![]() ![]() The big, overly-chunky shift lever is awkward to use, too.įinally, the ride quality must be dealt with - it's just too stiff, even on the 17-inch wheels, for urban ruts and rumble, which is a serious issue for a car destined to spend much of its life in town. The gearbox must also come in for some criticism here, as with only five speeds it feels a cog short. The incoming new plug-in hybrid model may well be a better, if expensive, option too. Still, we'd rather have better performance than, say, a glass roof or some other such frippery. It just needs more oomph - thankfully, a 1.3-litre TCe unit is available, but it's around €1,500 more expensive. With only 160Nm on tap, the Captur 1.0 can cruise in relative comfort, but acceleration is an alien concept for it, as the 13.3-second 0-100km/h time bears witness. However, smooth and economical though this 1.0-litre TCe unit is, someone has apparently forgotten to fit any torque as standard. The similarly-specified Ford Puma, or the Volkswagen T-Cross, for example, are delightful to drive. Normally we are happy to recommend small, 1.0-litre, turbocharged three-cylinder petrol engines even in relatively large cars such as the Megane. ![]() Very comfortable seats, front and rear, do help to compensate a little for that, though. Space is decent in the cabin, both up front and out back, although the 'fast' line of the rear side glass does cut down a bit on light for those in the back. The only bugbear is the lack of a physical volume knob. This new one is much, much slicker, has a crisp, clear screen and is actually pretty easy to use. In fact, that touchscreen is a major improvement on Renault's previous efforts in this sphere, which have tended towards Atari-levels of screen resolution, and fiddly and incomprehensible menus. All of the major surfaces are soft-touch (more so than you'll find in an equivalent Volkswagen, says Renault), the part-digital dials look classy (and fully digital instruments are on the way) and the updated touchscreen, an upright nine-inch version in our S-Edition test car, looks really good. The previous Captur - pleasant car though it was - was let down by cheap-o cabin plastics. Name its best bitsįollowing again in the Clio's footsteps, the Captur's cabin looks like a vast improvement over what went before. Basic models are still pretty well equipped, though, with a seven-inch screen, 17-inch alloys, automatic climate control and smartphone mirroring in the shapes of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Our test car was the relatively pricey S-Edition version, which comes with the big 9.3-inch touchscreen and large alloy wheels, which are suitably handsome so as to blend in with that styling. Those slim tail-lights look almost too-delicate to be true, but the Captur's boot that lies behind them is much more robust and practical - already generous at 422 litres, it can be expanded to a massive 536 litres if you slide the back seats forward on their runners. ![]() While the likes of Ford and Nissan are creating small crossovers that challenge both your eyes and stylistic orthodoxy, Renault has gone down the Brad Pitt route for the Captur - it's undeniably good looking. For slightly less than the price of a Megane (model-for-model), you get a taller, more imposing design that takes the handsomeness of the new Clio (with which the Captur shares a chassis and engines) and magnifies it. With crossovers and SUVs being, apparently, all anyone buys anymore - to the detriment of family hatchbacks such as Renault's own generally very decent Megane - this second version of the Captur is surely set for further climbs up the Matterhorn of registrations. ![]() Not only did the first-generation model do much to establish the rapidly-expanding small crossover segment, it also became the best-selling car in that segment - slightly more than 10,000 first-generation Capturs have been sold in Ireland since it was launched in 2013. If ever a car had 'sales success' baked into its DNA, it would surely be the Renault Captur. ![]()
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