2018 Ford Ecosport vs Renault Captur

What's the difference?

The EcoSport is less adventure vehicle and more a vehicle for those for whom adventure comes in smaller, easy to access doses. It’s small, easy to park and easy to drive, but it’s certainly well behind the rest of the class when it comes to a complete package.

It’s not a particularly nice thing to drive, for example, thanks to underdone suspension and poorly modulated brakes, and the quicker that tailgate spare is consigned to history, the better.

Does the Ford EcoSport rate a spot on your shopping list? Let us know!

If you're an inner-city slicker, the chic-looking Captur Intens will likely be all the car you ever need. It's small enough to navigate cramped laneways, easy to park and even easier on the eye. Outside the CBD, though, cracks do begin to appear, so if you're chasing spirited driving or long-distance hauls, the Captur won't quite capture your heart. 

Looking at the front end of the four-door, five-seat EcoSport, it's obvious that Ford has developed a company-wide look for its SUV family, with the large prominent chrome grille mimicking that in the company's other SUVs, including the Escape and the Everest.

For a small car, the EcoSport is quite slab-sided with narrow windows, a prominent roof and squared off rear, and an overly long front-centre look. Along with a squared-off, bluff bonnet line and the EcoSPort’s tall suspension, it gives the EcoSport the faux SUV look that Ford is gunning for. 

On the inside the car is dominated by a deep dashboard that's lined with a hard, dimpled plastic. This theme continues throughout the car, across the tops of the door cards and into the rear as well. The colour scheme verges on sombre, with a low-key grey, silver, and black theme challenged only by a cream coloured head lining. 

By far the best part of the Captur story is its chic, cute French handbag on shining alloy wheels exterior design.

The two-tone paint job works a treat, with our test car painted a creamy white but with a black roof and a strip along the base of the car that climbs up and into the body as it reaches the rear door. It breaks up the monotony of the otherwise smooth bodywork, and gives the little Captur a sense of youthful exuberance.

Climb inside and you’re met by leather-wrapped seats and soft-touch materials on the door trims, but they're counteracted by the rock-hard plastics that surround the centre screen and gear shift. The entertainment screen does look very good, though; a sleek and modern unit framed by gloss-black plastics and with its major controls integrated into the screen.

There’s a definite air of class in the Captur’s cabin, and there are plenty of little nods to design (like the shape of the air-con controls) that you’d discover over time. 

The EcoSport is marketed as a five seat, five door small SUV, or compact SUV, but really the rear compartment particularly, is designed best for two occupants. 

ISOFIX points are located in the rear but there are no provisions for charging or for ventilation, while in the front the sheer lack of dimension of the EcoSport means the driver and passenger are seated quite close together. 

In terms of storage there are a handful of very small oddment bins scattered on the centre console, along with two cupholders line astern. All four doors can take small bottles and there are another two cupholders in a rear pull-down armrest.

Probably the most distinctive - and probably most annoying - feature of the EcoSport is its rear tailgate. Instead of a traditional top hinged style, the EcoSport uses a side opening door with a single strut, with a full size spare wheel mounted to the rear of it. 

Finding the switch to open the door itself is hard enough, especially if you've never done it before, and the door itself is surprisingly heavy. As well, if you park the EcoSport in the wrong place you simply won't be able to open the door to access the boot area fully.

It's an anachronistic design in a world where practicality rules, and this will make or break a buying decision for a lot of people. Thankfully, Ford has responded, and will offer the EcoSport without a rear door-mounted spare wheel from the middle of 2018.

The cargo area itself has 743 litres of space with the seats up and 1178 litres with them down - isn't too bad in terms of floor space, although it does narrow up quite significantly when you get to the seat backs. 

Ford, though, has added a split-level floor that's designed to provide a flat loading surface when the two rear seats are tumbled forward. Oh, and you have to lift the seat bases up and away before you drop those seat backs, too.

Passenger accommodations are okay at best. The fitment of a sunroof to the top spec Titanium model doesn't do the car any favours, particularly in the rear, thanks to the deeper roof lining needed for a sunroof. If there is a taller driver up front, then you’ll need to find a very small rear passenger as legroom all but disappears, while fitting three across the rear really isn't an option for even a moderate journey.

ISOFIX seat points are provided for two baby seats, while the driving position itself is more than adequate with fair visibility. Something to note though, the porthole provided at the base of the A pillar to give the driver a slightly better view really does nothing at all thanks to the thickness of that pillar. 

The steep windscreen, a long dash, and slightly bulbous bonnet also means that front visibility, particularly when parking, is quite difficult and it's very hard to get a sense of where the front of the car actually is.

Ford's SYNC 3 system does provide an excellent interface for all operations with phones, media, and satellite navigation, though as mentioned the buttons on the steering wheel are quite numerous and very small, so a little bit of tactility is needed to operate them. 

Other than that, the rest of the main controls are pretty straightforward with a traditional automatic gear shift and manual handbrake.

The multimedia system is operated via a small screen that sits proud on the dash, while all instruments in the EcoSport are reasonably well labelled. The majority of buttons are clustered around the steering wheel and can be hard to discern their function given their lack of size. 

The top-spec Titanium offers a black leatherette style interior treatment, which is reasonably well presented… but the sheer volume of harder plastics does let the side down.

There are two USB ports up front but none in the rear, and the 12v points are very well hidden. 

Well, that depends largely on where you’re sitting. Up front, the room is fine, and the vision from the high driving position is terrific.

There are two cupholders that seperate the front seats (though one is bigger than the other) and a pencil case-sized storage bin in the pulldown armrest that splits the front seats. There’s room in each front door for bottles, too.

Climb into the back, though, and things get tighter. Behind my own (178cm) driving position, you’ll find the knee and headroom is actually pretty good, thanks in part to an arch in the roof, but you’d be a cruel person to squeeze three adults into the backseat. 

