Renault hopes the new version of the Scenic will halt the falling sales seen for the first half of the year.
Scenic fleet registrations so far this year have been little more than a tenth of what they were last year, but the new model is a marked improvement on the outgoing car.
This is our first UK drive of the all-new five-seat mini-MPV and we’re as impressed now as we were on the international launch.
Interior materials quality is first rate and the layout of the flat-screen dashboard is better for right-hand drive cars over the left-hookers (fewer readings are obscured).
At launch we tested the 110PS 1.5 dCi engine, but the 130PS 1.9 dCi we’ve now driven offers a significant performance hike with only a small decrease in efficiency. The engine is also smooth and refined, sits in the 20% BIK band and is capable of more than 50mpg.
The same positive comments can’t be made about the optional TomTom satnav that’s easily the most complicated system we’ve seen. It may be a reasonable £450, but it’s not an option we’d select.
The only other real negative about the car is the residual value. Renault may have registered fewer Scenics this year than the year before, but KwikCarcost gives the car a 29.7% RV figure, resulting in a 45.1 pence per mile running cost.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
