2001 Renault Laguna Sports Tourer review from UK and Ireland

Five - count 'em! - five recalls from Renault for various things, most notably an engine management problem which resulted in the engine revving uncontrollably when cold. That'll be good for long term engine reliability!

Various pieces of interior trim breaking / falling off / disintegrating.

Intermittent failure of the Boot catch to unlock.

Intermittent failure of the sunroof to open.

Weeping oil seal on drive shaft.

The Laguna II sports tourer is one of the better looking estate cars, which is the reason it became our family car.

Performance of the 1.8 petrol engined car is adequate, even fully laden, but the engine revs are high at motorway cruising speeds (approx 3300 rpm at 70mph) which doesn't make for the most restful environment.

Handling is not bad for an estate car, while the boot is a moderately decent size. Legroom in the back is not great, however.

The quality of the interior fittings is extremely poor, both in terms of quality of materials used and the quality of the engineering that puts them together. My childrens' toys (which are by and large made in China) contain better quality plastic and are better put together than this Renault.

Generally, this lack of engineering quality extends to the entire car. It would be interesting to ask Renault engineers whether they actually have any pride in the cars they build.

With the exception of the recall items, none of the faults described in the "What has gone wrong" section were deemed by Renault to be covered by the car's warranty. This, despite the car having been serviced at the required intervals and despite all faults having occurred during the warranty period. This is because the faults were all said to be a result of "wear and tear". To my mind, this means that the Renault warranty is, in effect, worthless. Frankly, if a boot catch is subject to wear and tear then so is anything in the car.

This is the fourth Renault that has been forced upon me and in my judgement this Laguna is entirely typical of all of them: not bad-looking, uninspiring to drive, made of poor quality materials using poor engineering resulting in poor reliability.