Introduction Appearance Drivability and Handling Controls Interior and Comfort View Out Exterior Lights Safety Aspects Technical Specifications Conclusion       Photo (left): copyright Eddie Wren, 2005

Safe? --  You'd Better Believe it -- After all, it IS a Renault!

Introduction 

Logically, a trip back to Britain would suggest the possibility of test driving a British car because there are plenty good ones to choose from. But in the field of European car construction, one make -- Renault -- is currently head and shoulders above the opposition in terms of crash test results and safety, after all, is precisely what Drive and Stay Alive is about.

Every one of Renault's seven-car model range has achieved the maximum five-star rating in the Euro NCAP (New Car Assessment Programme) ratings -- and even if one takes into account the similar ANCAP and plain 'NCAP' systems -- in Australia and the USA, respectively -- this is something that no other car maker in the world can claim.

The Laguna is therefore one of these top scorers for the simple reason that Renault currently don't supply anything other than five-star crash rated cars!

Appearance

So is the Laguna a drop-dead-gorgeous car?   Well, okay -- no, not really.  Few people would hold it in such visually high esteem.  But it is definitely above average in the looks department.   Is it some sort of performance car that young hot-bloods might lust after?   Well that's a 'no', too -- especially if it is diesel-driven like the 2.2 dCi that we test drove. But let me just rein-in these comments lest anyone misinterprets them as being criticism, for they are certainly not.   Let's deal with that matter of performance first of all.

Photograph copyright Eddie Wren, 2005

A 0-60mph time of 9.6 seconds is unlikely to over-impress, just as it is unlikely to make one's ears meet, around the back of one's head, due to g-forces. But for anything other than boy-racer stuff, it is comfortably more than adequate. Indeed, once rolling it is far too easy to get this car up to 90mph and beyond without even realising it, and it will keep on going, right up to 134mph.

It is tempting to comment that with six forward gears, this Laguna may have one too many, but then it is rather unlikely that Renault engineers have got it wrong. The result of the six close-ratio gears, however, is that in appropriate situations double gear changes (such as 2-4, 3-5, and vice versa) are both simple and useful.

The tachometer red lines around 4,600rpm, and without checking any technical figures it is also easy to add the comment that there is a useful power band from around 2,000-4,000rpm.

So this diesel Laguna has got adequate power and above-average looks, but so do many cars today.

The question, therefore, has to be: what else has it got?

Controls

"To start the engine, insert a credit card."  That spoof sounds almost like a high-tech car rental payment system, doesn't it?

So, on to the general controls:

The steering wheel bore auxiliary buttons only for the cruise control, but in the case of the Laguna it is not just a cruise control, it can be used to set a maximum speed, too. And that's useful, given the above comments about this car easily creeping up above a speed limit if the driver isn't paying enough attention.

Volume and source controls -- often found alongside cruise control buttons on the wheel -- are located on the nearest, right-hand column stalk in the Laguna, and once one gets used to the different location they become easy to use. That particular "stalk", incidentally, is anything except stalk shaped. It is a rectangular block and thus cannot be mistaken with the traditional stalk  -- the wiper controls -- that is directly behind it (as in nearer to the dashboard/windscreen).

I confess that I'm not a fan of automatic windscreen wipers. Even those fitted to expensive cars can be downright annoying when they operate on an effectively dry window or have excessive intervals between intermittent wipes in drizzly conditions. But the ones on the Laguna worked very well indeed -- and we certainly had the appropriate weather to put them to the test. In general, they worked exactly as the driver directed -- standard wipe, and intermittent -- but if set on the latter and it suddenly started to rain hard they quickened immediately. In the USA, I've driven $100,000 cars on which the so-called intelligent wipers were nowhere near as good as these.

The lights on the Laguna, as one would expect, were controlled from the left-hand column stalk, including the front and rear fog lights.

To be fair, I would have to say that for twisty, rural roads at night, the main beam headlights weren't quite as far reaching as I would have hoped, even though they were clearly set correctly.

The dashboard switches were what one could reasonably expect on a car of this class. The only anomaly was the 'ESP Off' switch. which begs the question: Why?

