Living with the Renault Megane R.S
Review by Jacob Lerklint.
I first experienced the third generation Renault Mégane R.S a couple of years ago and it easily became one of my favorite hot hatches out there, the sheer joy and excitement I got out of the Trophy model was unbelievable. It wasn’t perfect though, the interior lacked quality and it didn’t match the effort put on the exterior looks. For the 2021 model year both the interior and exterior have been refreshed to look up to date. So what’s changed?
Renault have dropped the entry level car so every Mégane R.S now comes with 300 horsepower up from 275hp. In Sweden you can now only have the fully fledged Trophy model. One of the bigger surprises is that Renault has decided to drop the manual gearbox completely from the lineup, for many people that will be a dealbreaker as some of us believe the basic recipe for a hot hatch is the involvement you get from that Manual gearbox. But if have experienced the manual in the third generation Mégane R.S you will know that it is a massive letdown and you’d be better off with the six speed Dual clutch transmission.
The exterior has been a tiny bit refreshed with new headlights and taillights, other than that it looks pretty much the same as the previous car. The somewhat bigger refresh happens in the interior. You now get a fully 10.2 inch digital instrument cluster and the new 9,3 inch infotainment system looks slightly neater than the previous one. However, the new infotainment screen is incredible slow; it can take up to a couple of seconds before it responds to your inputs. Other than some changes to the placement of some of the buttons and the new screens the interior looks and feels the same, similarly to the pre facelifted car, parts of the dashboard plastics are substandard in quality.
The interior might still be a bit lacking but one thing that is not rubbish is the driving characteristic of the Mégane R.S Trophy. There might not be any noteworthy changes to the mechanical parts of this facelifted model but with the combination of the cup chassi and the Torsen mechanical limited slip differential, you get one hell of a driving experience. With proper heating in the S007 Bridgestone tires the Mégane R.S shoots you in and out of corners like no other hot hatch I’ve driven. With 300hp and 420nm from the 1.8 liter four cylinder engine you have plenty of power and that is probably the sweet spot in terms of power output in a front wheel drive hot hatch. It is not just the pulling power that impresses, the immense stopping capacity from the brembo brakes is just as good.
I have driven some of the best hot hatches out there none of them can compete with the Megane R.S in terms of steering feel and the general connection you have with the road. The controversial 4control four wheel steering feels better than the previous car I drove, but you don’t want to make big steering corrections when traveling at high rate of speed as that can unsettle the car a bit more than your liking.
The changes to the 2021 model year Mégane R.S Trophy are modest and maybe not enough to make it the best daily hot hatch, but as a purposeful weekend racer and a car to just enjoy, the Mégane R.S Trophy sits in the top tier of hot hatches.
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