Iconic Esprit Alpine E-Tech 200 Auto Start/Stop 5dr

Looks good, drives pretty well but has limitations. Infotainment lets it down.

Bought this car early October after looking at a lot of other car manufacturers.
Was impressed with the interior, the handling and the 200hp from it's 1.2ltr engine + the battery.
The electric seats have memory settings in both driver and passenger seats but it is fiddly to recall the settings. The driver seat also has a massage function that does help relive your back during long drives, I drove it 800 miles in the first weekend. During that trip it gave me 61 MPG.
Now for the bad bits.
The front seats do not have a tilt function and does not give any support to my legs behind the knees, first car I have had that has no seat tilt.
The infotainment system leaves a lot to be desired, the USB port can only take a memory stick up to 32MB, I have nearly 800 MP3's on the stick but it only lists up to the letter 'I' anything after that you need to use the artist list, then it will only play that artists track.
I also have music videos on my Memory stick but you can't view those either, even when parked.
On earlier models you could install your own apps but the newer models do not allow you to install anything unless it is downloaded from the app store, and even the selection you can download is very limited to what Renault will allow. Most of them seem to be subscription based so I still can't play my music. You can't build a favorites list in the music either so it plays them in sequence, there is a shuffle mode that you can use. I could probably make a favorites folder and put my music in there to play, but I feel after paying out £35+K why should I when every car I have had does allow that function.
The driver assist function has an annoying habit of trying to stop the car by applying the brakes when there is nothing there, on the M6 with 4 lanes of traffic and nothing remotely in front or at the side of me the car decided to stop, wife was thrown against the seatbelt and the dog in the back ended up on the floor in his basket. This has happened a few times on different roads and now I don't use that function often, again I paid for it but cant use it. The car is going back to the dealer for a diagnostic inspection for this.

Report as offensive