Renault Arkana Review (2021-present)
Renault Arkana cars for sale
4.0
Expert review
Pros
Very stylish and striking
Surprisingly roomy for people and luggage
Excellent 1.3 TCe engine
Cons
E-Tech hybrid won't go far on electricity alone
Not as exciting to drive as a Cupra Formentor
No 4x4 version
The CarGurus verdict
The Arkana is a striking-looking car, and in a world where it's increasingly difficult to tell one SUV from another, its edgy styling is guaranteed to get you noticed. It’s a pretty tidy thing to drive, too, and as well as being smartly finished inside and well specified, it also offers a surprising amount of practicality, with sufficient space for a couple of grown-ups upfront and a trio of Mummy’s little helpers in the rear seats. There’s also a healthy-sized load bay, which allows you to stash a shed-load of buckets, spades and beach chairs.
The hardest decision will be which powertrain to choose. Although there are running-cost benefits associated with the E-Tech hybrid version, we’d be inclined to stick with the TCe engine. As well as being cheaper to buy, it is a proven device and one of the sweetest small-capacity engines currently on sale.
Although it shares the same mechanical platform (called CMF-B, if you care) as its smaller Renault Captur and Clio relatives, the Arkana has an elongated wheelbase. The main beneficiaries of this stretch are rear passengers, who gain significantly more legroom. Boot space also increases to 480 litres, which is 50 litres more than you get in a Nissan Qashqai. What’s more, despite that plunging roofline, the rear headroom is still pretty decent. The only downsides are the smallish rear windows and the dinky rear screen, which make things seem a bit dark, like a student bedsit.
The exterior metalwork is complemented by a heavily stylised driver’s cockpit, complete with a neatly proportioned steering wheel, classy gear selector lever, a large central touchscreen and neatly arranged piano-key switches. Completing the classy scheme is a trio of rotary dials, which provide easy climate control adjustments.
The Arkana is available with a couple of petrol engines. There's a mild-hybrid 1.3-litre TCe, which comes with a seven-speed twin-clutch automatic gearbox. There's also a full-hybrid E-Tech version, which uses a combination of electric motors and a 1.6-litre petrol engine. The E-Tech always starts in electric mode, so when driving at low speeds it's quieter than a funeral procession, but as soon as you lift off the accelerator there’s a significantly increased whine, as the brakes and electric motors harvest energy and feed it back to the battery pack. You’ll also notice some odd clunks as the petrol and electric power sources merge in and out.
Perhaps the most intriguing piece of this particular powertrain is its gearbox, which replaces clutches with electronics and solenoids to synchronise gearchanges. Sadly, it’s not the quickest shifting device and shifts are often accompanied by a faint mechanical judder. Besides this, there’s often a discernible pause before top gear engages, and this pause can be so laboured that the petrol engine will lose momentum, by which time the electronics are left wondering if the choice of the highest ratio was a good idea after all.
Compared to the transmission, the 1.6-litre petrol engine’s tech is positively stone age. With no turbocharger to gee things along, it's reliant on the electric motors for additional assistance, but this still isn’t sufficient to make things feel particularly rapid.
Like most Renaults these days, the Arkana provides a pretty tidy balance between comfort and control. Under most circumstances, the ride is smooth, although some heftier lumps and bumps will send a fair few shudders into the cabin. That said, noises from wind, road and suspension are well isolated and both the steering and the brakes are nicely weighted with a reassuring, connected feel.
You get a choice of several trim levels with the Arkana. Entry Iconic models come with air-conditioning, 17-inch alloy wheels, full LED headlamps and cruise control, as well as a 7.0-inch infotainment screen featuring DAB, Bluetooth, USB sockets and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity.
The S Edition brings larger 18-inch alloy wheels, grey front and rear skid plates and tinted rear windows, as well as automatic high and low beam headlights and an auto-hold function for the electronic parking brake. Extra driver assistance technology also comes with S Edition, including adaptive cruise control, blind-spot warning, lane departure warning, traffic sign recognition and rear cross-traffic alert. Inside, the touchscreen grows to 9.3-inch and includes navigation and Google search. You also get niceties such as synthetic leather upholstery, a leather steering wheel and height adjustment for the passenger seat. On top of this, you get Renault’s Multi-Sense system that allows the driver to alter the driving modes and tweak the interior ambient lighting colours.
At the top of the range sits the R.S. Line model, which features a deeper front bumper, a honeycomb grille and gunmetal skid plates. Inside there are leather and suede heated sports seats with electric adjustment, a black headlining and aluminium pedals, as well as carbon-effect panels complemented by a red strip running the width of the dashboard and door panels. You also get a hands-free automatic parking system.
At 58.9mpg, the hybrid E-Tech’s official fuel returns are 10mpg better than the 1.3 TCe, but you’ll probably still be reasonably happy with the lower-powered car’s 48.7mpg, especially as not so long ago that these kinds of returns were the preserve of diesel cars.
