Grand Espace Initial 3.0 V6 dci

[BlueMeganeII]

After much searching looking at cars from 20k right down to 4k I finally found this:



Found it on the Sunday and had the deposit down on it on the Monday. £8495 55 reg with my Scenic in part exchange. Love the 3.0dci rengine which feels so refined, I thought it was amazing Renault made an engine like this... Of course I then found out its not a Renault engine. Its got full electric leather seats, the extra seat the initial normally lacks as it has captain chairs. Sunroof, Xenons, Tyre Sensors, 18" Alloys, Climate Control with controls for driver, passenger, two outside middle row seats and airvents for all seats. Also the most complex stereo system going. The Satnav screen is in the glovebox, its gubbins are in the passenger footwell, the multichanger is in the boot and I think the radio box jobba is back there too. Then I found a CD drive for the satnav in the passenger glovebox. I will find a way to connect an ipod or iphone!

Truely impressed and as it was so cheap with a little jiggle of the finances next year I can get a Megane sport or New Renault Scenic... hmmm.....

[Paddy]

Thats a nice looking / well kitted bus!

Health to drive!

[BlueMeganeII]

The best part means I can could now comfortably get an R26 or order one of the new Gen Megane Sports, but I think I like the Megane II too much to order a Megane III new.

[Paddy]

You left out an 'R'
Its the R26R your after... trust me, i would never look back.

Is that a wind deflector popping up from the roof?

[BlueMeganeII]

Yeah for the sunroof, its truely panoramic - massive, so that deflector stops alot of buffeting in the rear, but most importantly it stops alot flys entering the car at 70mph . I noticed last night on the handsfree system that it automatically locks when you walk off which is ideal as I often forget to lock the car which is of course bad, especially when you left all the windows down too. If I got an 'R' ( I presume they all have the harness style belts? ) i think II'd need to keep my current Megane as my daily. Atleast tyres arn't too bad. My Espace seems to use 225/45 18s and £166 for branded tyres seems good, is that the same size tyres as yours? Does it respond well to having seperate summer and winter tyres?

[Paddy]

The tyres i have one here at the moment are Toyo Proxes R888 235 / 40 R18. Strickly for dry use. and they only last about 8- 10,000 miles or one track day. But they are super grippy. (she never sees a wet day)

A R26R is only practical if you are doing the odd track day, where it really comes alive. I do drive it to work the odd time, if I’m in a bad mood that morning, as even in traffic it makes you smile. (Funny to see people look across at the lights and see you with a full race cage and harness.)

Fly’s at 70mph would not be good poor kids in the rear. ( reminds me of the time i was on a roller coaster with my GF) As we went down the dip a fly went straight into her mouth. She coughed and spluttered the whole way round. O did I laugh!

[geordieguy01]

Just as a warning. We have one of these and they are prone to injector failure. Izuzu has stopped using the engine itself owing to this warranty cost. Last time it happened to our car it was off the road for 9 weeks whilst engine was rebuilt using almost exclusively on back order parts. Its an uncommon engine on a Renault so the fault isnt well understood but if you search on the Izuzu Rodeo you will find more info on it.

[BlueMeganeII]

Yeah I was looking at that before I purchased but it seems to be less common than the old 2.2s letting going. I think the new 2.0 diesel engine is a good compromise if anyone is buying one of these new or nearly new.