen in love with the keyless operation, but I still don't like the electric parking brake, even if it does, in fairness, work very well.
Practicality
The boot is vast, which is why we went for the Grand ( we won't need the 7 seats more than very occasionally). I like the way the rear seats slide forwards to give more bootspace, or rearwards to give more legroom. I like the cubby holes everwhere and the huge air-conditioned glovebox. I particularly like the integral rear sunblinds and the picnic tables on the seat backs.
Not having anywhere to store the rear load cover when the extra seats are in use, and the boot carpet which slides around are minor annoyances. The grey plastic bumpers seem to mark easily as well.
Summary:
The first few miles are where you normally find irritating things about a car which you didn't notice on the test drive, and this has been true to an extent. It has a couple of squeaks inside I didn't pick up, and the sunroof is noisy at a "realistic" motorway cruise as opposed to the legal limit. But on the whole it's exactly what I hoped for. It's a spacious, very comfortable, very refined and a very pleasant car to use. It encourages a more sedate driving style which can only be a good thing with kids in the car, and driven thus, rewards with noise levels and comfort which are as soothing as any half-affordable exec car I've been in. It's no drivers car, and I know the C-MAX would have been a much more entertaining prospect, but it has a level of practicality which ticked all our boxes. We also both liked the styling.
As long as it remains reliable, and doesn't cost a fortune to keep running, I very much look forward to this being our main family transport for the foreseeable future, and would recommend anyone looking for a practical midi-MPV to give one serious consideration.
|
