|
| Koleos takes the high ground |
|
|
| Monday, 21 July 2008 | |
|
Brian McCulloch puts Renault’s long-awaited 4x4 through its paces. Sales of four-wheel drives now make up seven per cent of the European market, and still show upward trends, while sales for mediumand large-sized saloon cars are stagnant or sliding downwards. Renault’s first modern 4X4, the Koleos, has finally arrived in the showrooms, delayed by years of misconception that the market for 4x4s as the main family car was a brief fad. It is easy to see why the company, which remains very French, failed to see the potential market for these vehicles, thanks in part to the traditions of hunting and paysan frugality. You still see beat-up, old, light front-wheel-drive cars, such as a Renault 4, probably with a plastic bag instead of glass in a side window, parked miles from the nearest tarred road while the owners are in the woods with a gun or a mushroom basket. The off-road countryside is accessible to all, and country people who learned to drive through mud by getting as close to the vines as possible associate a high driving position with a precarious perch on a tractor negotiating a slope. So why would anyone want to pay for expensive extra traction in the name of comfort, fuel consumption and performance? For Renault, the shock of being wrong about the market was cushioned financially by its alliance with Nissan, a world leader in 4x4s. Buying a Nissan is now seen as buying French. The companies each hold a 35% stake in the other so it is no surprise that Renault turned to Nissan for the drive train for the Koleos. It is the same as that found in the new Nissan Xtrail, and features a driveshaft with an electronic coupler where a series of electromagnetic plates determine how much power goes to the back wheels. The system can be switched off, which is a waste: unlike on some rival 4X4s, fuel consumption is the same when it is left in automatic mode. In automatic, four-wheel drive kicks in for the first few metres of every start, before the car effectively becomes a twowheel drive, until the electronic brain realises that the two driving wheels are about to slide. It then distributes some of the power to the rear wheels to keep the vehicle moving. On the road this makes for precise cornering, eliminating nearly all traces of under- or over-steer. For off-roading, or for slippery mud or snow, there is a 4x4 locked mode, which sends equal power to front and back, up to 40kph, when it reverts back to auto mode. The vehicle also has a hill-descent feature which works like an ABS braking system in reverse, enabling steep descents up to 7kph when the angle of the slope is 10° or higher, without worrying about standing on the brakes.  Equally important to driving off-road is the Koleos’ relatively high ground clearance – 188mm in the diesel versions and 206mm in the petrol. Sloping front and back ends help getting up and down slopes and Renault has ensured that a 27° slope can be tackled without the composite bumpers being scratched. Missing tricks for serious offroading are a low-range ‘crawler’ gear and a differential lock, for times when, even with four-wheel drive, wheels threaten to bog down. Eyebrows may also be raised by the ‘space saver’ spare wheel, although Renalt declares it rugged and able to cope with enough offroad situations to get to a garage. Renault clearly does not expect the Koleos to spend much time off-road. Its design has echoes of the top-of-therange Vel Satis, and the dashboard is virtually identical to the Laguna saloon and station wagon. They are officially calling the vehicle a ‘crossover’, saying it combines the virtues of 4x4s with those of monospaces and saloon cars. Built in South Korea at Samsung (a Renault subsidiary), the quality of fixtures and fittings is high, and I heard no squeaks or rattles. The seats are comfortable and the ambiance is ‘upmarket car’ rather than ‘off-road utility’. The test was run in the foothills of the Pyrénées in the Béarn countryside. It took a bit of getting used to driving on narrow roads bordered by deep ditches and avoiding sending oncoming traffic into the grass: at 2.12 metres wide from rear-view mirror to rear-view mirror, the Koleos takes up a lot of road and none of its four corners is visible from the driving seat. On wider roads, the car rode and handled with an ease which belied its girth and 1.6 tonnes. The test organisers decided that forest trails would be more appropriate than the muddy test track, and the Koleos handled steep and slippery slopes with ruts and potholes easily, though it had a tendency to stall if the revs were not kept up while crawling uphill in first. This was not as dramatic as it sounds, as the electronic parking brake stopped any uncontrolled roll-back. For the test Renault provided the topof- the-range model with a 175HP two-litre diesel engine, a six-speed manual gearbox in Privilège trim, and a €3,000 optional GPS system matched to a Bose sound system. The total on-the-road price, including metallic paint, was €38,000. Basic models have only two-wheel drive and either a 150HP, 2-litre diesel or a 170HP 2.5-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine (borrowed from Nissan), the lowest price being €24,900 for the petrol model, Expression trim. Renault claims these prices are among the most competitive for the segment, given the equipment which comes as standard. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
| Drive to help women boost their UK state pensions |
| Further to recent articles in French News about women's pensions, the UK Department of Work and Pensions has issued a press release explaining that "women pensioners could boost their state pension or even be in line for a windfall payment under special terms. | |
| Read more... |
