Test drive by Renault Megane RS compartment since 2009 compartment
Ideology issues
By the time of entry into the Russian market of the charged Ford Focus st competitors, it will have a lot: by the fall, the new three -door Opel Astra OPC will reach our market, and now the Renault Megane RS, Seat Leon FR, Skoda Octavia RS and, of course, are already selling well. VW Golf GTI The founder of the fast hatchback genre. The motor chose from this company the two closest to the focus in power, but of different in spirit of the hotch, and figured out the ideology of each of them.Renault Megane RS and VW Golf GTI 35 Edition. Two diametrically opposite views on charged hatchbacks. The anniversary version of the VW Golf GTI is 235 horsepower, removed from a two -liter turbo engine, a robotic pre -sequential transmission DSG and an amazingly nondescript appearance. Boring, to a toothy rattle.
Modest 17-inch discs, dark gray coloring of the body, which only red strips on the grille of the radiator and nameplate 35 on the wings. In general, golf as golf. You can guess that in front of you is a legendary hot hatch, only on red brake calipers and diluted muffler pipes diluted at the corners of the bumper.
Key differences of the charged VW GTI and the usual golf red strips on the radiator grille, a pair of final pipes and an inconspicuous spoiler on the edge of the rear door.
Megane RS against his background is a real sports car. The sloping profile with the complex geometry of the back of the body, massive plastic overlays on the wings and thresholds, hiding wide 18-inch wheels, a curved spoiler in the front bumper and the rear diffuser with a huge final system bred in the center. Plus, a spectacular bright yellow body color, which makes neighbors literally turn their heads in the stream.
The three -door Megane RS differs from the civilian model with bloated wheeled arches, overlays on the thresholds and bumpers, and the muffler here is displayed in the center of the rear diffuser.
According to the design of the salon, Megan also puts his competitor on both shoulder blades. The Frenchman has a spectacular panel of appliances with a yellow tachometer, inserts for carbonate on the front panel, a relief steering wheel with a yellow line and a yellow central mark, aluminum overlays on the pedals and yellow threads with yellow inserts. Sport! However, having looked closely and sitting down, you begin to notice the imperfection of the French interior.
1. The interior of Megana looks good and even stylish
2. Rev. RS and yellow belts are available on all versions of Hatbchek
3. Central mark on the steering wheel - refer to racing cars
4. In the basic version of Megane RS is equipped with ordinary, not very dense seats. But with electric drives and settings memory
5. Parting for carbones a little revives the interior, but Bose music plays medium
6. Climate and radio control will seem logical only to real fans of French machines
Cup/Sport
In addition to the CUP package, in addition to the Combined finishes, a self -locking inter -long differential, a reconfigured, more rigid suspension and painted brake calipers are also included.
A strongly tilted tidy with various rounds, in which not only the color of the substrate differs, but also the size of the numbers, as well as the color of the arrows, is not very visual and glance in the sun; The traditional rennate radio has confusing control, and its monochrome screen is too far from the buttons and makes you constantly take your eyes from the bottom up and back. The quality of the materials is average, and the basic front seats have too short pillow and unsuccessful profile of the back. Recaro optional chairs are probably more convenient, but we deliberately chose a basic model without a CUP package as the most civilian for the test.
1. The golf’s adventure interior was revived with red accents. The screen of the multimedia complex - sensory
2. Available, sufficiently deep seats have a very tenacious coating in the central part
3. A golf ball -shaped golf -shaped - tradition!
4. Logo 35 logos are embroidered in the backs of the seats, and the belts have a red edging
5. Rule is slightly beveled from below and decorated with aluminum inserts and a nameplate GTI
6. Plastic inserts on the front panel have unusual mobile puffing with matte paint
VW Golf, even in the anniversary version, seems to be more boring inside, but pleases with a well -thought -out ergonomics of the salon, pleasant decoration materials and the highest quality assembly. Let only a red line on the steering wheel, a leather cover of the DSG selector, the parking brake and on the seats, but the plastic inserts on the front panel do not imitate banal carbon fiber, but have an unusual cellular pattern, repeating in embossing on seats. Aluminum here is real, and the seats are dense and deep. True, they are regulated manually, while on a megan the driver's seat has not only electric drives, but also memory for three settings.
