Renault Captur 2021 review: It's MUCH better than the old one...

CarExpert

The 2021 Renault Captur is MUCH better than the old one. Thank goodness. Because the old one really wasn't much chop. Renault has increased the value proposition, thrown a bunch of new technology at the Captur and really made it a competitive vehicle in the segment. Paul Maric gets behind the wheel to see what it's like.  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  Read the full review: http://car.expert/renault-captur-intens-review  More Renault content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/renault More Renault Captur content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/renault/captur  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 01:00 Interior 03:26 Infotainment 05:06 Safety Tech 06:52 Practicality 07:57 On the road 12:01 Verdict 15:37  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #renault #captur #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So each time I stand here in front of you, it's either a small SUV or a dual

00:04 cab unit that we're talking about. They're going gangbusters at the moment, and the latest one to

00:08 get, I guess a new version of its old self, is the Renault Captur. The old one wasn't fantastic,

00:14 so hopefully this one is better. This right here is the top specification, it's called the Renault

00:18 Captur Intens. It's priced at just under $36,000, but if that's a bit too much, the entry level

00:25 starts at a little over $28,000, so there's a fair bit of choice in between there. This competes

00:30 with things like the Nissan Juke, the Volkswagen T-Cross, the Skoda Kamiq. There are a lot of

00:35 competitors in this segment now, and it's becoming a really popular option for manufacturers to make

00:39 an SUV version of their smaller cars. Today we're going to do a detailed review of this. If you do

00:44 want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes up on the screen there,

00:48 or if you're on YouTube, just scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so

00:51 already, make sure you subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon, so you can find out every

00:55 single time we drive a very orange or gold coloured car. Let's start with the exterior. So you've got

01:02 eight external colours to pick from, including two-tone colours as well, and all but the blue

01:07 is an additional $650. Let's talk about the design first. I actually really like it, I think this

01:13 looks very mature and looks quite classy. So you've got highlights of chrome around the front there,

01:20 big Renault logo, bit of piano black there, and then this matte finish on the centre of the grille.

01:25 And all of this grille is like a 3D finish, looks really cool the way that they've done that.

01:30 Then in addition to that, they've loaded the entire range with LED headlights, but this top

01:35 spec model here gets, I don't know, I quite like the design of this. It looks like an old-school

01:39 halogen headlight inside, but it's actually fully LED. Then you have the LED daytime running light

01:45 around the sides there, and an indicator built in as well. I think it is a really cool design.

01:49 Love this as well, you've got a little vent there that comes around to the side there. So

01:53 it is quite a comprehensive design and it looks really nice and classy and sporty at the same

01:57 time. Whip around to the side here. So I've got 18-inch alloy wheels with 55 profile rubber,

02:04 and then around that wheel arch you've got this plastic cladding there, so everyone knows it's,

02:09 it looks like an off-road vehicle even though it's front-wheel drive only. I like the wheel

02:13 design, so you've got that sort of shadow chrome on the outside with the darker finish inside the

02:19 wheel. Now let me know in the comments section, sometimes when we talk about wheels a lot of you

02:23 say they look like they're hard to clean. So those of you who do clean your cars regularly and your

02:28 wheels, what makes a wheel hard to clean? Is it extra amounts of spokes or is it, I don't know,

02:32 different colours or small holes? Let me know in the comments section. A little, I don't know,

02:37 arrow type thing on the side here, indicator built into the wing mirror, and then you've got

02:41 a camera down the bottom there. You've got yourself a set of roof rails on the top,

02:45 privacy glass. I quite like the way that the two-tone roof is split with this chrome,

02:50 really divides it up nicely. Two-tone colours on cars are really starting to take off now,

02:56 and I think this is executed really nicely. Come around to the back, I'll show you these tail

02:59 lights. So this top spec model gets what they call the 3D tail light setup, so you can see there

03:04 you've got a little shadow to that LED element. I love it when manufacturers put a bit of time

03:08 and effort into lights and tail lights, and I think this really stands out nicely. You've got a

03:14 Captor badge down the back there, Renault badge over here, and I think overall the design at the

03:18 rear looks really nice too. It's very sharp, modern, and it looks sporty as well without

03:23 being over the top, so I think they've done a good job with the design. Okay, we are inside

03:27 the Renault Captor now. Let's start with the key. Here it is here. You've got unlock, lock,

03:34 an illumination button, and then a boot button, and then on the back you have the Renault logo,

03:39 and it's white. I don't think I love the key. Yes, it's a proximity sensing key, and then you've

03:43 got a push button start inside, but I just find it really bulky and annoying. I just prefer

