Car Review: 2018 Renault Mégane Grandtour 1.6 SCe
"...and his number is six hundred and sixty-six."
[ THE ABSTRACT ]
This thing, this... shiny, new, self-propelled tomb of automotive passion, is incredibly French. I'm not being hyperbolic. I do - quite literally - mean that at first I couldn't believe just how French it is. Or how confused it is, though stating that may perhaps be redundant.
After spending a week and close to 800 kilometers with it, I can say with confidence that I hate it much more than I originally thought I would even after the first few days. I was understanding of it at first, seeing why others would like to own such a car, but now I increasingly feel as though it perhaps shouldn't exist at all in this particular form. It's not a bad car in terms of its utility, far from it. It certainly does what is required of it, it works as an appliance on four wheels. However, it is a positively awful car in terms of what it slowly, insidiously does to drivers and to motoring itself. The very essence of this vehicle is – ironically - an anathema to the idea of personal, privately owned transportation. By merely existing, this Mégane is complicit in the ongoing push to phase out cars as we know them – and in this article, I shall explain exactly why that is the case, since this is a widespread trend in the automotive industry.
But before I do that, context first. I do not own this vehicle, I merely borrowed it for a week, as my daily was having its turbo rebuilt, and at the same time I coincidentally managed to find a buyer for my second car, the Mercedes W210 E320 CDI. Thus I ended up without a car, and the Mégane was by far the easiest for me to borrow at the time, so I went it, feeling an odd sense of morbid curiosity. I knew I wasn't going to like it, that much was clear, but... I've never driven something like that. Not something that new, not something that French, and not something with that small of an engine. I've never wanted to own a truly small, low output engine, but at the same time I've been wondering just how bad could it really be.
The answer is... quite bad – and that's still a 1.6, not a 1.2 or worse - and yet the engine ended up being not even remotely close to the thing, which bothered me the most.
[ THE SPECS & FEATURES ]
This grey, inert, just-above-entry-level pile of subtle motoring tragedy is indeed powered by a naturally aspirated, four valve per cylinder, 1.6 liter, port-injected, petrol inline 4, which is mated to a 5 speed manual transmission, and delivers its barely-passing-grade output to the front wheels only.
We’re talking about roughly 110 slaving ponies that get ruthlessly whipped every time you depress the accelerator, and some torque - certainly more than I expected from the displacement and the profound lack of boost. Perhaps it's a courtesy of the cam phasers, or maybe it’s using variable length intake runners or something else, I don't know for sure. Regardless, I am not joking about about the torque (or the tortured, screaming combustion-equines). Though it may be very modest compared to what I'm used to, it is clearly the focus of this powerplant. It feels like it has an identity crisis and desperately wants to be a diesel. You definitely do need to rev it out to get the most out of it, but it gives the impression that it absolutely loathes doing that, and is by far the most happy in the 1000 – 4000 RPM range, which... just feels wrong for a borderline motorbike displacement petrol lump. This thing should rev like a Honda, but… it doesn’t. There are no horses under the hood, only little fat ponies with legs far too short and thick to be broken, denying them the sweet release of being put out of their misery.
That aspect aside, the car is fairly light at a bit over 1200 kilograms (2700 lbs.) empty, and it's pretty small as well, roughly the size of the Ford Focus and similar vehicles. It's going to ask about 7 – 8 liters of fuel from you per 100 kilometers and take you about 600 to a tank, which is fine, until you realize that if it were equipped with a 2 liter turbodiesel, it could be easily putting out 50% more power and close to triple the torque, while asking for 2 fewer liters per 100 kilometers. That's my main issue. 7 – 8 liters is completely acceptable as an average fuel consumption, however it's extremely depressing to only be getting 110 breathless ponies for it, when my E320 CDI was in the same range. Except it was a large sedan with a 3.2 liter straight 6 turbodiesel putting out 197 draft horses and 470 Nm of torque through an old 5 speed slushbox.