The rear sofas both in golf and in Megan are similar to two passengers, and the third here will be inconvenient because of the protruding central section of the pillow. However, to sit down, of course, easier in golf, and not only thanks to additional rear doors: due to a highly beveled roof, it is not easy to get back to Megane RS. And not fast the front seats here move forward with the help of electric drives, and very slowly.
Golf GTI is more practical than Megane RS. He has a more convenient trunk, despite the fact that a formally luggage compartment of Megan is more spacious: 377 liters of a useful volume versus 350 at golf. However, the Frenchman has too narrow an opening and a large loading height, and the interior is clamped by protruding wheeled arches. In addition, GTI has a five -door version, and Megane RS is available only in the form of a three -door.
The main ideological differences lie in the chassis of these hotels. GTI is, in fact, ordinary golf, with MacPherson in front and multi-link from behind, but with reconfigured amortizers, stabilizers and more powerful brakes in front and back. And if in Europe GTI is sold with an adaptive chassis with three operating modes of electronically controlled shock absorbers, then only a passive suspension is provided for the Russian market.
Megane RS was created by the Renault Sport division according to a completely different rules. It is already equipped with 4-piston brakes Brembo with 340 mm disks in front. He has a simple torsion beam in the rear suspension, but MacPherson in front with separate rotary fists that reduce the effect of power steering during acceleration, and the stabilization system has a sports regime. Plus an enlarged track and re -configured shock absorbers with springs.
The suspension of the megan is really cool dense and energy -intensive: for bed -hearted policemen you can pass without slowing down, but the rolls are minimal. It is also amazing that Erask does not shake the soul even on a very bad road.
Yes, the peaks of vertical accelerations from the habit seem very high, but Megane RS remains extremely assembled on any coating.
Against the background of the athlete Megan Golf GTI, almost a civilian car. He has more rolls, the suspension is softer. He reacts a little more acutely to large irregularities, but better smooth out small cracks and hillocks. On a bad road, the golf flies very elastic, without frightening with blows from holes, avoiding breaks on bumps and not swinging on large waves of coating.
GTI 35 Edition
The VW Golf GTI 35 Edition version is the anniversary modification of GTI, released in honor of the 35th anniversary of the legendary model. It was distinguished by a turbo engine for 235 horsepower and a slightly modified interior and body decoration.
Despite the compromise settings of the chassis, the GTI 35 Edition is by no means smeared. Its slightly lightweight steering wheel is very accurate, and Golf reacts to the control teams without delay. Information from the front wheels with a margin. The driver always understands what limit the adhesion is at the front tires and what coating they are now rolling. It is only a pity that the hook was just not enough for our GTI: the hatchback began to slide too early in tense corners and screamed over and over again with tires at every fast start from a traffic light. The tires are guilty of simple Bridgestone Turanza ER300 tires installed on a test car. No, the 235-horsepower hot hatch needs something later and picus more.
Bridgestone Turanza ER300 at the golf turned out to be not only slippery, but also very noisy rumble tires in any conditions and at any speed. And on the highway with abrasive asphalt, too talkative tires almost drown out the sound of the radio.
For example, the same Dunlop SP Sport Maxx as Megane RS. On these tires, the French hot hatch demonstrates simply a fantastic reserve of clutch in slow corners and on running arches. That's just in the city, at permitted speeds, it is impossible to reveal the entire potential of Megan.
