Renault Clio vs Renault Megane

What's the difference?

The Clio RS is still a ton of fun and in Cup spec, probably the best compromise between price and livability. Despite its advancing years (it turns five this year, so ready to start kindy) and big brother Megane hogging the limelight with a fancy new model on the way, the Clio is a stayer. It's missing some frustratingly obvious things like CarPlay, AEB, rear airbags and rear cross-traffic alert, but it's hardly alone in the segment. 

With the departure of the Fiesta ST, though, the Clio returns to the top of the list of best small hot hatches on sale today.

If the Renault Megane RS Trophy is your dream car let me say this: there’s no overarching reason that I’d say you shouldn’t go ahead and buy it. 

But with so much amazing competition in this part of the market, it’s hard to put it ahead of its rivals. And it’s going to be even harder for it to stay high on the contenders list as more new metal arrives in the coming years.

The Clio is a handsome small car but nothing out of the ordinary until you apply the very cool Liquid Yellow paint. That hue really is quite something and works even better with the black alloys of the Cup chassis.

The car has some lovely surfacing and in a recent-ish refresh, the slightly odd headlights were reworked, as were the front and rear bumpers which now link to the RenaultSport Megane. Sorry, Megane RS. The RS flag signature lighting is a nice touch, acting as DRLs at the bottom corners of the front bumper.

The lovely organic shapes of the Clio's sides still look good and the rather tough rear end with the chunky diffuser leaves you in no doubt that it's the proper RS not the halfway-house, 1.2-litre GT-Line.

Inside is starting to look its age, but graceful, a bit like Jamie-Lee Curtis' or George Clooney's embrace of grey hair. There are still some of the sharp edges I didn't like. It's certainly a Renault to look at and ergonomically works pretty well. One thing that has been fixed at some point is the switch on the gear selector - it won't bite you if you curl your finger underneath when you press it. You might think that's a small thing, but when you did it, damn it hurt.

The Megane RS Trophy’s dimensions don’t really communicate just how chunky it really is. At 4364mm long on a 2670mm wheelbase, 1875mm wide and 1435mm tall, it is pretty conventional in terms of size for the segment.

But it packs a lot of style into that size. I for one love those broad hipped wheel-arches, the signature LED headlights and chequered flag lighting signature at the bottom of the bumper, and the bright, eye-catching colours available really just ram the message home that this isn’t your average Megane.

I could happily leave behind the red flecks on the wheels, which look a bit too blingy and not quite ‘lightweight racing-spec’ to me. But they obviously appeal to a certain buyer - maybe someone who wants a bit more drive-by flair, as opposed to track-day talking points.

The Trophy model builds upon the Cup variant, using the same chassis and hardware under the skin, and therefore running the brand’s 4Control four-wheel steering and a mechanical Torsen limited slip diff. More on that in the driving section below.

Exterior design and styling are one thing - but you probably spend more time sitting inside your car than just admiring it from a distance. How does the interior of the RS Trophy stack up? Check out the interior images to make up your own mind.

The Clio's interior is certainly snug. Rear seat passengers do okay for legroom but headroom is a mite marginal with the falling roofline for six footers. There are no cupholders out back, that curious French habit of supplying just a couple of cup receptacles of different and weird sizes persists. The front doors have space for bottles, the rears do not.

The boot is class-competitive at 300 litres (worth knowing the Trophy loses 70 litres to the Cup) and with the seats down stretches to a claimed 1146L.

The Megane RS Trophy’s cabin carries over some of the design cues from the exterior. It looks and feels like a hot hatch should.

There’s a lovely part-Nappa leather, part-Alcantara steering wheel with paddle shifters and a ‘centre line’ marker - but some may lament the lack of a flat-bottom to the wheel, which is a current trend in the “trust me I’m actually very sporty” breed of cars.

The manually adjustable seats are very supportive though they are a bit firm, so those wishing for ultimate comfort over long distance trips might be left wanting. But there is good adjustment to the seats, and they’re heated, too.