03:49 something a little slimmer and easy. I find this is just a little complicated for no reason, so

03:54 you know, let me know what you think in the comments section below. Do you think that's

03:57 annoying, or do I just need to get over it? On the styling front, I think this looks fantastic. So

04:02 again, big leap forward over the last Captor, and I think that really they have just gone to a lot

04:07 of effort here to make this look and feel premium. So you've got this new big infotainment system

04:11 down the centre. You have a lot of really high quality materials around the cabin. And look,

04:16 we'll talk about storage in just a second, but I like this design as well. So they've capitalised

04:20 on having a high centre tunnel without needing to take up too much room in the centre here. So

04:25 that sort of encroaches on your space, gives you easy access to the gear lever, but then also

04:30 provides you storage beneath it as well. So this is an interesting design. I haven't seen this

04:34 before in cars, so I like the way they've done that. Now, what about the touch point? So it's a

04:38 little firm there in the centre, but it's fine for your elbow to rest on, and same story on the door

04:42 there. How firm is it? Well, we've tested it with our durometer. If you want to see how this car

04:47 compares to other cars we've tested before, have a look at the link in the description below. Now,

04:52 what about build quality? So I was having a play with this before, and that is very sort of loose

04:58 in the centre there. You don't really have anything to anchor it down on, and so is that. So

05:04 I don't know, I'm a huge fan of that. Let's talk infotainment. So this is a bit of a statement

05:08 piece to the interior. It's Renault's new 9.3-inch Portrait infotainment system. So it sits nice and

05:15 proudly there central to the cabin, and then you have shortcut buttons down the bottom in addition

05:19 to the screen, which has a bunch of different controls on it, and you can also add widgets

05:24 and things like that. So today I'll give you a brief overview of how all of this works. Here

05:29 in the top spec model, you have inbuilt satellite navigation that you access through the menu.

05:33 There it is there. It's not a bad system. Slightly laggy, but for the most part,

05:38 it does a pretty decent job. There's also Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone mirroring.

05:43 Keep in mind, they are both cabled, so you will need a cable to connect to those. Let's have a

05:47 look at what that looks like. There you go. Not quite a full screen integration, but big enough.

05:51 So I quite like the look of that. And this is what Android Auto looks like.

05:54 There you go. That's not too bad. Same sort of screen size as Apple CarPlay,

06:01 and it's a really high resolution screen as well. You can see there's no pixelation there around

06:06 the main screen elements, which is really cool to see. Then on the radio front, you have AM,

06:12 FM, and DAB+ digital radio. The top spec model comes with a nine speaker Bose

06:17 branded sound system as well. Now ahead of the driver, it comes standard with a seven inch LCD

06:22 display, but here we have the optional 10.25 inch display. I like the look of it. It's nice and

06:27 sharp and quick and fast and all the sort of stuff that you need it to be. And then you can also

06:31 customize the display to show different things like your car information, radio, navigation,

06:36 and also information about the drive mode that you're in. And as you flick between drive modes,

06:42 it changes the screen color, and you'll see that when we go for a drive later. So yeah,

06:45 this looks really cool, and I think it really puts it right in the mix with the rest of the

06:49 competitors in this segment on the tech front. Okay, let's talk about the main safety technology

06:54 that comes fitted to the Captur. You get blind spot monitoring built into the wing mirror there,

06:59 autonomous emergency braking, an auto dimming rear vision mirror, you have lane departure warning

07:04 and a lane keeping assistant. Then on top of that, you have a 360 degree camera with front

07:09 and rear parking sensors. Let's have a look at what that looks like. Okay, now let me just caveat

07:15 something here because we have the optional screen, we also get the optional side parking

07:19 sensors and also the semi-autonomous parking function. So some cars won't have this as

07:24 standard. I've got to say the quality of that camera is pretty poor. The rear camera is not

07:29 great, and then the 360 camera, I mean it looks effectively redundant because I can't tell

07:34 anything around the car there. You can change the views there, so you can see down the front

07:39 and side of the car. I guess that's a handy view if you're parking or turning or doing anything

07:43 like that. You can see the wheel moving there, and it's also got guidelines that move as well.

07:47 But for the most part, I think they really could have improved the quality of the camera,

07:51 given that this is such a high resolution screen, you could definitely use a high resolution camera.

07:56 Let's talk about practicality, and we'll start with all your USB points. So,

08:00 get rid of that for a second. You have two USB A points up the front with an auxiliary port.

08:04 You've also got a 12 volt outlet. In addition to that, you have wireless phone charging down the

08:10 bottom here. So you just lay your phone on that pad and that will kick off. Now, where will you

08:14 put your phone if you don't want to charge it? Well, it easily fits into the cup holders there.

