2006 Renault Megane Privilege review from UK and Ireland

In just two weeks (honestly) I've had the following:

Clutch pedal went *very* heavy, especially in traffic. Dealers not interested.

Door trim over passenger side speaker grille popped off and couldn't be refitted properly. Now rattles, loudly.

Brakes started squealing loudly, especially when slowing in reverse.

Wiper arms rub the top edge of the bonnet when moving them for washing the car or replacing the blades.

Air-con failed, resulting in climate system desperately trying to cool the car with hot air!

Car repeatedly going into limp home mode with "Check Injection" warning message displayed.

Paintwork discovered to be covered in scratches, only visible when the car is dirty.

Car sometimes fails to start on first push of Start button.

Traffic programme on radio cuts off after 1/2 a second when the stereo is in Aux mode.

When it works, this car is fine. The controls are light and make driving nice and easy. The long list of clever features is very appealing. Thumbs up for auto lights, auto dim mirror, rain sensor wipers, power fold mirrors, keyless entry and start, climate control etc etc.

Handling on fast back roads is a little unnerving due to the lifeless steering, but is stable and well weighted on motorways.

The engine noise is an annoying drone at 70mph (even in sixth gear), but is quiet at lower speeds. The gear change is generally OK, but is odd in that the odd number gears are further away from centre than the lower even number gears! i.e. 1, 3 and 5 are miles up from the natural centring position, and 2,4 and 6 are quite close...

The brakes are simply over assisted, it is so hard to apply them cleanly because they snatch so strongly. I could live with it, but it's not ideal.

It's quite easy to get reasonably comfortable, and the seats have decent support, although the part leather material feels very cheap.

The sound quality of the standard fit stereo is very poor, which is a shame because the built in Aux port (on rear of unit) and 6 CD multi-changer should make it ideal for music lovers.

The auto lights are too slow to come on, they seem to wait until it's noticeably darker than I would choose to put the lights on, which defeats the object really.

The wash/wipe function is useless, only doing one sweep of the wipers, forcing you to manually wipe the screen for a second or two to clear the excess water.

Performance from the 2.0 engine seems quite poor, but there may be a fuel injection system fault, see "what has gone wrong" above.

Economy isn't too bad, returning an average of 33mpg over 1000 miles so far. Most of that has been on the motorway, so I would have hoped for better.

The clutch pedal is so heavy to hold down (in traffic, at junctions etc) that my left foot is starting to hurt on the sole! Dealers think it isn't "excessively heavy"!!

I really ought to like this car, I love the styling and the features are great, but it's been very unreliable in just two weeks of ownership and I'm getting rid at the end of the week. Luckily, the car was under-priced when I bought it, so I got back most of what I paid for it.

I can't tell you what a relief it is to get rid. I doubted the Renault reputation was entirely deserved, now I know it is.

I didn't listen when I was warned about buying Renaults, I wish I did. Please don't buy one, I've owned 20 cars and this is the worst by a very long shot.

Yes I could try and get all these faults fixed, but frankly, I've had enough already. If this is a foretaste of what is to come, then I'm just not interested in wasting any more time or energy on this car.