French Dressing For Family Suv

18 November 2019

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By Paul Gover.

It often seems like there is a new SUV for showrooms every single week.
This week it’s the Renault Kadjar, which is more than just a French-flavoured SUV.

It sits between the baby Captur and the family-sized Koleos in one of the hottest segments for SUV sales but had the advantage of a family connection through the Nissan-Renault Alliance.

So, under the skin the Kadjar is twinned with the Nissan Qashqai, but in the engine room it also picks up a three-cylinder turbocharged engine also used by Mercedes-Benz.

So the heavy lifting is done by some of the best in the business, leaving Renault to do the tasty stuff around the cabin and styling and the suspension tuning.

Renault has always made cars which work best on French roads, which can be lumpy and bumpy and taxing for the driver, and that also translates into a package which is good for Australia.

For the Kadjar, it’s surprisingly smooth and complaint. Not just for the car itself, but also for the class and compared to the equivalent Nissan. The Qashqai can be a bit metallic and bumpy in the ride, but the Renault is a car to enjoy and one that also drives nicely on twisty roads into the countryside.

The engine is a beauty, with a strong surge of turbocharged torque for acceleration and overtaking, with great fuel economy. It seems to work better in the Renault than I remember from Mercedes-Benz and is one of the better packages in the class with a smooth shifting automatic.

The cabin is a bit cheap in some of the plastics, and two of the review cars have an annoying squeak around the shift lever in the centre console, but that’s the only real complaint. The seats are supportive, it’s quiet at highway cruising speed, and it’s easy to park.

It also has good visibility in all directions and Apple CarPlay, but misses some important stuff including high-level auto safety braking and radar cruise control. The better choice for comfort is also to go for the smaller 18-inch alloys, not the 19-inch ones that make the ride a bit brittle in the Intens model.

Which only leaves the styling, which is another highlight. Renault is good on design and the Kadjar has a body shape and final finishing that – just like it’s name – is not like the rest of the pack.