08:18 You can also slot it up the top there. They're all grip pads too, which I really like. Now,

08:22 coffee cup, where's that going to fit? Well, it doesn't really fit in there. The lid catches on

08:25 the edges and it doesn't reach the bottom. But let's try a bottle instead. That fits in okay.

08:31 You have teeth there as well to hold it into place. Big storage in the doors as well for your

08:36 bottle and other bits and pieces. Now, this center console lid, it moves forwards and backwards,

08:41 but the actual center console itself is massively deep, but absolutely tiny. So I can fit a bottle

08:46 in there, but it's sort of wedged into there, which is a little bit strange. Glovebox, let's

08:50 have a look at that. It's not a bad size. It's actually a really odd shape. It looks big, but

08:55 it's not too bad. It sort of goes right into the engine bay almost. So that's not too bad at all.

09:00 Let's talk about comfort and some of the features that you get. So you have single zone automatic

09:03 climate control. You have heated seats for the front row with a heated steering wheel as well

09:09 for those chilly days. What about the seats themselves? I think the design is really cool.

09:13 In fact, the top of this reminds me of a Volvo. It's got that similar headrest shape,

09:17 which is interesting, but the seats themselves, I don't know, they just look really cool. You've got

09:21 the white stitching in there. You've got these perforated sections and then the seat is really

09:25 comfortable to sit in. It sort of hugs you in nicely. Electric seat adjustment for the driver.

09:30 Steering wheel is cool as well. It sort of feels and looks sporty. It sits nicely in the hand with

09:36 those paddle shifters at the back and then all of this is easy to reach, but I have one problem,

09:41 and that is when you go to change any of these controls, you lean your hand on the gear shifter

09:45 and you go to change the controls, you literally shift it into neutral each time you lean your

09:49 hand on it. And I don't know, I just find that really bizarre that they didn't check that during

09:54 the engineering process. And it can be a little bit dangerous because if you're driving along

09:57 and you go to change the temperature, you flick it into neutral, you don't really realize the car's

10:01 in neutral because it starts revving out. I'm going to put it back. I don't know, just not a

10:06 very good design and I think that probably needs some work. Righto, back seat, what's it like here?

10:11 Well, I've got my driver's seat quite far back. You can see here I've got a decent amount of

10:16 knee room. Toe room is excellent and headroom is pretty reasonable. If you're a little taller,

10:20 you're going to be rubbing along the side there, but for the most part, it's pretty comfy. Now,

10:24 what about the materials? It's a shame that it's so good up the front there and then you get back

10:28 here and it's just this nasty scratchy stuff. So the back of the seats are nice, but yeah,

10:34 this stuff is just really average and unimpressive and it's quite dreary back here. It's very dark.

10:39 There's no sort of colours splitting it up or anything like that. So you have USB charging

10:43 points down the bottom here and also a 12-volt outlet. You also get air vents, which is good

10:47 news. Map pockets in the back of the seats. ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats, plus a little

10:52 zip to keep it closed when they're not in use. Bottle, there is no centre armrest, but you can

10:57 pop the bottle inside the door if you want to. Let's talk cargo space. Now, yes, it's a small SUV,

11:04 but it's actually quite clever in terms of the amount of space you can sort of work with here.

11:09 Now, just in this default position, you have about 400 litres of cargo space available,

11:13 but the clever thing is, yes, you have a cargo blind, but you also have the ability to hide

11:17 things under the cargo floor and then beneath that, you have a space saver spare tyre.

11:23 But the interesting thing here is you can shift this so that you have lower floor space available.

11:29 Then on top of that, you can also move your second row forward that expands the space to

11:33 around 500 litres. So that's pretty cool. We'll pop our bags in just so you can see how much

11:38 space there is there. Look at that piece of cake. And then I will show you what it expands to once

11:46 you drop all of this out of the way. Drop our rear seats. Alrighty, once they're down, you have

11:55 about 1300 litres of cargo space, and remember, you can lift that floor up to make it fairly flat.

12:00 So we've hit the road in the Renault Captur. Let's talk about the engine first. So it's a

12:06 1.3 litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine. It produces 113 kilowatts of power and 270

12:15 Newton metres of torque. Now here's a trivia, a little bit of quiz for you. Let me know in the

12:19 comments section below, where else does this engine feature? Not in the Renault range though.

