Test drove a 197 today while my Trophy was in for its 12K service. Dealer allowed me to really 'test' the car, staying away from dual carrageways in favour of a few miles of twisting country roads.
Plus points for me...
Cant argue with the claims of better build quality - it felt like a really well put together car. There was even room for people to sit in the back seats without losing all circulation in their legs !
The car looked much nicer up-close than it does in photographs, much less g-hay looking. Seats were very comfortable, even comparing them to the recaro's in the Trophy.
Ride quality was far better than the regular 182 and Trophy, making it a far nicer car for those people looking for comfort and performance (the Golf crowd).
Gearbox was a big improvement on mine, nice and tight, allowing very quick and smooth changes. Engine sounded more refined at high revs too and the closer ratio gearbox allowed me to keep the revs between 5 and 7K for much of the test.
Silly little thing, but the keyless entry is a nice quirky little feature too.
Minus Points for me...
Steering was way too light, losing much of the 'feel' of the car.
There was little or no actual feeling of acceleration. Sure the speedo rose fast enough, but I couldn't actually feel any urgency in the car.
The extra weight of this model was obvious at higher speeds on twisty B-roads, there was far more understeer in the tight bends (I turned off the ESP and did the same test-run a second time).
The grey plastic diffuser might work very well, but to me it looked like a joke when I saw it up-close. I guess some people will prefer the more discreet looks of this version, but I would have preferred to see a spoiler on the back, even just for visual effect. The Spoiler on the new white ClioCup racing cars looks great and in my view makes the car look more like a renaultSPORT.
Overall, I think those people who have to use their car as a small family car too will love it, those people, like myself, who just use the car for themselves will probably want to wait to see if the 'cup' version of the car is a more focused 'drivers' car.
After the test we went through the figures to see what the cost to change cars would be. Obviously there was no price haggling going on here, so treat these figures as a basic guide:
Trophy trade-in price = 11,000
197 price = 16,000
cost to change = 5,000
You will need to add costs for metallic paint, xenon's and other extras too (although much of these will be thrown in to get a sale unless you negotiate a big discount off the RRP of the car) and with their being a 3 month waiting list for the car, the dealers wont want to be discounting them very much at this moment in time.
No doubt that within 6-12 months they will start appearing in the car supermarkets and Internet broker websites for the usual 2-3k discounted price.
Plus points for me...
Cant argue with the claims of better build quality - it felt like a really well put together car. There was even room for people to sit in the back seats without losing all circulation in their legs !
The car looked much nicer up-close than it does in photographs, much less g-hay looking. Seats were very comfortable, even comparing them to the recaro's in the Trophy.
Ride quality was far better than the regular 182 and Trophy, making it a far nicer car for those people looking for comfort and performance (the Golf crowd).
Gearbox was a big improvement on mine, nice and tight, allowing very quick and smooth changes. Engine sounded more refined at high revs too and the closer ratio gearbox allowed me to keep the revs between 5 and 7K for much of the test.
Silly little thing, but the keyless entry is a nice quirky little feature too.
Minus Points for me...
Steering was way too light, losing much of the 'feel' of the car.
There was little or no actual feeling of acceleration. Sure the speedo rose fast enough, but I couldn't actually feel any urgency in the car.
The extra weight of this model was obvious at higher speeds on twisty B-roads, there was far more understeer in the tight bends (I turned off the ESP and did the same test-run a second time).
The grey plastic diffuser might work very well, but to me it looked like a joke when I saw it up-close. I guess some people will prefer the more discreet looks of this version, but I would have preferred to see a spoiler on the back, even just for visual effect. The Spoiler on the new white ClioCup racing cars looks great and in my view makes the car look more like a renaultSPORT.
Overall, I think those people who have to use their car as a small family car too will love it, those people, like myself, who just use the car for themselves will probably want to wait to see if the 'cup' version of the car is a more focused 'drivers' car.
After the test we went through the figures to see what the cost to change cars would be. Obviously there was no price haggling going on here, so treat these figures as a basic guide:
Trophy trade-in price = 11,000
197 price = 16,000
cost to change = 5,000
You will need to add costs for metallic paint, xenon's and other extras too (although much of these will be thrown in to get a sale unless you negotiate a big discount off the RRP of the car) and with their being a 3 month waiting list for the car, the dealers wont want to be discounting them very much at this moment in time.
No doubt that within 6-12 months they will start appearing in the car supermarkets and Internet broker websites for the usual 2-3k discounted price.
