USED Renault Scenic MPV (97 - 03)

My car

I've owned a Scenic 1.6 Alize for seven years, since new, and thrashed the living daylights out of it. You don't buy a mini-MPV because it's fun to drive (that's why we have a second car) and trying to drive this bus quickly just makes the children sick. There's no point in pretending it's a 'fun' driving experience, but it is comfortable. You won't complain after crossing France in it. But over the years mine has ferried children, furniture, friends, rubbish and relatives a total of 82,000 miles without doing anything worse than getting mucky. Things wore out. But that happens in a car. I looked like a sad, middle-aged bloke in it. Well, wakey wakey! I have three children. The bottom line is that this was a no-nonsense, utterly reliable and incredibly versatile car. I'm replacing it with another one.

My car

We bought the car new in March 2001 from car supermarket at a substantial saving over main dealer prices! It is actually a Monaco variant with a great deal of useful standard equipment.

The manual gearbox is notchy, with first and second gears sometimes difficult to locate when the car is cold.

There is plenty of room in the back for three kids (two of which are in car large seats) as well as a huge boot. Yet it is very compact on the outside.

Apart from a broken accelerator pedal/cable clip, we have had no problems with reliability.

Fuel, insurance and servicing costs are all very reasonable.

We have been looking for a replacement but cannot find anything like it. Even the new Scenic is full of over-complicated technology, which I think might to be costly to maintain in the future.

My car

I bought this car as I had three young children, all of which were in car seats.

I had a Ford Escort and upgraded to an MPV only to find out that the back seat is the same size as an Escort's. I needed to pump my seat up as I am only 5ft2 but then I could not reach the handbrake.

Apart from that, the drive is good and they really do have cute personalities.

My car

I have owned this car for just over a year now, it is the Sport Alize.

I find the equipment very good for the price of the car. The seating flexibility is great for carrying large loads, they are very comfortable too.

There are only a couple of problems I find particually bad:

1. The whining Gearbox 2. The noise when travelling on the motorway

The dealer is great, no problem with them whatsoever. I would highly recommend this car to anyone and I am considering buying the new model.