French expression
James Stanford finds Renault's premium mid-sizer allows him to stand out from the masses
A lot of people - mostly women - hate it when they turn up to a party and find someone else is wearing the same outfit. It's the same with cars. Who wants to drive the same car as everyone else?
The solution is to buy a rare or unusual model. Renault only expects to sell 500 Lagunas a year, so this could be just the car.
There's nothing wrong with the new Laguna, it's a nice, mid-sized premium model that goes up against the Peugeot 407 and Volkswagen Passat, but could also be shopped against the Mazda6, Ford Mondeo and Honda Accord Euro.
The main reason Renault doesn't expect to sell many is the weakness of the Renault brand in Australia - and it's also a bit pricey. Renault has launched the Laguna with one diesel engine, in one body style - the hatch - with two trim levels. The range will be fleshed-out by the end of the year to include a wagon, a petrol engine and a choice between manual and automatic transmissions.
For now, the range kicks off at $44,990 for the Expression diesel automatic, but the entry ticket will drop to $41,990 with a manual.
The Laguna is powered by a 2.0-litre common rail turbo-diesel which produces a healthy 110kW and 340Nm from just 2000rpm. Fuel consumption is 7.0L/100km for the automatic and drops to just 6.0L/100km for the manual. It's a nice, torquey engine that doesn't have to work hard to pull from under 2000rpm.
The motor is a bit noisy under acceleration, but is louder at idle where it vibrates more than you would expect for a prestige car. The six-speed auto works so well you rarely notice the shifts, and the suspension is well sorted, absorbing most bumps with ease.
While the ride is comfortable, the Laguna is also extremely agile. Its cornering ability and inherent traction is very impressive and you find yourself heading into corners faster and faster.
Owners are more likely to enjoy features such as the automatic handbrake and dual-zone climate control which are fitted as standard along with rain-sensing wipers, automatic headlights and useful, retractable window sunshades at the back.
Then there is the long list of standard safety gear and the well-designed body structure that enabled the Laguna to score the best ever Euro NCAP safety rating, racking up 36 out 37 points and five stars.
Supreme steath fighter
The Lancer Evo X gives a new meaning to the term 'pocket rocket'. But you wouldn't know it just by looking at one, says Andrew Kerr
It took a bit longer to arrive than expected but the seriously high-performance Lancer flagship - the tenth incarnation of the Evo - is here at last. Not surprsingly, Evo X is the best yet, benefitting from the current Lancer's attractive body shape, an improved interior with higher quality materials and some key technical advancements. The most noteworthy is Mitsubishi's twin-clutch transmission which offers super-quick, lag-free changes and is likely to be taken up by the majority of buyers. It costs $5000 more on the base spec car but is standard on the top-spec $71,690 MR model.
The new Evo's looks don't carry much shock value - we've become anaesthetised by a long sequence of hot rally-inspired Lancers - but the car's performance can still startle the uninitiated. To counter a modest weight gain, power from the turbocharged two-litre is up by 11kW to 217kW but what statistics alone won't tell you is how effectively it can be applied by the variable-mode TC-SST transmission and a chassis that delivers seemingly insurmountable balance and grip.
Even better news is that the harsh ride that afflicted earlier Evos has been sorted and the
X's front strut/multi-link rear set-up feels more compliant on most road surfaces. Inside is a quality touch-screen multicommunication system and superb Recaro sports seats surrounded by seven airbags. Still, despite being a more refined car, it's not the premium contender that Mitsubishi would like to promote it as being.
It's just as well Mitsubishi chose the Winton circuit to launch the Evo X because a race track is an ideal environment to showcase the Evo's attributes. It's also just as well it was consistently wet, enabling journalists to discover the limits of adhesion and the different modes of the hi-tech AWD system, which allows the driver to alter the chassis to suit driving styles and conditions.
Just as the Evo's key rival, the Subaru Impreza STi, is now a more tactile and practical daily driver, the Evolution also better lends itself to day-to-day use.
But user-choosers with their hearts set on buying one might be frustrated by too few opportunities to enjoy its supreme abilities.
More groove on the move
Plenty of onboard entertainment and sound engine options make Chrysler's spacious new Voyager worth considering. By Bill McKinnon.