There are some nice elements to the cabin including soft plastics on the dashboard, but the lower plastics - below the eye-line - are quite hard and not very pleasant. However, the inclusion of ambient lighting does distract from that, and add a bit of flair to the cabin.

The portrait-style media screen is fine most of the time, though it does take some learning. The menus aren’t as intuitive as you might hope, with a mix of on-screen buttons and off-screen touchpad-style controls that can be difficult to hit when you’re driving. We also had a couple of instances of glitching while using Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone mirroring.

Storage is okay. There are shallow cupholders between the seats, a covered centre console bin, as well as a storage section in front of the gear selector that’s big enough for a wallet and phone, and bottle holders in the doors. 

In the rear seat there’s enough space for someone my size (182cm) to sit behind their own driving position, albeit with limited knee room and toe room. Headroom is good, and there are dual ISOFIX child-seat anchor points and three top-tethers for baby seats.

You’ll find a pair of small door pockets, two map pockets, and rear-seat directional air vents, which is nice. There’s a flip-down arm-rest with cupholders, too, and unlike some other high-price hatches with ambient lighting up front, the Megane gets LED light strips on its rear doors, too. 

The boot space is good in the Megane RS Trophy, with luggage capacity claimed at a healthy 434 litres. On test, the car fit all three CarsGuide suitcases (124L, 95L and 36L) with room to spare. Speaking of spare (ahem), there isn’t one: it comes with a repair kit and tyre pressure monitoring, but no spare wheel of any kind. 

The Renault Megane RS Trophy has a list price of $52,990 for the six-speed manual, or $55,900 for the six-speed dual-clutch auto model, as tested here. Those costs are RRP/MSRP, and don't include on-roads. 

Standard equipment for this range-topping ‘regular’ RS model includes 19-inch ‘Jerez’ alloy wheels with Bridgestone Potenza S001 tyres, an active valve exhaust system, Brembo brakes, LED headlights with LED daytime running lights, rear fog lights, front/rear/side parking sensors, semi-autonomous parking system, reversing camera, auto locking, smart key card and push-button start, and steering column-mounted paddle shifters.

There’s also auto headlights, auto wipers, dual zone climate control, an auto dimming rearview mirror, heated front seats with manual adjustment, a nine-speaker Bose sound system with subwoofer and amplifier, an 8.7-inch touchscreen media system with aux port, 2x USB ports, Bluetooth phone and audio, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, sat nav, the brand’s RS Monitor track timing software, and a 7.0-inch TFT colour screen for the driver with configurable modes and digital speedo.

You can find a run down of the safety tech and equipment fitted in the safety section below.

Options available include an electric sunroof ($1990), and there is also the choice of a few metallic paint colours: Diamond Black and Pearl White metallic are both $800, while the Signature Metallic Paint colours - Liquid Yellow and Orange Tonic as you see here - are $1000. Only Glacier White will cost you no extra. 

Wondering where it sits among its closest rivals? If you’re thinking about a Ford Focus ST (from $44,690 - manual or auto), Hyundai i30 N (from $41,400 - manual only), the outgoing VW Golf GTI (from $46,690 - auto only), or the mighty Honda Civic Type R (from $51,990 - manual only) the Megane RS Trophy is expensive. Only the VW Golf R Final Edition ($57,990 - auto only) is dearer… unless you’re thinking of comparing to the likes of a Mercedes-AMG A35 ($69,300).

The 200-equipped RSes pony up 147kW/260Nm, which is pretty much bang-on the obvious competition (Peugeot 208 GTI and the outgoing Fiesta ST), driving the front wheels through Renault's six-speed EDC twin-clutch. Unlike those two, there is no overboost function.

Dieppe's finest sprints from 0-100km/h in a claimed 6.7 seconds, pulling along a kerb weight of 1204kg.

Engine specs matter if you’re talking about performance hatchbacks, and the Megane RS Trophy is no exception.

