Renault Koleos, Anyone Had One, Are they Good/Bad?

[pepper]

As title really! My other half is dead keen on getting a Dacia Duster when the finally get here in the UK, my idea is to buy second hand and I've had a look around and can find a Koleos for £10K with only 12,000 miles on the clock.

Now by the time we've specced a Dacia Dustbin up to the level that she wants (and I want) then I reckon they are going to be the best part of £17-18K This sounds like an awful lot of money for what is basically the same car as the Koleos which could be bought at a lot more sensible price!

The Koleos comes with the better specced 150 or 175bhp engine. there are more toys as standard and I don't end up spending a fortune on a car with a silly name!

I should add that we owned an original Dacia Duster back in the early nineties which I bought very cheaply with a knackered gear box, bought a 2 years registered younger model for the gearbox and then found that it actually had a lower chassis serial number than ours! The car was a cheap 4x4 on a budget, but we had great times with it(rather like a Renault 4)

Now the latest Dacia Dustbin is a QashQai underneath as far as I reckon (cos they are all Renault parts bin specials) so yes I could buy the Dacia Cheaper than the Nissan but the Koleos appeals to me!

Anyone had one tried one, know of any particular problems?

 

[ggcton]

Hi Richard I have had a Koleos for almost 4 years now it is basically a Nissan so very little goes wrong.
In 44000 miles I have had a cable to the petrol cap filler a round of tyres and servicing.
It is good on the motorway back and fore to Spain and the 4 wheel drive helped me pull the trailer out of a very muddy field when the Vel sat would have bogged down.
Gary

 

[pepper]

I had an inkling I'd seen you in one when we were at Malcolms BBQ!

I'm just sitting looking at the used prices and am shocked how cheap they are compared to the competition!

A VW Tiguan top of the range was the same price as a Koleos prestige when new, now for a 10K budget gives me the choice of a 10 plate Koleos with 12-20,000 miles on or a 08 plate Tiguan with 110,000 miles on the clock!

Now surely the depreciation on the Volkswagen is better for an original buyer but second hand this doesn't make sense! There is no way that the VW is 5 times better mileage wise than the Renault! They both do similar MPG, they both tow around the same, my stingy money is saying buy Renault!

 

[pepper]

Oh and I drive the same basic engine in my Vauxhall van every day and it's a pretty good engine!

 

[Lobster]

The problem is that the trade (and the public to some extent) really don't want to know about big, modern Renaults however good they are. We've all seen the internet horror stories about modern Renaults most of which are largely unfounded* and the trade and public view them with a degree of distrust therefore depreciation is shocking.

I saw an '08 Laguna Estate last week for £3795 which seems a VERY cheap car really. Koleos is relatively unknown in the UK and depreciation suffers accordingly. Seem like they are a decent enough car though.

*However, if you want to experience a properly unreliable modern Renault then you would be welcome to buy my Kangoo which seems incapable of lasting more than a couple of thousand miles between expensive mechanical episodes and might just find itself getting binned sooner than planned...

 

[Stuart Delahoy]

Never thought about one of these before, but I quite like the idea of it.
A quick Google turned up the Autocar road test from 2008 and its looks like its based on the Nissan X Trail, so does that mean the dci engine is not the same as the grenade fitted to most UK Renaults?
If so sounds good...

 

[pepper]

Never thought about one of these before, but I quite like the idea of it.
A quick Google turned up the Autocar road test from 2008 and its looks like its based on the Nissan X Trail, so does that mean the dci engine is not the same as the grenade fitted to most UK Renaults?
If so sounds good...

I think you'll find it's the normal Renault 2.0Ddci engine, although I could be wrong!

 

[ggcton]

Do not know abouy the engine but most of the labels under the bonnet are nissan.
Gary

 

[pepper]

Do not know abouy the engine but most of the labels under the bonnet are nissan.
Gary

Most of the labels on my Vauxhall Vivaro are triple labelled, Renault/GM/Nissan!