Why on earth, in a diesel powered car, would one ever wish to turn off such a useful safety system. One could understand it if this were a petrol-driven, turbo-charged, ear-splitting monster that could be used for track racing at weekends, but in a relatively sedate diesel? Oh, well; at least it served to advertise that the Laguna does have an Electronic Stability Programme, and we are very much in favour of that!

There was a parking aid fitted, too, and a little careful experimentation found that when reversing squarely towards an obstruction the intermittent warning beeps changed to a steady tone when the tow hitch/ball was about nine inches from the obstruction -- a sensible and useful distance that allowed very accurate manoeuvering. 

Last but not least, our Laguna was fitted with a navigation system that functioned very well indeed, most of the time.

It didn't like mountainous areas though -- and who could blame it; they play havoc with the satellite signals, those overgrown mounds of earth!

While parked in Keswick, I typed in "High Lorton" via "Rosthwaite", wondering whether it would do its job and take me over Honister Pass. Well the answer is that it wouldn't. Or at least it didn't want me to go that way, because it kept telling me that if it was safe I should turn around and go back. Maybe it thought that, technologically-speaking at least, Rosthwaite should have a suffix of "Here be dragons!"

Anyway, whether it liked it or not, that navigation system got dragged, muttering and grumbling, over Honister Pass, though I was tempted to silence its requests for u-turns while enjoying that lovely bit of road through Borrowdale to Buttermere (one of my two regular tourist-season "beats" when I used to be on patrol motorbikes, in the Cumbria Police).

None-the-less, the navigation system excelled itself for more than 95 per cent of the time and I would certainly be happy to have one permanently.

As one would expect in a saloon car [i.e. a sedan] the available view out was good.  Given the safety requirements placed for roof strength, nowadays, it is to be expected that the A, B and C pillars will be thicker than they used to be and of course this is the case with the Laguna, but not in any problematical way.

It would be easy simply to write that the mirrors do a good job but that would actually be an understatement, because the driver's side exterior mirror was truly excellent. As on many good cars, the outer end of the mirror was convex in order to reduce blind spot over the driver's outer shoulder. But this particular mirror completely succeeds. I checked many times, on motorways and dual carriageways and at no time was even a small car able to be hidden completely from my view; it was either visible in the exterior mirror or it was in my peripheral vision. Well done, Renault, and well done whoever makes your mirrors. This particular mirror had the best -- as in safest -- coverage of any mirror I have ever used. 

Exterior Lights

As mentioned above, I found the range on the high beam headlights to be a little disappointing for twisty, rural roads, but generally speaking they were perfectly adequate.

Front and rear fog lights were both fitted and were controlled by a ring switch on the left-hand stalk of the steering column.

When I missed a turning on a narrow, hedge-lined country lane at night, I was a little bit disappointed with the apparent lack of power in the reversing lights. I don't know whether they were the maximum, legally permitted power output, but if they were then the lenses need a better design.

Safety Aspects

So what about the Laguna, in particular?

It is hard to know where to start because the Laguna has plenty good safety features to mention.

Apart from the 5-star crash rating, this car had front, side (i.e. torso) and full-length curtain (i.e. head) airbags. The curtain airbags are optional but anyone wishing to maximise safety shouldn't need to think twice about ordering them.

All five seats, of course, have three-point seatbelts but Renault give some excellent additional advice in the handbook for occasions when there are no backseat passengers but there is a heavy load in the boot [i.e. trunk]: Keep the rear seatbelts fastened. This useful guideline applies in any car and in the unfortunate event that one is in a serious frontal-impact crash, having the rear seatbelts fastened will add considerable strength to the back seat and thereby help prevent it collapsing forwards and letting the heavy load come crashing through into the passenger compartment -- a potentially deadly scenario.

The front seat head restraints are good. And once again, the Laguna handbook gives some very helpful advice: "...The distance between your head and the head restraint should be as small as possible. The top of your head should be in line with the top of the head restraint..."  When I set the driver's head restraint in the Laguna to the correct height for myself, the gap between my head and the restraint -- known as "backset" -- was three inches.