12:24 Let me know in the comments. That engine powers the front wheels and it's mated to a seven-speed

12:30 dual-clutch automatic transmission. Now it's normally at this point that I start complaining

12:34 about dual-clutch automatic transmissions, but the one in this is actually really decent. So

12:38 at low speeds, it's fuss-free. On hills, it's fuss-free and it just drives normally. You never

12:44 really sort of left wondering what it's doing or waiting for it to jerk you around a bit. So it is

12:49 a really decent gearbox and it suits the characteristic of that engine really well.

12:53 So what does it feel like while you're on the move? We'll give it a little kick down here.

12:57 Yeah, look, it's nice and quick to respond and 270 Newton metres, it may not sound like a lot,

13:03 but this only weighs around 1300 kilograms. So it's not a massively heavy car. So 270 Newton

13:10 metres is enough to feel nice and sprightly behind the wheel. In terms of fuel economy,

13:14 the official claim is 6.6 litres per 100 Ks. Let's have a look at what we're sitting on. 7.1,

13:20 so pretty much bang on exactly where it needs to be. Let's talk about drive modes. So you've got

13:25 a few to choose from. You press this little button on the screen here. I don't actually know what the

13:29 button's meant to be. It looks like a leaf or a fan or something like that, but it activates

13:33 multi-sense, which is the drive modes menu. So you can edit your own drive mode so you can set a

13:40 custom one if you want to, or you can go over to sport and then you can also go to eco. So in

13:45 between sport and eco, there's a noticeable change in terms of things like steering feel.

13:50 So you can feel it's nice and comfortable in the standard MySense and then if you go to sport,

13:56 it gets sort of heavier as well. Let's see what it's like in terms of handling.

14:01 Tip it into this corner. Oh, it's nice and fun. It sits nice and flat and the feel through the

14:06 steering is good. So in sport mode, it's not overly heavy, but it gives you a bit of feedback.

14:11 So it feels nice and engaging behind the wheel. Now, Renault claims a 0-100 time of 8.6 seconds.

14:18 We put it up against our stopwatch to see how it'd go.

14:23 So, now let's talk about the ride. I quite like what they've done here. So they've gone for a

14:35 slightly sportier tune. So it is comfortable, but it's on the sportier side of comfortable.

14:41 So it's a little firm on those potholes and rougher edges, and that kind of gives you the

14:45 feel behind the wheel that it is quite a sporty and engaging SUV. But for the most part, when

14:49 you're out on country roads and that sort of thing, it is going to be comfortable. You will

14:53 just notice that tinge of sportiness to it, but in and around the city, it's actually a really

14:59 nice place to be seated when you're going over speed humps and cobblestones and those kinds of

15:02 things. In terms of visibility out the front there, it's pretty good. You have front and rear

15:06 parking sensors. So parking in and around the city is straightforward. The wing mirror is a

15:11 decent size and it's got that little curved edge on it. So you can see down into your blind spots.

15:16 There's also a blind spot monitor there. Visibility out the back is pretty poor. The window is very

15:22 narrow and it's a little tricky to see out of. The turning circle is 11.1 metres, which is pretty big

15:28 for a front-wheel drive car. It means that it's not going to be super nimble in and around the

15:34 city and you may have to do the occasional 3.2. Okay, so Renault Captur. Well, I can start by

15:41 saying it is way better than the last one. The last one, I don't know, it just did nothing for

15:45 me and it just wasn't a very good car. This one is a quantum leap forward compared to the last one.

15:50 Now, in comparison to the other cars in the segment, it's actually pretty good as well

15:54 because the engine is nice and punchy. The gearbox isn't too infuriating like it was in the Skoda

15:59 Kamiq where it was just too stop and start. This dual clutch is actually programmed really nicely.

16:03 So from that side of things, it is a nice car. The things that did disappoint me though were

16:08 that gear lever design. I just don't understand how they didn't notice during the engineering

16:12 process how easy it is to knock that into neutral when you're doing something as basic as changing

16:16 the climate control. So I think that needs to be addressed pretty soon or if you do own the car to

16:21 just make sure you don't accidentally knock it into neutral. Also, don't love the fact that it's

16:25 got rear drum brakes like they should belong in ancient history, not on modern cars today. But

16:31 if you put those things to the side, it's pretty sharply priced in comparison to some of its peers

16:35 at this top end and I don't know, it's just really fun and engaging to drive. So let me know in the

16:39 comments section below, what do you think of the new Renault Captur? Have you driven one? Have you

16:43 bought one? Let me know what you bought instead if you didn't. If you did enjoy this video, make

16:47 sure you hit the like button and also don't forget to subscribe to our channel and press the bell

16:51 icon. But until next time, drive safely. Bye.

Category

Transcript

Recommended