Renault Scenic (2009-) Review

Comfort and Equipment

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It's much easier to find a comfortable driving position in the third-gen Scenic thanks to its more car-like-angled steering wheel.

That said our driving position with the seat on the lowest setting, steering wheel set high and upright backrest resulted one of the biggest ergonomic errors we've ever come across, with our vision of the speedo completely obscured by the steering wheel.

Luckily, this will only affect left- not right-hand drive cars, but make sure the driving position suits you before you buy.

During our brief drive on French roads it was difficult to make a comprehensive judgement on how the Renault rides, but from our early impression on 16" wheels the added suspension's stiffness is very noticeable, but this is countered by the less aggressive damper settings that helped sooth what could amount to a very busy ride on rougher UK roads. We would tip the Ford C-Max to ride fractionally better.

High-speed refinement is good. The Scenic benefits from far more sound proofing than the last model, although with road and engine noise suppressed there's noticeable wind noise generated around the A-pillars.

There are five trim levels: Extreme, Expression, Dynamique, TomTom Edition and Privilege. All are £2,000 cheaper than the outgoing model.

Equipment levels remain high despite the price cut. All models gain air conditioning, ESP and six airbags.

Expression models that cost £1,600 more add an electric parking brake, fog lights, electric rear windows, sunblinds on the second row and fold-down tables on the rear of the front seats.

The expected popular Dynamique model (an extra £2,600 over Extreme) gets cruise control, handsfree keycard, 16" alloy wheels &poun(dCi 160 and 150 models get 17-inchers), automatic headlights, automatic windscreen wipers and Bluetooth.

Privilege models (an extra £3,800) add electric folding mirrors, rear parking sensors, dual-zone climate control, carpet mats and a central storage unit. A basic built-in sat nav is available for a reasonable £450, but it's separate from the infotainment functions, which means two sets of controls to contend with. A moving centre console improves matters, coming as standard with the Privilege trim and an extra £250 with the Expression and Dynamique trim.