It has a 1.8-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine that punches hard for its size, with 221kW of power (at 6000rpm) and 420Nm of torque (at 3200rpm). That’s for the six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, as was fitted to our test car. If you buy the six-speed manual, you miss out on a bit of grunt - it has 400Nm (at 3200rpm) and the same peak power.

In auto spec the RS Trophy “300” offers higher figure vs the Sport and Cup “280” models (205kW/390Nm), and more engine performance per litre of capacity than the Focus ST (2.3-litre: 206kW/420Nm), Golf GTI (2.0-litre: 180kW/370Nm; TCR 2.0-litre: 213kW/400Nm), and even the Golf R (2.0-litre: 213kW/380Nm). 

All Megane RS models are front-wheel drive (FWD/2WD) and no Megane RS is all-wheel drive (AWD). The Trophy and Cup models both get 4Control four-wheel steering, which is an interesting aspect of the drive experience. More on that below. 

There are multiple drive modes to choose from, including Comfort, Neutral, Sport, Race and the configurable Perso mode. These can alter engine, transmission, throttle, traction control, exhaust noise, fake engine sound and steering sharpness - but not suspension, because the dampers aren’t adaptive units. 

Renault claims 5.9L/100km on the combined cycle but, yeah, nah. My week was admittedly filled with plenty of horseplay and spirited driving, yielding 11.4L/100km. If you were careful you may fare better - but not that much better.

The fuel tank is a fairly standard 45 litres. It requires 98RON premium unleaded.

The claimed official combined fuel consumption for the Megane RS Trophy is 8.0 litres per 100 kilometres. That’s for the EDC auto model as tested. The manual is said to use 8.3L/100km.

You might achieve that if you drive gently, though over my testing - which incorporated hundreds of kilometres of highway and country road driving, as well as a few spirited stints and some urban snarls - I saw a return of 10.8L/100km at the pump.

The Megane RS requires 98RON premium unleaded, and the fuel tank capacity is 50 litres. 

The RS has always had a belter of a chassis. The Cup chassis became a thing just over a decade ago and is lauded by the fans as The One To Have. I've not always been convinced of this as my earlier drives of the Cup-equipped machines have usually been in close proximity to the Sport chassis. 

The Cup is slightly lower than the Sport, with 15 per cent stiffer springs and dampers and perhaps more importantly it scores 18-inch wheels with Dunlop Sport Maxx RT2 tyres, which you can reasonably expect to be a bit firmer than the 17s with Goodyear F1s on the Sport. And they are.

However, in most situations, the Cup chassis is perfectly benign. You certainly feel the bumps and lumps, but you haven't bought a Cup chassis for Lexus-like isolation. It's certainly sharper than the Sport chassis and when you're really giving it a go around the bends, the comfort deficit is more than made up for by the extra grip and poise.

The RS has always had a belter of a chassis.

The chassis is aided and abetted by a torquey 1.6-turbo that cheerfully...no, gleefully spins to the redline which could do with another thousand revs, but that's forced induction for you. The aluminium shift paddles need a good positive pull to get a gear, but that gear is delivered quickly and effortlessly. The Clio is a great deal of fun in Sport and Race modes, with throttle mappings and gearshifts becoming more aggressive as you switch through the modes.

The brakes are tremendously effective and the electronic limited slip diff (*cough* brake-based torque vectoring) ensures you'll hit your apexes and the tyres spend more time gripping than spinning.

But it's not all hairpins and off-camber left-right-lefts, is it? Plenty of owners have to live with the car in traffic day to day. Driving the Cup in isolation, I've changed my mind about it. I reckon it's the best of the two chassis settings. The city ride is better than decent, with the hard edges potholes chamfered off by the dampers and decent compliance. It's not too noisy, either.

The Megane RS Trophy has the ingredients to be an all-time legendary hot hatch, but they don’t work together well enough for it to be a truly great car to drive.

That is, they don’t work together on public roads. I didn’t get a chance to sample the RS Trophy at the track, and I’m sure that may well alter some of my opinions. But this was a review focused around everyday driving first and foremost, because - unless you’ve got quite a fleet of cars - you’ll be spending a lot of time in mundane motoring in your Megane RS, too.