The equipment, however, is relatively generous for what it is – you get dual zone climate control (like the W210!), keyless entry and start, heated front seats, bluetooth connectivity, parking sensors, cruise control, et cetera... and yet, at the same time, you are spared such nowadays ubiquitous abominations as engine stop-start, lane keep assist, emergency braking and collision avoidance assist, or huge touch screens. It doesn't constantly yell at you, it doesn't try to steer or brake for you, it's not really autonomous at all, it’s just a tool you control yourself – as all cars should be. In that sense it feels older than it is and yet it’s overwhelmingly clear from everything else, that this was a budget decision, not a matter of intent and conviction.
And with that...
[ THE CONCRETE ]
The suspension is simultaneously awesome and atrocious. Despite being very simple and running regular coil springs and dampers, rather than pneumatic or hydraulic struts, it is extremely good at soaking up all the lumps and bumps and potholes. It's really quite comfortable, but by the same token unbelievably out of place in a car of this class, size and weight. I've owned or driven a fair few cars over the years, and among them the aforementioned ex-Taxi E-class, a Mitsubishi Pajero / Montero / Shogun, or an old Mondeo station wagon. And this Mégane is – by far! - the boatiest of them all. It's like guiding a suspiciously small yacht down the road. It feels fairly light, yet it leans and floats like an absolute barge and doesn't inspire the least bit of confidence in the bends. In essence - much like certain humans - this car is desperately pretending to be something that it's not. It's a cheap economy car and it really feels like it in so many ways – a ratty Mk4 Golf has more of a "premium" feel about it, I swear… yet it's trying so hard to create a luxury experience.
But then it immediately shoots itself in the foot again with other aspects. The steering is unbelievably confused. Putting aside that it's completely and utterly numb – which I can live with as a VAG enthusiast – it's like an old Cadillac at parking lot speeds, where you can one-finger-steer it all day long, but at the same time the rack is unexpectedly quick and thus downright hyperactive at higher speeds. There's no on-center vagueness, it wants to change direction at the slightest input, which makes it feel like a sports car, like it wants to be handled and chucked into bends... yet the suspension absolutely cannot support that. The steering wants to quickly change direction from one tight turn into the next, yet the car itself is a boat, and if you tried to make it do that you'd understeer or roll into the nearest tree.
Similarly, there's absolutely nothing luxurious about the brakes. In line with the time-honoured French tradition, they're overboosted to hell and not particularly conducive to smooth, relaxed driving. To compare it with the W210 E-class once again, its brakes were very gradual and progressive. If you rested your foot on them, you'd gently come to a stop. If you pushed them, you'd quickly come to a stop. And if you stepped on them, they were extremely effective. But always smooth and relaxed at the same time, very easy to modulate.
The Mégane's brakes, however, feel like a hair trigger. If you gently touch them, they're smooth, but the moment you push them at all, they give you everything at once. It's like the graph of a diode's operation if you've ever seen one – as you increase voltage, the current flowing through the diode very slowly increases as well, but then you pass a critical threshold and the line turns almost vertical immediately. There's absolutely nothing luxurious about this characteristic nor is it practical at all – the only purpose it serves is psychological, as it makes people, who are scared of driving and don't like doing it, feel as though their car is very safe or like they're more in control than they actually are.
This pattern then continues in other areas. The throttle pedal has a fairly long travel, yet only utilizes about the first quarter for it – the rest is completely dead. So the engine, too, is essentially controlled by a light switch, and smoothness is achieved – or rather, enforced – by an electronic throttle body, which gradually opens and closes regardless of how sudden your inputs are, creating a rubber band effect slightly reminiscent of a turbocharger.
The clutch pedal feels like something from an arcade machine. It's impossibly light and doesn't spring back with any appreciable force - instead, it seems to come back up gradually, like it has a damper attached to it. If you're used to a regular clutch, your first impression is that your foot is leaving the pedal, which is staying behind, stuck to the floor. It's a crazy, uncanny feeling that made me think something was broken when I initially tried to get moving. At the same time, the biting point is really high and can't really be felt except through the car itself moving. The whole pedal is completely numb and comes across as a weird toy. In practice, once you get going, you're just dumping the clutch all the time and letting it do its thing. This car demands that you abandon good technique, it wants you to operate it like a complete monkey. It will ruin your muscle memory and good habits, and will actively make you a worse driver when it comes to other, more normal cars.