If you’re planning on running an Arkana as a company car you'll get a significant reduction in your Benefit-in-Kind tax bill if you go for the E-Tech hybrid version, but it will still give your wallet a fairly hefty workout. Because of its 108g/km CO2 emissions, the E-Tech currently falls into a 25% bracket, while the higher polluting TCe is pegged at 29%. Of course, you will need to factor the E-Tech’ s additional £1,000 list price into your equations.
In order to sweeten the deal, Renault is offering some pretty attractive leasing rates, but as ever, this is a fine balancing act. Give too much away at the start of a model’s life cycle in order to shift metal, and resale values can suffer in the long term. This is good and bad news, depending on which side your bread is buttered, as poor resale values mean there will be keen deals on offer for used buyers further down the line.
Recommended service intervals for the Arkana are every year or 12,000 miles, and Renault offers a three-year Easy Life servicing plan, which will cover the health of your Arkana for three years or 30,000 miles, and cost around £500.
The first questions everyone asks about cars that utilise electric driving power are 'how long will the battery last?' and 'will it cost a fortune to replace if it goes up the swanny?'. This is less of an issue with the hybrid Arkana, as it will continue to run on its petrol engine if the battery does go kaput. You can avoid any of this anxiety by leasing an Arkana, but if you’re buying outright, you may still have a few concerns. But you shouldn’t worry unduly, as like every new Renault sold in the UK, the Arkana benefits from a comprehensive five-year, 100,000-mile warranty, with an unlimited-mileage provision for the first two years. This also includes a 12-year cover against anti-corrosion and a three-year paintwork guarantee. More pertinently, the battery in the E-Tech version is covered for eight years or 100,000 miles.
The Arkana is still too new for us to judge how well it will wear the miles, but it does share much of its running gear with the latest Captur and Clio models. Although we can’t yet vouch for the longevity of the E-Tech powertrain, there’s no reason to think the TCe version should be any less reliable than its stablemates.
The first used examples are likely to appear on Renault’s approved used website and this should provide plenty of reassurance for buyers. The site currently offers cars that are up to seven years old and have covered fewer than 70,000 miles, and every model is covered by a 12-month unlimited-mileage warranty and roadside assistance. You also get additional bolt-ons, including five days’ free insurance, as well as a 30-day exchange policy should your new car not live up to your expectations.
- As yet, there are no plans to offer all-wheel-drive versions in the UK, as Renault prefers to market the Arkana as a crossover rather than a full-blown 4x4. So, for now at least, it's front-wheel drive only. One of the major reasons for the Arkana’s introduction is to counter faltering sales of the larger Kadjar and Koleos SUVs.
- There was a time when you could guarantee that choosing a Renault would mean a five-star Euro NCAP score, because the firm has been one of the industry’s leading lights in the area of safety in recent years. However, the latest Kangoo MPV has recently missed out on the top score, while it’s been well publicised that Dacia – Renault’s budget brand – has performed even more disappointingly in crash tests, with two-star scores the norm for that marque. No such fears for the Arkana, though, as it’s already faced the industry-standard testing programme, and emerged with the full five-star rating.
- What does the name Arkana mean? Well, rumour has it that it’s derived from the Latin word ‘arcanum’, which means ‘secret’. The car is known by various other names around the world, however. Before coming to Europe, the car was sold in South Korea as the Renault Samsung XM3. In former Yugoslavian countries, meanwhile, it’s known as the Megane Conquest, for the unfortunate reason that the Arkana name is uncomfortably close to the pseudonym used by a Serbian mobster and paramilitary famous in the history of that area.
- If you’re buying on a budget: You’ll probably be buying an Arkana primarily because of the way it looks, and if this is the case, there’s no need to go crazy; even the cheapest Iconic model has the looks and the stance to light up your neighbourhood. It also comes with plenty of standard kit and, because it rides on smaller wheels, it will take the sting out of scruffily-surfaced roads more effectively than the bigger-wheeled, skinny-walled tyres of the higher-spec cars.
- If you’re looking for the best engine: Stick with the 1.3 TCe. It's the same engine found in many Mercedes-Benz and Nissan models and comes with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox as standard. It's also fitted with a mild-hybrid system that uses a strong starter-generator to provide a little additional oomph and smooth out start-stop events. Ultimately, the engine is one of the best small petrol units currently in production and although the gearbox can occasionally be a wee bit jerky, it’s still a combination that provides a very pleasant driving experience.
- If you’re smitten with the idea of a hybrid: The first thing to know about the E-Tech Arkana is that it's not a plug-in hybrid, so forget any ideas about driving for 30 miles solely on electric power. Although it will always start in electric mode and drive off silently, it will only do so for a mile or so before the petrol engine kicks in, and the gearbox is a bit of an acquired taste.