There are also storage nets on the rear of each front seat, and there’s room in each door for bottles. With no pull-down armrest, there are no cupholders, nor are there any vents, power or USB connections for backseat riders. There are two ISOFX attachment points, one in each window seat.

A removable shelf allows you to alter the height of the boot, under which lives a space-saver spare tyre. You’ll get 377 litres of space with the rear seats in place, swelling to 1235 litres with the rear seats folded flat. 

At $30,990 drive-away, this top-spec Captur is in the right pricing ballpark for front-drive, petrol-powered models in this segment. Our test car also had metallic paint and an upgraded Bose sound system, lifting the as-tested price to $32,090, again, drive-away.

So, what kinds of French niceties are you buying? Well, outside you get 17-inch alloy wheels, the two-tone paint job and a microscopic rear spoiler. You'll also find a sprinkling of chrome, electric wing mirrors and a sunroof.

Inside, expect push-button start, climate control and LED interior lights. Leather seats, a leather-wrapped steering wheel and sat-nav all arrive as standard, too. 

On the tech front, a 7.0-inch touchscreen feeds an Arkamys sound system as standard, but our test car was fitted with a six-speaker Bose unit - a $600 option.

The Titanium offers up Ford’s clever 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine, which combines with a six-speed automatic gearbox. It makes a fighty 92kW and 150Nm, which is pretty cool for such a tiny motor – but ultimate performance is blunted by a 1368kg kerb weight.

Calling this engine the 'bigger petrol' is a relative term, given the smaller option is a (almost literally) pint-sized 0.9-litre unit. This one, on the other hand, is a whopping (by comparison) 1.2-litre turbocharged petrol engine (so, two pints). 

It will produce 88kW at 4900rpm and 190Nm at 2000rpm (not what you'd call exciting numbers), fired to the front wheels via a six-speed automatic transmission. And as a result of all that, the Captur will clip 0-100km/h in 10.9 seconds and push on to a top speed of 192km/h.

Rated at 6.7 litres per 100km, the EcoSport Titanium consumed a dash-indicated 7.9L/100km over a shortened 120km test loop. It can run on 91RON, and it has a 52-litre fuel tank.

Renault claims the Captur consumes a frugal 5.8L/100km on the combined cycle, which is really very good. Emissions are a claimed 130g/km of C02. Our real-world testing returned a figure closer to 7.5L/100km, though.

The 45-litre fuel tank will only except the more expensive 95RON or 98RON premium fuel.

Unfortunately the EcoSport doesn't really come together that well. Developed in a relative hurry off the basis of an ageing Fiesta platform, the car just doesn't really gel, particularly when driving around town. 

The brakes, in particular, have a very strange modulation feel, in that the first small part of pedal travel does very little to stop the car, before the brakes bite very hard. It makes the car awkward to drive smoothly, which is an annoyance in stop/start traffic.

The three-cylinder one-litre engine is a surprise package. It's smooth, linear, and although it’s raucous when pushed, settles down into quiet operation very quickly. Steering is okay, but it doesn't provide much in the way of feedback to the driver. Of course, this is not a sports car, but this is also a car that will make a regular driver wonder why it doesn't feel as nice as it should for a new car. 

The EcoSport's ride is soft and comfortable, thought it quickly falls apart when pushed even moderately hard. It's a level of ride that's designed to add comfort for occupants… and really little more. 

The front suspension, in particular, crashes and bangs over even moderately sharp impacts and overall it really feels like a narrow, tall vehicle it is. The centre of gravity does feel quite high and the slab sides do leave it susceptible to even moderately stiff side draughts. 
 

It’s a mixed bag, the Captur. It is perfectly suited to city life: diminutive proportions, easy vision, light steering and plenty of technology. And so it fulfils that core brief perfectly. But unlike a European capital, Aussie city-slickers inevitably venture outside the CBD walls, and it’s there that cracks begin to appear. 

When you ask too much of it, you find the engine and gearbox combination is underwhelming, to the point where overtaking on the freeway becomes a long-distance challenge. The steering feels soft and disconnected, too, and the suspension is clearly set up to favour suppleness over sportiness.

Put simply, there's a sponginess to the drive experience that doesn't inspire confidence, and it feels significantly less dynamic than the best in the city-SUV segment.

But the city is its home, and it fulfils its duties there with aplomb. Even as far as small SUVs go, the Captur isn’t exactly a towering example, but the seating position gives you this commanding view of the road that makes you feel like you’re looming above the traffic.  

Clever bonnet design makes it fade away from sight, too, and provides a huge, panoramic view of the road ahead, giving you terrific vision. The view out of the rear side windows, though, (like when you're checking your blind spots), is harder.

There are four airbags, all located for front-seat riders, with dual front and front-side bags on offer. They join front and rear parking sensors, a reversing camera and a nifty auto-parking system. You also get blind-spot monitoring, but that's about it as far as advanced safety tech goes, with no AEB, or lane keep assist on offer. 

The Renault Captur wears a five-star ANCAP safety rating, but it was earned via a 2013 crash test in Europe. The lack of backseat airbags wouldn't see it fair anywhere near so well under today's testing criteria. 

With just a three-year, 100,000km warranty, Ford’s offering is fast becoming one of the least generous in the game. Its fixed price service deal works out at around $280 for the first five years or 75,000km (whichever comes first), so that’s not too bad.

Servicing should be carried out every at 12 months or 15,000km.

Renault has seriously upped its game on the ownership front, and the Captur Intens offers up a five-year/ unlimited kilometre warranty, five years of free roadside assistance and a three-year capped price servicing program. 

The Renault Captur Intens requires servicing every 12 months or 30,000km.