I have experienced this sad reality first-hand. When I bought my current daily – a 2003 VW Golf 3-door 1.9 TDI (ARL) 4motion 6 speed manual – I hadn't driven a manual in more than half a year. I had only automatics at the time. And yes, my clutchwork was a little wonky during the test drive, but I didn't stall it and within minutes I felt confident enough again. Yet when I got into my Golf after a week of driving the Mégane exclusively, I stalled it immediately. And even beyond that embarrassing moment, the first few days with my regular daily I kind of felt like I was learning to drive again to some extent – it was extremely uncomfortable. That is to say, in some sense this fine French automobile has the same or perhaps even worse effect on one's ability to handle and operate normal vehicles than not driving at all. I've owned 8 cars in 9 years of having my license (6 of them manual), driven many others, which were borrowed, and never had this happen until now. Not to the same extent.
This, to me, is the single most dreadful thing about the Renault that I had borrowed. I feel as though it had made me a worse driver, and I dread to imagine how much my physical driving skills would have deteriorated after years of only driving such a car. Not only that, though. I also shudder to think how much my passion for cars would have deteriorated, because by the end of the week I wasn't looking forward to driving at all anymore. Which is very unusual for me. I frequently cover a hundred kilometers a day or more, often on backroads, and I generally enjoy it a quite a bit. It's normal for me to be looking forward to driving while on the job. It's not a huge excitement most of the time, but it's like looking forward to a lunch or a dinner. One of the basic enjoyments in life for me is being behind the wheel of a car.
And yet when my only car was the Mégane, I stopped enjoying it and looking forward to it, even though nothing had changed otherwise. I was still doing the same things, my life was still the same, I was only using a different car to go about my business. But that was enough to make me lose interest and start viewing driving as an annoying chore, which is precisely how countless people see it.
This is what brings me to the point, which I outlined in the very beginning. Yes, I understand that for many people – especially for city dwellers and suburban residents – regular driving cannot possibly be enjoyable. Being stuck in heavy traffic for hours on end is never fun, it can only be more or less of a pain. However, this simply isn't the case for great many of us. Countless people live and drive in areas, where it absolutely can be enjoyable to do so at regular speeds, without breaking the law... and yet it's possible that they have no idea whatsoever that it may be enjoyable at all, because they've only ever driven cars, which are completely numb, soulless and deliberately designed to shield the driver from feeling *anything* while behind the wheel.
What I'm saying may sound like the yapping of a hobbyist – because that is partly what it is – however there's more to it than that. This problem ultimately gets very political, because the issue of cars has gotten very political as a whole. Almost everyone has a car these days - or multiple, often out of sheer necessity - yet many still wish to see them abolished. They aren't content with simply not owning a car themselves, they want to force that way of life on everyone else, too. And yes, they may try to rationalize this through environmentalist ideology or other intellectual means, but humans are quite simple at their core, and there's little doubt that much of it is ultimately just bitterness of those, who hate driving, as well as the idea that others may be enjoying it… because from their point of view that notion is completely perverse and outrageous.
In truth, ideology is mostly just a post hoc rationalization of what is already there within a human heart. That goes across the board for all the stripes and colours throughout the political, religious and philosophical spectrum, including what I myself am putting forth. And in that sense, it can be said with absolute certainty that dull, soulless cars, which make driving a chore regardless of road conditions and one's mood, are a major contributing factor to the rising anti-car sentiments.
Humans really are just animals beneath all the fancy pretenses... if they are enjoying something, they'll look for reasons as to why it's good. And if they are loathing something, they'll look for reasons as to why it's bad. There isn't much more to it than that in most cases. Very few people, relatively speaking, have the ability to reject something they enjoy - that is socially acceptable - for entirely rational reasons. They are hypocrits, who will put forth endless arguments for why things they already dislike are bad, getting worked up into frothing moral frenzy, while never questioning those things, which they do personally indulge in.
And the Renault Mégane 4 I've driven... well... it makes the whole experience of car ownership either completely dull and devoid of enjoyment, or it outright renders it unpleasant. Just the way the doors of this car open and close feels seriously unpleasant – by far the worst out of any car I've ever dealt with, even though it's the newest. The doors are very light and flimsy, yet incredibly stiff and oddly hard to open and close despite that fact. They feel unbelievably cheap, while fighting you at the same time. You can buy a ratty two decades old Volkswagen or Mitsubishi and the doors will feel heavenly to use by comparison... and that's not even getting into Mercedes cars, for example.
