Renault Laguna test drive since 2007 hatchback

With wide -closed eyes

She is all so sudden, so contradictory all intrigues and pushes away, lures and alarms, likes and scares. Just the main character of a fashionable female novel. Only now for a car of a solid middle class of echoing, it is perhaps too much.
Like on rails
Terribly wanted to squint. It seems that now I will get squeezed to such an extent that the side support of the chair, formed for a standard figure, will expand to the Hulliver size, and cold sweat, despite the powerful flow of air from the climate control deflector, will pour eyes and will not let the first and last on this one and the last on this The highway is oncoming. But everything does not happen at all according to the scenario. The car fits into the 180-degree turn, ESP, instantly assessing the minimum rolls, lateral accelerations and revolutions of the motor, in no way prevents me from maintaining full control over the car. Laguna holds the trajectory, as if conspired! Another attempt, a bunch of serpentines and again no complaints. Maybe I instinctively be careful at speed? But what should it be to make this damn wag the stern?! Maybe even on the descent will give slack?
Just do not squint! What is in stock there? Five stars from Euronsap and six airbag pillows are unlikely to help if we dive into the abyss behind that turn. Acceleration, soft braking, automatic transmission in the pseudo -corner, I help disks, lowering the gear, I enter into a turn, a languid expectation of the feeding of the stern on asphalt influxes and demolition has no demolition! But the rear half-dependent suspension is quite rigid, and the shoe is not at all a rally, not racing is just low-profile, 17-inch, under a powerful motor.
Of course, you can do a lot of things to do. But if you do not fly, as on the last journey, then provoking the instability of the lagoon is extremely difficult. And the electronics will fight for the car to the end.
  An amazing thing how did the French succeeded in such a miracle? I well remember what Renault is in the mountains. For ten years, almost every summer on the 19th model (European assembly Europe, remember this?) Washed along the serpentines of the North Caucasus. I slightly crossed the gas and twisted the steering wheel, like a stern with a torsion suspension immediately tried to break forward. And the motor was constantly warmed up
And suddenly, while I remember the kind word of French engineers, my hands feel a painful trick. Here's the bad luck! During a turn on a narrow road at increased speeds, the hydraulic wrap suddenly begins to howl and at some point stops working at idle engine. Now to crank the steering wheel of the same work. Eh, let's recall the Zhigulevsky youth
Let's hope that this minute is only annoying and absolutely atypical weakness of one specific machine in a very specific situation. In any case, the French were very surprised and promised to thoroughly study the recordings of electronic brains. But even despite the sudden form of the French young lady, I did not feel tired. The point is about which you forget about if it is real.
Madame without a coat
Everything is in it: whether it is the dashboard, the sheathing of doors, chairs with a combined leather-tone upholstery, a steering wheel, velor rugs on the floor, a ceiling with a foam layer is soft. Yes, and there were no special complaints to the previous lagons on the interior decoration. But I do not mention such thoroughness, such thoughtfulness, care for the driver and passengers. Even the little things are not forgotten: the wheel-and-wheel drives of the air duct deflectors are rubberized and do not slide under the fingers. The plastic of the door handles is visually matte and velvety, and the aluminum insert in the middle of the dashboard does not shine at all with cold. A little resembles the 3rd series of BMW. So what of that? What is the difference to me, whose ideas are here, if in the end it turned out beautifully, functionally and not without French gloss.
Moreover, all this perfection will be even in the basic version as a chip key and the engine start button. And a few more and completely understandable buttons of the elegant central console, however, without a sensory display and navigation, and a skin covered with leather, with adaptive, depending on speed, and a wide silver insert on the vertical knitting needle. And also, alas, low for passengers, even 180 cm, the ceiling above the rear sofa. The old lagoon was the same. And everything is from appearance: the roof of the hatchback falling to the trunk lid is to blame.
 
    
The almost perfect interior design is exactly what was so lacking in Renault cars
 

However, the appearance of the novelty is generally a separate topic. It is clear that all the conversations about how beautiful the girl is and that it is in her that you are not satisfied with the color of the hair or the length of the nails, continuous subjectivity. But in my opinion, French designers in a fit of not too appropriate nostalgia seemed to mix the features of Renault-25 30 years ago with clearly computer motives of the 21st century. On all sides of the ribs, faces, plane, albeit verified, but rustic. Maybe they did not have enough time for their appearance so busy with filigree refinement of the chassis and bringing a gloss on the interior? One way or another, of all the characteristic dashes, only the thread of arrogantly pursed thin lips, into which the line has developed between the hood with a barely distinguishable beak in the center and the bumper. And nothing expressing the crystal look of parallelograms of headlights. They seem to be widely open, but soulless, glass
 
    
 
A chair in which you do not even get tired on a bad road is equipped with an active headrest
 
Three lighting lamps are no longer a luxury. And here is a hatch with a switch of operating modes for a fee

