Why do French manufacturers not care?

[nickfrog]

We had a (current shape) 3008 for a couple of years after the Kadjar. The steering wheel thing is the same as the 2008. We had no issues finding the right adjustment but clearly the "window" is smaller than it should be.

Otherwise the car was ergonomically as well designed as the Renault, and probably even smarter and better to use as the car we had afterwards, a Skoda Karoq (VW Tiguan ergonomics).

[RammyMP]

At least the Peugeot has a proper key instead of the stty card thing the Renault had!

[MitchT]

It's not just the French. My OH has an E87 BMW 1 Series. The only way to operate the electric windows is to lean towards the centre of the car as the switches are on the door arm rest about half way up my forearm so you'd need unnaturally short arms for them to be in the right place! The switches on my E36 3 Series are perfectly positioned on the centre console next to the gear stick. Quite why they moved away from this layout beggars belief.

[RammyMP]

Another irritation with this Peugeot, the front windows don’t go all the way down so you can’t lean your arm on the door when the windows are open.

I don’t know what engines in it though but it’s got a bit of poke!

[biggles330d]

nickfrog said:

craigjm said:

The key and volume control mentioned are used on the alpine a110 too which is a shame

Surely this thread demonstrates that the audio thing is excellent when you are used to it.

I kinda agree with this. My A110 has the funny audio controller and the 1990's laguna key (albeit in a nice embossed leather pouch that is extraordinarily expensive to replace if you loose it I'm told). Having not come from Renault's before the audio controller took some getting used to and I can't say I've got to grips with which top button does what yet, but the roller and the + / - are simplicity to use and fall to hand.
I can't say it looks cheap because frankly, I can't see it when I'm driving. Does it work fine? Yes. Is it probably cheap as chips to replace? Yes. Would I rather Renault spent a load of money on redesigning a perfectly functioning audio controller for something 'posher' for the sake of keeping up with Porsche, or that they spent the money on the clever chassis engineering stuff... No. I'm glad they focused on whats important for the car.

Just look at VW to see that spending large on ever changing switchgear to now the frustratingly hopeless touchscreens for everything is not necessarily progress. There's an honesty in keeping things simple if they don't really need to change.

[Glosphil]

Mercury00 said:

I feel like that about German manufacturers, there's no integrity about the cars they make. They know their engines and gearboxes are ste, and they manufacture them regardless. Just look at the VW 1.4 TSI debacle, or DSG which lasts only until the warranty expires.

What 1.4TSi debacle?
Between myself & a few friends we have owned at least 9 VAG cars with DSG & a few owned until 8 years old & with milages over 80k. Not one problem. Have you ever owned a car with DSG or are you just repeated what you have read?

My wife owned a 2010 Clio for 11-1/2 years. She never used the audio controls on the stalk but used those on the actual audio unit.

[bloomen]

I just hired a Renault Koltur or Captor or whatever it is.

Though it was an auto which made very sad, I thought it was pretty good. Excellent ride, decent driving position. Totally gutless but I wasn't there to race.

It wasn't touch screen heavy either. All the important stuff had physical controls.

What I couldn't get behind was basically removing rear visibility and replacing it with a reversing camera that constantly glitched and froze. Not hugely helpful when a car appears in the mirror but not the camera so I had to largely hope for the best using what little I could see in the mirrors.

Edited by bloomen on Tuesday 18th April 11:06

[Couchwarrior316]

From my experience:

Renalts are st.
Renaultsports are awesome.

[nickfrog]

Couchwarrior316 said:

From my experience:

Renalts are st.
Renaultsports are awesome.

I know what you mean but in terms of ergonomics, the main subject here, they're the same.

[RammyMP]

bloomen said:

I just hired a Renault Koltur or Captor or whatever it is.

Though it was an auto which made very sad, I thought it was pretty good. Excellent ride, decent driving position. Totally gutless but I wasn't there to race.

It wasn't touch screen heavy either. All the important stuff had physical controls.

What I couldn't get behind was basically removing rear visibility and replacing it with a reversing camera that constantly glitched and froze. Not hugely helpful when a car appears in the mirror but not the camera so I had to largely hope for the best using what little I could see in the mirrors.

Edited by bloomen on Tuesday 18th April 11:06

The camera in the Peugeot 2008 isn’t much better, very low quality resolution and it tries to be clever by recording the ground when you reverse so it’s like a birds eye view but if you’re reversing around a corner it cocks it up.

[KPB1973]

I've had 11 (that I can remember) French cars and on the whole they've been great.

Notable exceptions being the 406 V6 Estate which used to kangaroo in heavy traffic, and more seriously, a used 67-plate 1.2 puretech 5008.

It had an incredible spec and drove really well, but the 'belt in oil' design for the timing belt was a terrible idea. Mine started to delaminate a few months after purchase and block the oil pick up. The supplying dealer and warranty company were useless, and Peugeot themselves said there was 'a chance' they would replace the engine if it failed catastrophically, but that wasn't much of a reassurance in the circumstances.

Apparently they changed the spec on the belt itself in 2018, but even this was after several iterations due to the same problem affecting 1.2 puretechs for many years beforehand.