2003 Renault Laguna Expression from UK and Ireland - Comments

I had this on a 3 day trial to see if it was suitable car to replace my company Focus. I loved the look of these cars and thought I would love to have one.

BUT...Where to start.

I picked up the demo car from the dealers and was told that the tyre pressure device had been disconnected because of the weather conditions!

Not a great start then, very rude salesman gives me the card and wanders of to talk about his weekend etc with other like minded sales people.

Insert card, scrambled and garbled text comes up on the display, no start, nothing just some odd noises.

Engineer called from coffee break clearly annoyed about having to move, car REBOOTED!!! and then the thing starts. As you can imagine, I'm not convinced by the whole charade at this point.

Finally make it onto the road and I kid you not, after stopping for fuel the car needs to be rebooted again after some warning about the injection system.

After this, the car seems to function correctly for a few hours until the radio which had a mind of its own anyway decided to die, permanently.

Other faults during my "ahem" test drive include detaching trim (passenger side kick trim panel) stuck windows, constant warnings about engine fuel system and a leaky back door.

Car returned to dealer who didn't even seem to give a jot about reported faults. Unbelievable attitude.

Nightmare car, I can only imagine these things when they get older.

On the plus side, car is very comfortable when it goes, has a good turn of speed for large car and lights up like the Enterprise at night.

I would really have to advise against these cars though unless you know that yours is a good one.

Goes well for a 1.8.

Card thing is cool if it worked properly.

Great stereo, again when it works.

Looks a dream, but I wouldn't trust it as far as I could spit a rat.

Great review.

I have been there... Renault that is. I shall never buy another. In general our French bean tin was good.

But reliabilty... I could have wrote a book about the blasted thing, it was literally falling to bits, rather poor for an 18 month old car.

Put it another way, my main dealer was within walking distance, I lost a stone in weight. I used drive the car there, walk home, and then walk back to collect the thing, a four mile round trip.

I even knew the service reception staff on first name terms, although they were useless... just like there product.

I often dreamed that a freak accident destroyed it while it was there, but no such luck.

We thankfully do not own a Renault now, my new is great, and NOT single fault.

Regards.

We have now owned five Renaults R25 (170,000 miles when sold) R25 (145,000 miles when sold) Laguna 1 RXE (130,000 miles and still with us) Kangoo and Clio dCi (both also still with us). All have been fantastic vehicles and on the whole would recommend all... the 1987 R25 being the best of the lot! When enquiring about a new Laguna 2 to replace my current Laguna, the very nice and honest salesman advised that the New Laguna was probably the worst car Renault have EVER made and that my money would be better invested in a late Laguna 1! That from a Renault Dealer!! Don't fancy his bonus paycheck. I do think it is a shame as the Lag 2 is a very nicely designed and safe vehicle. BUT Renault should not be using the public to test the reliability of there vehicles.

I have driven works pool car Laguna 2 (6 months old) and I have to say it feels like a 10 year old car.

In 1999 I was involved in the management of the fleet where I worked. Basically we had about 15 Laguna's and a handful of peugeot 406's and audi a4's.

I think in every Laguna apart from 3 we had to replace the gearbox at least once. The worst were the automatics. One car had 4 auto boxes replaced before 100,000 miles (which is when we dispose the cars) 2 or 3 of the Lagunas also suffered major engine failure due to melted pistons, so I would not agree that the Laguna 1 is reliable at all.