When Dragged by Erask, it seems completely sluggish: it reacts to the steering impulses with the laziness (the steering of the steering wheel in the near -pot zone is small), and the feedback to the movement of the gas pedal seems nonlinear. He didn’t go slightly, he jumps forward a little more sharply. Not the most suitable quality for daily trips by traffic jams, especially in combination with tight and sharply capturing clutch.
Honestly, in the viscous traffic of the Megane RS metropolis, it generally feels uncomfortable.
Drinking at half -parting him burdens. Up to 3-3.5 thousand revolutions, the mighty Megan turbomer sleeps in full breast, he begins to breathe closer to the mark of four thousand revolutions. In addition, Turboyama on this hot hatche was quite noticeable to twitching quickly when rebuilt from a row in a row or accelerating when leaving the adjacent road only after a tangible pause.
Short gears the second ends already at 90-95 kilometers per hour ideal for short city sprints. However, due to the inertia of the motor at low speeds in the third in the city you won’t really travel: having fallen from the working zone of revolutions, it will not work to accelerate sharply.
Megane RS needs spaciousness. On a quick winding road, the hatchback is completely transformed: the steering wheel acquires the necessary information and accuracy, and the gas pedal becomes almost perfectly responsive. The main thing is to hold the working turns in the range of 4-7 thousand: below Erask, it significantly sours, and is higher into a rough cut-off. But between these marks, Megane RS accelerates almost frenzied, driving the tachometer arrow into the red zone under hissing.
By its nature, the Megan engine resembles the old -school turbo engines a little nervous, with a pronounced turbine, but also with no less bright grabbing at high speeds.
Under full gas, the steering wheel twitches a little on bumps, recalling a rather big torque that makes the front wheels fierce along the road. Compared to the golf, Megan is more powerful and faster: its two -liter turbo engine develops 15 horsepower more (250 hp), and the difference at the maximum torque is even more impressive 40 nm (340 nm in Megane RS vs 300 at Golf GTI 35 Edition). As a result, even with mechanics A, another transmission for Erasa is not provided in principle, the French hot hatch accelerates from a place to hundreds in 6.1 seconds, while the robotic anniversary Golf GTI reaches 100 kilometers per hour half seconds later.
It is only a pity that the Magane RS mechanical transmission drive does not have enough clarity and selectivity against the background of a perfectly -minded DSG box on the GTI 35 Edition, this becomes especially noticeable. Golf accelerates with inspiration and without any noticeable rupture of traction when changing the steps: he simply pressed the gas pedal to the floor and enjoy powerful acceleration. Only the current transmission indicator on the dashboard changes: 3-4-5 in sports mode, DSG forgets about the sixth gear and does not allow the motor to sink below three thousand revolutions per minute. And how great and how in time the robot switches to low with short exciting!
Brakes? The GTI 35 Edition is simply good, although the pedal has an too large move and seems too sensitive in the initial phase of braking. In the urban rhythm of movement, this even interferes. But on Megane RS, the brakes are exemplary: perfectly informative and fantastically resistant to loads. Several powerful braking at a speed of 150 kilometers per hour in a row for them.
They literally ask for the track. However, like the car itself.
Megane RS is an ideal sports projectile created and imprisoned for a very fast riding, and not only on public roads. A dense, assembled, with a tenacious, understandable and gambling chassis, in a good evil motor and powerful brakes. It is not for nothing that the charged Megane is considered one of the fastest front -wheel drive cars that set many records in their class on racing tracks.
And his main trump card is the highest efficiency.
VW Golf GTI 35 Edition is a completely different view of Hot Hatch. Practical, discreet, with a high -quality salon and a very accurate, but comfortable chassis. A quick, with a refined riding character, a very rare combination of properties for a charged car. And in the version with DSG is an almost perfect city car.
Why almost? Because now the Ford Focus ST fighter is no less flexible, but a more dynamic hot hatch who is ready to fight for the title of the most universal car in class with any, even the most authoritative competitor.
Source: Motor magazine [August 2012]