According to the  IIHS [Insurance Institute for Highway Safety], in terms of helping prevent whiplash injuries, a backset of 3" or less is 'good', up to around 3¾" is 'acceptable', 4½" is the limit for 'marginal' and any gap larger than that is 'poor'.

Then there is the issue of door security. When I took delivery of the car it was set up so that every time the vehicle reached 6mph all of the doors automatically locked, so within a few minutes I pulled into a lay-by [i.e. a parking area] and knocked that one right on the head! The handbook explained very simply how one may de-activate that system and went on, quite rightly, to state: "If you decide to keep the doors locked when you are driving, remember that it may be more difficult for those assisting you to gain access to your vehicle in the event of an emergency."  That is a very nice way of saying that if you are unconscious or trapped in a crashed car that, for sake of argument, catches fire, then you'd better hope that all the doors are not locked.  This is the ex traffic policeman in me speaking: Albeit rare, these things do sometimes happen, and believe me there is little in life that is more distressing.

Likewise, the Tyre Pressure Monitoring System [TPMS] has already been mentioned. The display is usually viewable only when starting the engine, but is of course operative at all times.

This Renault had yet another truly good safety feature that is common on European cars but is still infuriatingly absent on American-made vehicles, and that is auto-reverse power windows on all four doors. In many European cars, if a momentarily unsupervised child plays with the power windows or accidentally triggers one while climbing around in a parked car then the window will stop when it meets resistance. In the Laguna, the windows are set so that the power windows actually retreat about two inches so that a child won't even be temporarily trapped. In the USA, however, at least 38 young children have been garroted to death by power windows, yet Detroit doesn't want to do anything about it because "it would cost $50 for each car."

So if you have children and you ever have a choice between buying a car with either auto-stop or auto-reverse power windows, as opposed to one with unstopping windows, I think you now know which one Drive and Stay Alive would recommend!

Last but not least, we would remind you of the high-intensity rear fog lights, mentioned above. Regrettably, this is another feature that is common on European cars but is actually illegal in many American states because "they might be mistaken for brake lights." I still shake my head with disbelief at the banality of that comment. [View a DSA page on this topic, here.]

Basic Technical Specifications

150bhp at 4,000rpm

Torque = 236 lb ft / 320 Nm EEC (33.2m.kg) at 2,000rpm

0-60mph  = 9.8 seconds

Max. speed = 134mph

Combined mpg = 43.5 (the DSA test drive achieved 39mpg)

Oil  change interval = 18,000 miles

Kerb weight = 1490kg 

Insurance Group 10

Pro's

• The diesel engine was quiet and gave adequate power

• We got 38mpg during the test drive

• Superb driver's-side exterior mirror

• Excellent safety standards and extra features, including front, side and curtain airbags, safe head restraints, ESP, and TPMS

• The 'intelligent' wipers were much more intelligent than their counterparts on many more expensive cars

• Good, additional safety advice in the handbook -- a nice touch

Con's

Only minor points, but:

• The forward range of the main beam headlights was not quite as extensive as we would have liked

• The reversing lights did not seem as bright as they could have been

Conclusion

If you want a medium-sized saloon car [sedan] with reasonable fuel economy, this is a good one to choose.

If you want a reasonably spacious and capable family car, this is a good one to choose.

But if what you really want is a very safe car, capable of helping you avert a crisis (by means of the Electronic Stability Programme) and of giving you and your family truly good protection if the worst happens and a collision occurs, then this is an excellent car.

Reviewed by Eddie Wren

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Photographs and Locationss (from top):

1. Laguna under the Humber Bridge; copyright Eddie Wren

2. At the foot of Dovedale and the head of the Patterdale valley, English Lake District; copyright Eddie Wren

3. (Rear three-quarter view) North Yorkshire Moors; copyright Eddie Wren

4. Ignition card; copyright Renault

5. Full dashboard view; copyright Renault

6. On Kirkstone Pass, English Lake District; copyright Eddie Wren

For the Renault UK webpage on the 2005 Laguna, click here

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