Category: Compact MPV 
Price Range: £13,945 to £21,535
Stylish, unusual looks, the view out, versatility, safety features, ride quality, handling, equipment
Highish prices, slightly weak diesel performance, lack of low gear ratios and/or hill descent control, notchy gearchange.
Renault's Scenic RX4 is a cross-over car - half people-carrier, or MPV, and half four-wheel drive. The RX4 has the raised ride height and underbody protection required of an off-roader, and is more accomplished than the old four-wheel drive Espace models Renault used to offer. But never mind the history - the RX4 is an attractive machine based on the hugely successful Megane Scenic, and promises much as a result. Its four-wheel-drive system is designed to direct around 80 percent of the engine's effort towards the front wheels, unless they start to lose traction, in which case the rear wheels get more of a grip on proceedings.
Big wheels and tyres, improved ground clearance and the Scenic's wheel-at-each corner stance heighten its agility, although it doesn't have the set of low-gear ratios needed for really sticky conditions and steep descents. Nor does it utilise the anti-lock-brake system to slow it down hills, in contrast to Land Rover's Freelander. Renault is not intending the RX4 to be a full-blooded off-roader like a Discovery or Jeep, however - it's a machine for adventures more modest than a trans-Saharan sortie. Now on run-out before this generation of Scenic is discontinued (the all-new model will be launched in September 2003), the Scenic RX4 comes only in Fidji special edition form, with either a 140bhp 16-valve 2.0 petrol or the 1.9 dCi direct-injection common-rail diesel (105bhp).
Latest Readers' Drives About the Renault Scenic
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