Renault Clio III 1.2 TCE100 SportTourer - first impressions

... after one year of driving ...


Impressions from the offer and the official car dealer:
Probably it is something common but some detail of the specifications of the car were, in my view, implied... like seat belts. Well, the description did not mention seat belts but had specified thing like: electric heated back window, fog lamps (front and back), mirror in the passenger side sun visor (one can get on the drivers side as well), headlight (seriously).
Then in an upgrade package: color-matched door mirrors (shell I read that the basic package gets color mismatched mirrors or...), colour-matched side moldings...

Well, these are only small things but I was a bit confused what happens to things I assume implied and was not mentioned - spare tire, light in the glove box, jack...

The "spare tire" replacement kit

No. I am serious. I mention these three because: A spare tire cost additionally 750 SEK or one gets the default tire repair kit for free. There is no light in the glove box - I never got definitive answer why. Is it supposed to have or just went missing... Jack - there is a space for the jack, but the car dealer said that the jack comes with the spare tire option only. And this implies that you do not need jack, since one can simply glue the tire after all. We had short discussion about it, but  I gave up on this since it was not in the description. But I did not gave up on the "flexible floor in the luggage compartment" since it was in the description!... I bought second-hand jack from a scrap yard that cost less than the hassle to argue... I have improvised with the light in the glove box - after all there is substantial duration of the year that is quite dark here in Sweden.

The car itself (only things that is worth mentioning):

Citroen steering wheel

Clio III interior

Very nice and well balanced interior. It is a bit on the too old and simple side, but I prefer to have few buttons on the steering wheel related to the car functionality instead of a DJ control center. Like the one in the picture - it looks cool but just check what buttons are there... The SportTourer is the estate version of the hatchback. It really gives you some extra space. The trunk is spacy and well thought. The folding floor is also very practical - I keep all the mess beneath, so the trunk is simply clean and uncluttered. The car is quite maneuverable and easy to park.

The spare tire (if any) goes under the car, not very convenient but it is very practical since it does not take space from he trunk.

All doors open wide enough, so it is easy to get inside and put stuff. There is a small trick that makes more space on the back. The seats are a bit smaller but still quite comfortable. I did not notice that until I tried to put temporarily a seat cover on the back seats and the cover was too big...

That should be explicitly specified (for me). The door mirror on the old car could not fold!? I have nearly broken them the first time I tried. I assumed that all new car can fold the mirrors - it is so simple and kind of demand nowadays. I tried on the new, failed and assumed that I am stucked again with non-foldable mirrors... until a careless pedestrian on the parking lot  smashed one of them and that one folded... The car-manual does not say anything about manual folding mirrors...

The car is quite high above the road (I particularly like this), high ceiling and it feels spacy. We missed the arm rest from our old car, so we ordered from the dealer one, that somehow was not appropriate for the model. It is for the model before the face lift. In this model the arm rest covers the 12V outlet, and I had problems to convince the official service that I REALLY need the outlet - after all I do not have a jack and the only way is to use the glue kit to inflate the tire. And that needs electricityyyyy. There was a small discussion where the outlet should "appear" but that is a different story. There is too small distance left between the gear stick and the armrest... and the quality is implying only resting of light arms...

The stereo CD/MP3 player is 4x20W that is just fine. The sound is not impressive though. There is an analog stereo input as well - also fine. Bluetooth comes on extra price. I think that embedded GPS is just pointless, so we did not opt for it (4500 SEK extra - that is more than a smartphone...). The cruise control option was also too much for this car, although I would not mind it at all. In Europe manual gears are not unusual and I do not consider it disadvantage.

The engine is turbocharged 1.2-litre that brings 100hp (the non-turbo is 75hp) which is significant difference. It gives you a bit of a kick on the highway and when needed. I think the turbocharged version is must have for the estate version or just go for the larger engine. On the highway, the engine is at 2500 rpm on 5-th gear when driving with 110 km/h, which is in the range of the low-momentum turbo and gives you some extra power.

Perhaps here is where I can mention - forget about the official numbers for the fuel consumption 4.5l/100km on country roads and 7.0l/100km in town. These are measured (I assume) without AC, passengers and driver, and the wind was blowing in the car's direction. What you can expect is 5.5 on country roads without hills. To reach 5.0 mark you should count only the time when you drive without any acceleration... In non-congested town without AC I get 6.5, with AC 6.9. On highway say goodbye to your (my) economy car. My average is about 7.5 and more. This came as a surprise to me, since our 17 years old Volvo 460 with 2.0l engine had his best mark at 7.3l/100km (no AC). bottom line the fuel consumption is very reasonable for the car.

Our package includes a climate control - this is particularly good. It is such a comfort. Literally yesterday it was -19 degree and we had stable +17 degree in the car, so we can comfortably keep the jackets while being in the car.

The car is quiet with very reasonable levels of noise that manage to get inside

Rain sensor: This actually is really nice. In most of the situations it works perfectly. One can also tune it additionally how sensitive it should be. Some times, during the winter when you have all of this miniature snow flakes or drops that make small dots on the window and cover the whole window slowly... yes, then it does not work at all. I end up manually switching to lover sensitivity and back to highest and that triggers a swipe... The old car had a "shortcut" for single swipe that was, so natural, that I assumed that all car should have such.


Some annoyances (that is worth mentioning):

Windshield wiper arms (read here for more details) - they are to close to the hood, so one can easily damage the paint if tries to lift them. I suspect at some point the designers decided to put a limiter. As result the arms could be barely lifted from the windshield. During the winter it is particularly annoying, since it is almost impossible to clean the wipers from the ice... 



Changing light bulbs: I did not need to replace any by now, but the "dry test" I have done, suggested that this kind of exercise will be a candidate for this section.

Rust: Probably this is fine but I was a bit surprised to find rusted parts on a one week old car...





Note: Everything that is not mentioned in this post, I consider as expected from a car designed in 2006 - things like central locking, immobilizer, ABS, Airbags, power steering wheel etc.