I'm still looking for a car to update my Golf VR6 highline with that doesn't feel like a step down.

On my shortlist are the Fabia vRS (but I don't like the standard seat material), the Polo GTi (slightly dearer, costs more to run - tartan!) and the RenaultSport Clio 197.

I obviously read the blurb on the Clio and they're highly rated but revvy, completely different to the VR which will pull from 800 revs in 5th but I thought it might have sprang into life at 5k or something like a Honda VTEC.

Anyway, I took it out for a test yesterday and I was quite shocked how limp it was right through the range, it doesn't pull any harder at 6k than it does at 2k! A real disappointment as it doesn't even seem to pull like it's got a "normal" 2.0 engine in it, I think to get that higher rev limit they've given up some standard torque right through the range.

They look great, but it seems, all show no go - unless you're on a track where I can see it would come into its own.

That leaves a shortlist of 2, but that's for a separate thread I think!

Interesting. Not driven a 197 but the 182 certainly wakes up at 5k

The new Clio 200 is the one to get now. Coming from a VR6 i think you will be disapointed with a Fabia.

The new Clio 200 is the one to get now. Coming from a VR6 i think you will be disapointed with a Fabia.

Out of my price range that. The thing is, I don't drive my VR6 like it's stolen all the time, most of the time I'm short shifting and riding the torque with a light foot so I can eek some mpg out of it.

Drive within how I normally drive, I actually found the experience surprisingly similar, of course it doesn't have another 2.5k revs to go if I want some more, but it can get a simple remap instead.

I quite like driving the Clios, but do generally find them a bit weak low down in the rev range, and they don't feel particuarly quick when revv'd, even though the speedo says differently.

if you're in Cumbria come and drive my grande punto simon will vouch that it does a pretty good job of trying to keep his evo X behing me (I did say trying...) its for sale for £4500 and has a proven 314 lbs/ft of torque, certainly doesn't feel weak

I've had a look but it's too high mileage for me, looking for something much lower. Sounds an interesting car though.

I rented a Clio Sport 200 for the Nurburgring and was very surprised at how poor the pick up was on the car as I expected a small hatch with 200bhp to rocket along, it did fly along when you revved it hard but as you say that's not great for normal road driving. It's an impressive engineering feat to squeeze 200bhp out of a normally aspirated engine but the power delivery is so poor I don't think it's worth it which is a shame as the handling was superb.

John

Edited 5 October, 201015 yr by JohnMcL7

Apparently the 200's engine is a vast improvement in drive-ability too!

I think it's basically lacking the trickery/workarounds that the japanese engines manage doing the same thing.

Honda uses an extra race cam for the top end and it comes in at high rpm, Toyota use a 2 stage hydraulic control over the valve timing and Mitsubishi use extra lobes on the same cams and activate those higher up.

Renault just seem to fit some fast road cams for peak engine power and not tractability.