The Renault Grand Scenic: A Masterclass in French Lunacy and Rental Car Despair

I have driven some truly baffling machines in my time. Cars that seem to have been designed by people who have never actually met a human being, let alone watched one try to operate a motor vehicle.

Recently, I found myself in need of a car for a week. So, I went to Avis Hungary, a respectable, international rental company, handed over my hard-earned cash, and expected a functioning automobile. What they gave me instead was a black Renault Grand Scenic. And I quickly discovered that “functioning” is a highly subjective term.

I took it on the motorway at 130 km/h, I bounced it down some spine-shattering dirt tracks, and I have come to a rather startling conclusion. It is a car that genuinely, passionately, hates you. And the people who maintained it at Avis hate you even more.

Chapter 1: The Communist Steering

Let’s start with the mechanical integrity of my particular Avis rental, which can only be described as “optimistic.”

As soon as I set off, I noticed something strange about the steering. Despite the tyres being perfectly and evenly inflated, the car possessed a desperate, magnetic attraction to the oncoming lane. It constantly, relentlessly pulled to the left. It was like driving a staunch communist. You could be on a perfectly straight, perfectly flat piece of tarmac, take your hands off the wheel for half a second, and the Grand Scenic would instantly make a break for the nearest ditch.

Chapter 2: The Symphony of Raw Iron

“Well,” you think, “at least it has brakes to stop you from going into that ditch.”

Wrong. The front left wheel had absolutely no brake pads left. None whatsoever. I don’t mean they were a bit worn; I mean they had ceased to exist. When I applied my foot to the middle pedal, it didn’t sound like a modern car coming to a halt. It sounded like a Victorian steel mill. It was the horrific, teeth-shattering screech of raw metal grinding directly on raw metal. It wasn’t braking; it was just a highly destructive form of friction. Avis didn’t rent me a car, they rented me a mobile angle grinder.

Chapter 3: Key Fob Roulette

To add a delightful layer of psychological terror to my one-week rental, the Grand Scenic immediately informed me that the battery in the key remote was dying.

Now, even if Avis had given me a perfectly maintained car, I would still despise it, because the Grand Scenic is fundamentally flawed. On paper, it makes a sort of logical, French sense. It is a vast, imposing monolith of practicality. It’s absolutely massive.

If you are just popping down to the local shops, this is annoying. But I was taking this half-dead, left-leaning, screeching metal box out into the absolute middle of nowhere. Every single time I parked and turned the engine off, I had to play a terrifying game of roulette. I would press the lock button, pray to whatever gods were listening, and wonder: “Is this it? Is this the moment the battery finally dies, leaving me stranded in the wilderness until I eventually decompose?”

Chapter 4: The Illusion of Grandeur

Because it’s the Grand Scenic, it reveals a boot large enough to house a medium-sized hippopotamus, complete with two extra pop-up seats in the back. This means you can play minibus for your children, or for adults you actively despise. It promises a world where you can take your entire extended family on a lovely holiday. But that is exactly where the dream ends and the nightmare begins.

Chapter 5: The Black Hole of Storage

You sit in the driver’s seat, settle in, and attempt to empty your pockets. You look between the front chairs for a simple, flat surface to put your mobile phone.

Nothing.

There is absolutely nowhere to put your phone. In a modern car, this is like forgetting to install a steering wheel. If you actually want to store your device, you have to lift up the armrest and plunge your arm into a cavernous, dark hole, like you’re searching for a lost artifact in an Egyptian tomb. God help you if it rings while you’re driving, because you’ll need a spelunking kit to retrieve it.

Chapter 6: The Sliding Console of Doom

And then we get to the Grand Scenic’s “party piece.” The entire middle console, the storage box, the armrest, the cup holders, the whole lot, is mounted on a railway track. You can slide it forwards and backwards. Renault probably calls this “modular living” in their glossy brochures.

I call it “Sophie’s Choice.”

You see, if you actually want to use the cup holders, you have to slide the entire unit violently backwards. This completely annihilates the legroom of whoever is sitting behind you. Their knees will be crushed into a fine powder. If, however, you slide it forwards to grant them the gift of keeping their lower limbs, your cup holders vanish entirely under the dashboard. You must choose: do you want a sip of water, or do you want your passengers to survive the journey?

Chapter 7: The Spinal-Tap Mirrors

“Right,” you think, “I’m a reasonable person. I’ll just put my Evian bottle in the door pocket!” Don’t be ridiculous. The compartments in the front doors are so comically small you’d struggle to fit a mouse’s thimble in there.

But that pales in comparison to the absolute worst feature of the entire car. The exterior side mirrors.

In a normal car, designed by sane people, the mirrors are placed just ahead of you. You flick your eyes, you check your blind spot, and off you go. Not in the Scenic. The doors are so thick and strangely shaped that the mirrors have been pushed so far back they are practically in a different time zone. They start somewhere around your knees.

To look at the right-hand mirror, you don’t just move your eyes. You have to physically rotate your entire upper body so far backwards that you risk snapping your own spinal cord. It is, and I do not say this lightly, the most unpractical, infuriating design choice… in the world.

Chapter 8: An Identity Crisis in Melted CD Cases

Let us finally move on to the center of the dashboard, which is dominated by a massive portrait screen that operates with the speed and urgency of a dead slug. It is so utterly unresponsive, I’m convinced the software was written by a man who only had a hammer. And if you are hoping to connect your phone using wireless Android Auto, forget it. You must tether your phone with a cable, like you’re operating a Victorian telegraph machine.

Renault has desperately tried to give the interior a sort of “New Year’s Eve luxury” look, but everything you touch is made of hard, scratchy plastic. It feels hollow. And the driving experience is just as deceptive. It is fitted with an automatic petrol powertrain that features a new “dual clutch” gearbox but with a true feeling of an old and clunky “single-clutch” type, it feels like it’s constantly surprised by the concept of changing gears, far from my Renault Captur that is in a different league.

The Bombshell

The Renault Grand Scenic is a masterclass in missing the point. It gives you a vast amount of space, and then gives you absolutely nowhere to put your drink without crippling your friends. It tries to look luxurious, but feels like a cheap Tupperware box. To simply check your mirrors, you need a referral to a chiropractor.

Combine that with Avis handing me a car that pulls to the left, has no front brake pads, and a key fob threatening to leave me stranded in the woods, and you have the recipe for absolute misery. It is a big box of French nonsense, delivered by a company that apparently uses hope and prayers instead of a mechanic.

And on that terrible disappointment, it’s time to end.

About the car:

Renault Grand Scenic (4th Gen), 1.3 TCe, 7 Speed EDC Automatic Gearbox
Fuel: benzin
Power: 140 HP
Model: 2022