 
How softly we can lay
We met on the Primorsky embankment of Sochi and it was from there that we hit the road. We barely hear the engine whisper on the idle, there is not the slightest desire to crush the accelerator to the kick dowan. Yes, under the hood of a 2-liter engine with a turbocharged, as many as 170 forces controlled by a 6-speed automatic transmission. But a large, by definition, a middle -class family machine dictates its own rules: degree and judgment.
The sun, the sea, soaring the road over it, the most economical and quiet of three climate control modes Softly set up in a peace-loving way. Rare drops of morning rain at the command of the sensor instantly lick the long tongues of the wipers, shooting from under the hood with predatory varania swiftness. And the music is a miracle how good even ordinary radio sounds juicy and bright. On the first protracted rise, I feel the inventory of torque, but, subjectively, the speakers are not enough even in pseudo -row mode. The fact is that the explosive nature of the motor is significantly extinguished by the first two programs, leisurely, but tray, as on an all -terrain vehicle. And the first semi -kilometer traffic jam demonstrates the advantage of such an automatic transmission tuning for the city. Neither jerking you, no extra switching. Paul and crawl slowly, but smoothly.

       
The deep armrest of the rear row door will hold the most heavy hand. But in a subtile pocket there will be only a jar of 0.33 liters
It is best to travel on the couch together. In this version, you can cause a third armrest holding a bottle and a sandwich from the back

 
The wind of change
What about the breeze? Easy! Where is the drive hiding here? Here it is a tangible step at about half the course of the accelerator. This is the invisible border on the way to the aggressive power of turbocharged. So let's go at finally! In order to quickly draw a protracted turn with the accuracy of the circul, you do not need to correct the steering wheel. Yes, and on this basis the new lagoon is not at all the Renault to whom I am so used to.
The French invested 606 million in its development, and this money can be heard! Do not believe? Yes, please: the speed is far beyond the hundred, and the salon has almost complete silence. The secret of the current sound insulation in French is akin to the Jewish method of brewing tea not to save on components. In the previous car (with a completely decent level of comfort, including sound), a strained voice of the motor, driven by an elderly 4-speed automatic, was well auditioned.
Fast and accurate overtaking another suitable case to evaluate considerable investments in the intellectual automatic transmission and suspension. Although it is made according to the scheme traditional for the front -wheel drive, but with two -pipe shock absorbers from the back and an increased in diameter stabilizer of the pure stability.
In short, by the end of the day we seem to have found a common language with this sudden young lady. And even the fact that it is slightly shaking on small potholes, I do not particularly care. Because this is a tribute to the configuration imprisoned for active riding. Do not like to take a more comfortable and less powerful version. And how much?
All so dramatically
Here it is! I knew that it was zh-j! It is not without reason. And all these millions of euros invested in the lagoon will necessarily come around. Well, there are no affordable beauty beauties. And you can fall in love with them only with eyes widely closed, as Kubrick advised.
Just think, it costs more than a hundred thousand more than the predecessor, who, I admit, did not enjoy her very popularity. What are such strange prices, to put it mildly? At attractive credit interest?
But all the same, I disagree to give for Renault with a very frail for one and half-ton car, a mechanical box and without ESP almost 700 thousand rubles. And for a 2-liter 140-horsepower handle of 50 thousand more. But the car on which we rushed along the serpentines in the vicinity of Sochi is much more interesting. In the minimum configuration of expressions for 841 700 rubles will be both a turbine and an automatic machine. Dear, but how much buzz! And you don't need to squint
And even diesel
In Russia, a new lagoon can be bought with one of three gasoline engines with a capacity of 115 to 170 liters. With. or a 150-horsepower turbodiesel that will appear in the summer. For the hatchback, three sets of expressions, speaker and privilege with any of the engines are provided. But the station wagon is available only in dynamics with at least a 2-liter engine. The gasoline Renault is from 694 625 to 968 900 rubles, and only the price of the diesel version is still unknown.
 
Renault Laguna 2.0t 6at
general information
 
Body, number of places/doors
Hatchback, 5/5
 
Equipped mass, kg
1467
 
Length x width x height x Base, mm
4695x1811x1445x2756
 
Road clearance, mm
120
 
Front/back, mm track
1557/1512
 
Speed, km/h
220
 
Acceleration 0-100 km/h, with
9.2
 
Fuel consumption, l/100 km
6.6/13
 
Trunk volume (5/2 places), l
450/1375
 
The volume of the fuel tank, l
66
 
Engine
 
Location
Front transversely
 
Design
4-cylinder, in-line, 16-valve with turbocharged
 
Working volume, SMZ
1998
 
Power, L.S. at rpm
170/6000
 
Torque, kgsm at rpm
27/3250
 
Chassis
 
Drive unit
On the front wheels
 
Transmission
Automatic 6-st.
 
Suspension:
spring
 
front
Independent, on the racks of McExonon
 
behind
half -dependent, elastic transverse beam
 
Steering
rhealenic type with hydraulic power steering
 
Brakes
disk, in front ventilated
 
Tires
215/55 R17
 
Car
from 7.37 rubles/km
 
+
Excellent build quality and materials; Extraordinary controllability
 
-
Disputed automatic transmission algorithm; overcharge
 
 
Kirill Savchenko, photo of the author and Renault

 

A source: Magazine buy a car [05/2008]