Every three years I buy a brand new car, drive it to death and trade it in for a another new car and it's that time again. In just over 3 years I've done 63,000 miles in my Renault Scenic 1.6 Expression+ (old shape) so here's my review.

To be honest when we saw the car in the dealership we weren't convinced. It was going to be my first MPV and I wanted another reason for buying it other than the fact my kids loved the "McDonalds" tables, the wife liked the metallic colour, and that visability appeared to be better than the Citroen Piccaso. Unfortunately though there wasn't one. All the MPV's seemed much the same. The Picasso was cheap, but it had a horrible split in the side window that would cause severe problems at junctions. The Nissan Tino was OK, but it was more expensive than the Scenic and the Zafira looked clever with nice ideas in there, but the body shape was boxy as hell. So the Scenic it was.

I've had severe knee injuries in the past and the seating position - more akin to a van or a lorry - was the most comfortable I have ever had in a car. The 6CD changer seemed like a good idea - however having it under the passanger seat isn't very practical in the end. And the double electric sunroof, one at the front and one at the back, seemed to be the cars best features.

It took just 6 weeks though before the car was back in the garage with the car making a knocking sound from the underside. Turns out it was a bracket holding the exhaust that had come loose already.

The car drove reasonably well though with around 40 mpg for my travelling along country roads. It lacked power and drive, but for a family car it was perfectly practical.

Visits to the garage became more frequent. It became difficult to start the car and after a few trips to my dealer they eventually concluded that the car battery was the problem and not the chip in the key as diagnosed by the AA. The brakes and drums, both front and back, needed replaced after 30,000 miles - the shock came in the price £530...!!! New shock absorbers were needed at 35,000 miles and then problems started to occur where the poisonous fumes light on the dash would come on and the car would drastically lose power. That turned out to be a design fault with the car and a problem with the ignition coils, however despite Renault knowing about this problem, my local dealership decided to replace each coil on seperate occassions and each time attempted to charge me £45 - supposidly half price - for the replacement. As a result the car made it's way back to the garage on three more occassions.

You could say reliability was a problem but the majority of thes repairs were eventually dealt with free of charge. I'm not sure if I would criticise the dealer or Renault themselves, but it was the only disappointing aspect.

Anyway, what is my new car going to be.....well believe it or not, its another Scenic which probably says it all. Despite the problems with the car I had I am prepared to trust Renault again with my money, partly because again there is nothing out there in the MPV class that would excite me enough to make me dump Renault. I'll just make sure that this time I use a different car dealership.