Megane III - review

A year passes since my parents signed over to me their 5-year-old Renault Megane III, after my father had given in to his whim to upgrade to Megane IV (I call it a whim, since if somebody drives less than 10,000 kilometres per year, changing a vehicle after five years is nothing but the whim).

This meant a farewell to Megane II (2003), my first car whose reliability on account of age could have been called into question. I had liked that car and it had met all my needs, but wondering what would pack up next had made no sense.

In terms of interior and its functionalities, I have not noticed much upgrade. The car had nearly everything the trim version old Megane II had, but since Megane III is more like no-frill version, some fancy fittings are missing. I still hanker after hands-free door opening system (you could only approach a car and have the card with you to open and start the vehicle), yet on the other hand air-conditioning is more efficient and audio system has AUX socket.

The upgrade is felt most intensely when it comes to dynamics the 1.4 litre turbocharged engine offers. The engine works like a dream above 2k revolutions per minute which comes in useful when overtaking or changing lanes when traffic moves at higher speed on the adjacent lane.

As with all turbocharged petrol-fuelled engines, fuel efficiency critically hinges upon how your right feet touches the accelerator pedal. If you drive aggressively in town, expect the engine to gobble up nearly 10 litres per 100 kilometres, but if you practice eco-driving like I do, 8 litres in town is utterly achievable. Beyond town, if you drive smoothly, 6 litres is within reach, while on motorways, while sticking to speed limits, the engine might consume around 8 litres per 100 kilometres. I believe these are all modest results though the very from average fuel consumption declared by carmakers.

The two drawbacks I find most irritating are slowly heating up engine and “too short” gears. As for the former, in winter, when the car is parked outside, it might take up to a 10-kilometre drive before the engine reaches its working temperature. As for the latter, though the car has six gears (excluding the rear one), the sixth gear, at which you can comfortably cruise at 70 kmph, is in fact the fifth gear and the car lacks the actual sixth gear for out-of-town and motorway driving (which would reduce appetite for petrol as well).

The car is definitely good for longer runs (I am not in favour of driving short distances and prefer to use public transport around Warsaw) therefore it perfectly serves its purpose in private and business trips around Poland (and beyond). I actually have not driven it that very much, since the car now has around 39,700 kilometres on the clock, while a year ago it had exactly 30,000. Over the past year and less than 10,000 kilometres the only breakdown was an airbag sensor defect, repaired in Renault garage for somewhat less than PLN 400 (but the breakdown hit just before setting off to Berlin in May and I drove over a thousand kilometres unsure whether airbags would go off in case of serious collision).

The car is now over six years old and I plan to keep to going as long as it is economically viable and fear of another breakdown does not begin to cause me discomfort. I do not need to swank about a fancy car, so the vision of being the owner of a car whose market value is equal to my monthly after-tax salary does not scare me. There are several better ways of spending money than replacing a quickly depreciating, yet not worn-out vehicle with another brand-new one.

Sadly, the prospects of getting a company car are negligibly low and though it is not entirely cost-free (the New Factory has recently introduced a reverse mileage allowances for private travels and punishes drivers whose style of driving results in well above-average fuel consumption), being a user of such vehicle is the most convenient and cost-effective option one can imagine.