Renault Mégane RS 300

It’s a cracker when you’re on it, but there are some shortcomings when you’re not

THE MÉGANE IS A FAST, EXCITING CAR if you use the drive mode button and select Sport or Race. There’s a real zip to its engine response that energises the whole car, and when rear-steer pitches in too it feels properly on it. It’s a blast but you need to be in the mood for it, and the contrast in key-on mode is rather greater than you’d hope. Simply fire up and drive off and the Mégane feels a bit flat, almost disinterested.

I think this is so that the official economy and CO2 figures – taken in key-on mode – look good, but I find it frustrating that a 296bhp fast hatch with RS badging needs to be put into Sport mode. I could probably live with that simple button push, but Sport and Race also engage a high-alert gearbox strategy that sees it holding low gears, and while there’s a mode to tailor settings to your taste, oddly you can’t have the Sport throttle response without the keen gearbox.

So the choice is leave it in key-on mode and feel a bit cheated or go the other way and have the response you want and use the paddles to make the gearbox bend to your will. If the Mégane was great at the basic stuff, this would be less of an issue, but while body control is good when you’re pushing on, at an amble the ride is unsettled on busy back roads. Also, in light, everyday use, brake feel is soft, long-travelled and a bit inconsistent.

Getting to know the Renault HMI continues to surprise and delight. I’m sure it’s all in the handbook but who reads them? Not me. The most recent revelation is that the satnav map has multiple views and modes. I’d been getting increasingly frustrated with the map on the home screen, which showed useful stuff when I zoomed in – traffic info, fuel station prices and the like – but after a short while it would revert back to its small scale of a few miles to the inch. And then I found that when the map is full screen there’s a button with a squiggle symbol that allows you to cycle through a range of map scales and styles. I’ve now got it set to a large scale with some perspective that also shows buildings in 3D. It’s excellent.

Less than lovely is the Mégane’s alarm. In the first month it went off once for no apparent reason, but in the last few weeks it’s been triggering more frequently, reacting to what I have no idea. The car has keyless entry and one time as I walked round the front, it unlocked itself and the alarm went off. Thing is, even if you use the fob to lock/unlock it and quiet the alarm, the hazard lights keep flashing for a couple of minutes. You can get in, fire it up and press the hazard lights button, but nothing stops them flashing, which is a bit annoying if you’re in a hurry and want to get going. A dealer visit seems inevitable.

John Barker (@evojb)

Date acquired July 2021 Total mileage 3950 Mileage this month 1298 Costs this month £0 mpg this month 29.2

‘There’s a real zip to the engine response that energises the whole car’