Well its been two weeks since my172 was delivered, and I tought Id share with you some of my thoughts and impressions of the car so far.....
LIKES (in no particular order)
1. Seats- Plush, comfy and good support. And leather.
2. Xenons - Fantastic visibility. Would not have another car without them.
3. Performance - Torque-a-plenty, ballistic hold-on-tight kind of shove in the arse over 5k rpm... Lovely!!
4. Handling - Feels poised and solid on the open road, minimum body roll, feels really chuckable. Havent had much chance to push it yet.
5. Cruise Control - Its useless really.. but its a good toy.. my girlfriend thinks there is literally some kind of magic force at work.!!... Bless.
6. Automatic lights - Not exactly the invention of the century, but one less thing to worry about.
7. The Colour - Its silver. I know, Silvers common. But I love the fact that even in all this sh*tty weather (technical term), it still looks clean and sparkly!
8. Engine note - Ok, so its never going to win any prizes for aural satisfaction, but it just sounds so eager to rev. And thats why I like it.
9. Image - Understated. Its a Renault Clio one of my friends commented. Ill show your 318 what a Renault Clio can do pal. He now knows the meaning of VaVaVoom!!. I love the fact that its practically anonymous amongst other traffic, but you still get the knowing nod and the sheepish point from fellow car lovers who, as a Cup-driving friend of mine so aptly put, "..Know the score.."
DISLIKES (again in no particular order)
1. Seats - The drivers seat is just too high, even at the lowest setting.
2. Xenons - Are too good. I get flashed by every other car I pass at night because my lights are dazzling them
3. Performance - Not much I dont like. It would be better if the power was a bit more accessible i.e. a bit lower down the rev range, but I guess half the fun is extracting that power!!
4. Handling - The rear end has a tendency to go light on tight turns, but once the roads dry up a bit, hopefully thats something I can begin to have fun with.!! I dont know if other drivers have noticed this, but at high speeds on less than perfect roads, it feels a little skittish and not as stable as I would have hoped.
5. Speed limiter - Its part of the cruise control system, and whilst the idea is good ( set it to the speed limit, and you car wont go any faster unless you kick down) it can be embarrasing. I had the limiter on through a 30 and came to a junction onto a national speed limit road. I booted out of the junction to get out of the way of an oncoming car and hit the brick wall that is the speed limiter!!
6. Automatic Windscreen Wipers - Why oh why can you not disable them and use the sensitivity control for a variable intermittent application???Much more practical. Auto Wipers are cool, but they seem to have a mind of thier own!!!!
7. The Colour - As above. Common as muck. And the Cup blue is sooo much nicer. Ah well cant have it all.
8. Engine - It ticks over like a bag of nails. Why? Is that a feature? Unacceptable really.
9. Image - As mentioned above.Its a Renault. Its French. It rattles. Accept It. Well why the hell should I??. If they can design windscreen wipers that work on thier own, and lights that do too, surely they could take some time out to stop the dashboard rattling!!?!! Hardly rocket science!!
On the whole Im chuffed to bits with my little Renault, and cant wait for some cold, dry and sunny spring mornings to get out for a proper blast!! When you read this forum a lot, as I do, you tend only to read the negative things from the world of Clios. Its easy to forget that despite its few faults, your driving a cracking little motor and should be proud of it!!!
Thanks for reading ( if you got this far!!)
Lager
.