People movers should be more popular in Australia than just about anywhere else in the world, because we are a largely urban society that lives in sprawling suburbs.
Yet people movers hardly figure in the new car sales charts. Their slice of the passenger car market is just 1.3 per cent. What do we buy instead when we want a vehicle that can carry six to eight people? Four-wheel drives. Does this seem logical?
Sales have dropped like a stone this year. They are down 19 per cent, in a class where budget-conscious families have several four-cylinder choices, and a few diesels too, starting from around $35,000.
At the top of the people mover class, around the $70,000 mark, most sales of vehicles like the VW Multivan, Mercedes-Benz Viano and Toyota Tarago Ultima go to commercial hire car operators, or similar businesses.
Chrysler's new Grand Voyager starts at $56,990 for the base model LX. The top-of-the-line Limited, at $72,990 for the 3.8-litre V6 petrol, or $75,990 for the 2.8-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel (both with a six-speed automatic), is very definitely aimed at the family that wants to take its home entertainment on the road.
There's 20 gig of hard drive storage, and two DVD players that can play up to three different media at the same time. You can plug in any portable entertainment device(s) you like.
The Limited is loaded with every comfort and convenience. Each sliding side door opens or closes at the push of a button on the remote. So does the tailgate. So do the two back seats. It's a 2-2-3 layout, with the two individual middle chairs able to swivel a full 180 degrees.
The 3.8, which we drove, has adequate torque, which is what counts when you're loaded with the kids and gear. However the 2.8 turbo-diesel, which we have driven in other vehicles, and which has more torque than the 3.8 V6, would work just as well around town, with a significant fuel consumption advantage.
It uses 12.8L/100km in town, compared with the 3.8's rather excessive 18.8L/100km.
Handling is mediocre, and the soft suspension can fail to properly absorb the vagaries of our poor roads. The VW, Mercedes and Tarago are superior in this regard.
Ten airbags are provided, so hopefully this Voyager will fare better in NCAP crash tests than the previous model, which scored just two stars out of five, one with a strike through, indicating an “unacceptably high risk of serious or fatal injury” to the driver in the frontal offset test. The curtain airbag didn't work properly in the side impact test either, becoming “trapped between the dummy's head and the B pillar.”
Diesel success for Sonata
Refined, economical and even appealing to drive, Hyundai's common-rail Sonata has closed the gap on the oil-burning frontrunners, writes James Stanford.
Europe still leads the world when it comes to diesel passenger car technology, but Asia is catching up fast. Japanese brands such as Mazda and Honda are now pushing diesel, but it is South Korean brand Hyundai that has made up the most ground. More than half the i30s sold here are oil-burners.
With this in mind, Hyundai decided to introduce a diesel variant of its Sonata mid-sized sedan. It replaces the slow-selling 3.3-litre V6 petrol engine and hits the market with a price tag of $30,490 for the SLX verison, representing a $2500 premium over the existing petrol four.
The new engine is a 2.0-litre common-rail direct-injection unit with a variable-geometry turbocharger. It produces a healthy 305Nm of torque from 1800rpm. A six-speed manual is standard; a four-speed auto is a $2000 option.
As you would expect, this is an extremely economical engine, using 6.0 litres per 100km with a manual (7.0 for the auto). That sounds great, but the gap between petrol and diesel prices has increased, which greatly extends the payback period to decades rather than years.
So, if you are only thinking about saving money, move along. If you enjoy the torquey nature of diesel engines, you will like this Sonata. While there isn't all that much happening below 2000rpm, from then until 4000rpm sits a meaty torque band that slings the car forward nicely.
Hyundai only made the manual model available at launch and it is a nice enough gearbox. That's important because you end up using it a lot, given the torque band only lasts for 2000rpm. One of the Sonata diesel's best attributes is its inherent quietness. It is not very noisy under load and is very quiet at idle.Hyundai has also worked on the Sonata's suspension, which was ordinary.
Standard safety gear across the Sonata range includes electronic stability control, front, side and curtain airbags, while all cars also get cruise control, air-con, trip computer and 16-inch alloys.
Stepping from the base SLX to the Elite costs $36,990, the latter adding an auto gearbox, leather seats, 17-inch alloys, premium CD sound, more extensive trip computer, chrome garnishing inside and out and electric front driver's seat adjustment.