Other hot hatches in the segment manage to combine big power and torque with immense traction and steering prowess. The Megane RS used to, as well.

But this new version seemingly has some issues harnessing the grunt, and the 4Control four-wheel steering system simply isn’t as rewarding as it should be.

I had several instances where the traction on slippery surfaces was lacking, while even in the dry I noticed distinct torque steer and the Bridgestone tyres struggled to cope under hard acceleration. That’s despite the fact the Trophy gets a mechanical LSD.  

Further, that four-wheel steering actually makes it pretty hard to judge the behaviour of the car at times, with an artificial feel to it that just doesn’t do it justice. There will be some who say that the four-wheel steering - which can angle in the rear tyres to help you pivot in corners more adeptly - is excellent. But I’m not one of them. I really found it hard to predict this car’s behaviour. I never really gelled with it.

At the very least there’s a non-interventional lane keeping assist system, which emits a pulsing sound through the speakers rather than actively vibrating or adjusting the steering. 

The ride is unapologetic in its firmness – although, if you’re across the history of RS Megane models, that is to be expected for a Trophy chassis. It can be tiring on longer road trips especially if the surface isn’t great.

While it is extremely fast in a straight line - 0-100km/h is claimed at just 5.7 seconds - it wasn’t as quick through corners as I was expecting it might be, and that comes down to its four-wheel steering mostly, along with a lack of usable traction at times. It simply isn’t as connected to the road as the previous RSs have been. 

It was also a bit laggy then lurchy at lower speeds when taking off from a standstill, such is the nature of the dual-clutch in stop-start situations. 

To put it bluntly, I didn’t enjoy this car anywhere near as much as I thought I might. It just isn’t as pure a driving machine as I’ve come to expect from the RS brand. Perhaps I should aim to try it on a track!

The Renault Megane has not been awarded an ANCAP crash test rating, but the regular (non-RS) model scored five stars against EuroNCAP criteria back in 2015.

The RS Trophy (manual or automatic) comes fitted with adaptive cruise control with speed limiter, auto emergency braking (AEB) at speeds between 30km/h and 140km/h, blind spot monitoring, lane departure warning with audio alert, reversing camera, surround parking sensors and semi-autonomous parking.

Missing is rear cross-traffic alert, front cross-traffic alert, rear AEB, pedestrian detection and cyclist detection. 

Renault says it was the first European maker to offer a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty in Australia, and who are we to argue? The package also includes up to four years of roadside assist and three years of capped-price servicing.

Renault expects to see you just once a year or every 20,000km, which gives you a bit more headroom than some similar service plans, at least on the mileage.  The first three services will cost no more than $369 unless you need a new air filter ($38) or pollen filter ($46). At 60,000km or four years you'll cop $262 for a set of spark plugs. The company's website also suggests if the Clio doesn't like the state of its oil, it will beep at you until you have that attended to.

The Renault Megane RS range is covered by a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, which adds some peace of mind for owners.

Further, the service intervals are generous, at 12 months/20,000km - though the brand states the Megane RS is actually “subject to adaptive servicing requirements” as the oil condition sensor may trigger a service check requirement prior to the standard intervals.

Unlike other Renault models with a five-year capped price servicing plan, the Megane RS is only covered for three years/60,000km. The service costs for the EDC dual-clutch auto models are higher than the manual versions, due to replacement transmission oil being needed (adding $400 to the first service). 

The costs for the first three services are: $799 (12 months/20,000km); $299 (24 months/40,000km); $399 (36 months/60,000km). Consumables beyond those service intervals include: every 24 months or 20,000km - air filter replacement ($49) and pollen filter replacement ($63); every 48 months or 60,000km - accessory belt replacement ($306). Spark plugs are included at no cost, due every 36 months/60,000km.

The car is backed for up to four years of roadside assistance when serviced within the Renault dealership/service network.