Simply put, this new-ish car has lots of tech and features, yes, but nothing about it feels good to use. Not the steering wheel, not the gear lever, not the pedals, not the doors, not the switches, just nothing. Not even the stereo is good. The speakers are easily some of the worst I've had the displeasure to encounter in a car, producing extremely flat sound devoid of punch, where all the nuances get lost. None of my favourite songs sounded even remotely right. The interior doesn't even have a nice smell to it, like many older cars do, nor does it smell like anything at all, except maybe the faint scent of cheap plastics. Everything you touch comes across as chintzy, and the entire package feels a whole lot like Chinese washing machines and other appliances. It looks nice from the outside, it's designed to be flashy and stylish, the presentation is there... but a closer look reveals it's all completely superficial, just like an Asian ladyboy covered in ungodly amounts of makeup.
Yes, I like the way this car looks from the outside, it's kind of pretty for what it is, I have to admit. But the moment I open the door I want to walk away. There are – unironically – actual washing machines, which feel better to use than this. Their rotary dials have a better feel than those in this car. Their doors are more satisfying to open and close. Their beeps are nicer to listen to. They come across as more solid and better put together. This thing has a little over 50 000 kilometers on the odometer, and the brake pedal is intermittently squeaky, while the driver's electric window makes horrid scraping noises while going up and down. In all honesty, I would have traded dual zone climate control, keyless entry and start, heated seats, cruise control, parking sensors and other features for basic things like doors that are nice to use, or a gear lever that doesn't feel like a rubbery, plasticky toy when shifting.
But that's the thing. Lists of features sell products to clueless consumers. Nobody will buy a car these days because of the way the doors and the steering wheel feel, at least not at this price point. And yet, at the same time, people still subconsciously don't truly enjoy interacting with these machines, and consequently dislike driving. They can't even properly tell you why, they just feel absolutely nothing for cars, because... the cars they own or lease make it impossible to feel anything for them. If your experience of cars is Renault Mégane 4, it's virtually impossible for you to truly like and appreciate them, understandably so. In turn, this makes it extremely easy to get on-board with the agenda of abolishing them...
...which is why I very much hold this against Renault and other companies producing similar soulless appliances on wheels. Maybe you don't realize it (or is it actually genuine malice?), but in your chasing of consumer trends and maximum short term profits, you are damaging the very concept of car ownership in the long run. By making cars that are easy to sell, but impossible to love, you are undermining your own business in the future. Yes, there have always been boring cars! The VW Beetle and the Citroen 2CV were both quite boring. And yet they attracted a cult following, which lasts to this very day, because they have a certain soul to them, a certain charm, which people adore even now. Does anyone think that the likes of Renault Mégane 4 will ever have such a following, despite being technically superior machines?
So why, then, would young people these days ever want to own cars of their own, if this is what they are growing up surrounded by? Why wouldn't they rejoice at the idea of autonomous, battery electric pods to shuttle them about? Those won't be any more or less soulless, but at least they'll allow them to use the time for something else, the way public transportation does.
Renault Mégane 4... the reason to get excited for riding on buses and trains.
PS: The rear and side visibility are dreadful, you can’t see anything out of this pile, AND even people, who know nothing about cars, think it’s for women.
PPS: I don’t hate the owners of these shitheaps, I feel bad for them, as their tastes have been ruined like those of a child growing up on fastfood, and they have no idea that a car can actually feel pleasant to use. What they think is pleasant is really just an absence of feeling and effort. I’m not joking. I wasn’t truly enjoying the Mégane at all, but when I got back into my Golf, it felt bad to use at first, because everything was much more difficult and it seemed like the car was fighting me. I had to actively overcome that in order to start having fun again. That’s why I absolutely, positively despise the Mégane as much as I do. It’s automotive poison. The equivalent of living on frozen microwave meals, junkfood and instant coffee, while avoiding exercise or any sort of physical activity like the plague.