A look back at the 4th gen Renault Clio

Renault is the second biggest car brand in Europe and the Clio is one of its biggest superstars. This is a car that’s continued to sell by the bucket-load since its arrival way back in 1990. In this article we’re going to take a look at the older 4th generation Clio and outline some of its pros and cons as a small hatchback.

The Clio we are looking at is the 1.2 TCe 120 Dynamique S Nav and to kick off this article we’re going to tell you some of the things we like and don’t like about it.

1. The way it looks
We really like the way the Clio looks. Nowadays relatively sensible versions of hatchbacks can often lack visual pizazz but you can’t but help like the lines of the Dynamique S Nav model. The black 17 inch alloys wheels really do help to add that extra sparkle to its curvy shape. You can’t really go wrong whichever colour you choose but in our eyes this car is a real looker in the iron blue metallic paint finish.

2. The way it handles
Renault actually make a hot sporty version of the Clio and while the Dynamique S Nav isn’t actually it this car still feels really solid through the corners and has a really good weight to the steering. You will generally enjoy driving this car on flowing country roads.

3. Keyless entry
Instead of a traditional key this Clio comes with a card which you can just keep in your pocket or bag. All you have to do is simply press the button on the door handle to unlock the car, press the start button to start up the engine and away you go. It’s all so super-easy!

4. The headlights
Ok, headlights might be a bit of a weird thing to focus on for this article but the Dynamique S Nav model comes with full LED headlights as standard. These are quite brilliant when driving in the countryside at night by flooding the road ahead with much more light than you’d get with traditional headlights. They’re so good that you’ll really miss them when using other lesser equipped cars.

5. The engine
Those of us with an old-school sizist attitude to engines might just turn your noses up at the prospect of a tiny little 1.2 litre engine. However, this would be a huge mistake as the turbo-charged TCe 120 petrol engine is an absolute peach. It has plenty of punch and is attached to a decent manual gearbox too. Fuel economy is good too and you can expect to get somewhere around 40 miles to the gallon (mpg) or even better in real-world driving.

Unfortunately, not everything is perfect with the Clio so here’s a few things we didn’t like so much.

1. Keyless gremlins
Earlier in this article we stated how much we liked the Clio’s keyless entry system and we still do. However, we only like it when it actually works and all too often it doesn’t. There never seems to be any rhyme or reason to its inconsistency but fairly regularly we pressed the button on the door handle and nothing happened. This can be extremely annoying as just ten minutes later it will work absolutely fine.

2. Charging issues
Many drivers will like to play music and podcasts while on the move using the car’s sound system through the USB port on the dashboard. A lot of drivers will also use a sat-nav app on their phones rather than the inbuilt system. The problem with this is that the power coming from the USB port isn’t enough to keep your phone charged and you’ll have to use an external battery pack to play music through Bluetooth just so that your phone doesn’t die on long journeys.

3. The infotainment system
While we’re on the subject of music, the Clio’s media-nav infotainment system and the iPhone somehow don’t seem to want to get along and we experienced numerous inconsistent problems. For example, to play music from your podcast app or Spotify you should be able to just plug it into the USB port, select iPod on the system and finally press play on your phone. However, there are times when this just doesn’t work. When it does work and you’re on the move playing a song and you get a phone call it won’t resume to what was playing before and instead default to the first alphabetical track on your phone. All of this is can be extremely annoying as it means you have to pull over reselect the track you were listening too and then carry on.

4. The cruise control button
We all love cruise control as it’s a system that really does help on those extra-long journeys. However, the button to turn this feature on in the Clio is for some reason positioned on the floor beside the gearstick. Why Renault didn’t position it on the steering wheel like the majority of other manufactures do we’ll just never know. Also, once you do turn it on it takes over the dashboard display so you can no longer see any of the trip information without scrolling through the menu.

5. The sat-nav
In theory, we like the idea of an integrated sat-nav system. However, in practice we found that the Renault system really does pick some curious routes at times and the traffic information isn’t as accurate as on many smartphone apps.

Used Renault Clio cars for sale are extremely popular with buyers looking for their first car right through to pensioners and everyone in-between. The most popular models tend to be the Dynamique Nav but a lot of buyers step up to the Dynamique S Nav because of the extra kit it give you. Historically more diesels will be sold than petrol but the recent confusion over the future of diesel has reversed this trend. The TCe 90 petrol engine is the popular choice but there’s plenty of demand for the extra pep of the TCe 120 engine which is a more recent addition to the range.

In conclusion to this article it’s probably best to summarise by saying what things we like about the Renault Clio. Well, we’re big fans of the Dynamique S trim and also of the TCe 120 petrol engine. This car really does offer a great balance between performance, features and price. Fundamentally, we like this car and the way it drives although there are newer and better rivals on the market such as the Nissan Micra, Ford Fiesta, Suzuki Swift and Kia Rio. Some of the small and seemingly trivial annoyances that we’ve outlined in this article only really magnify when they occur every day so with a better infotainment system and more luck with electrical gremlins our experience would be a lot more positive. Beneath all of the inconsistencies here lies a really decent car.