Renault Austral Review (2023-present)
Renault Austral cars for sale
3.0
Expert review
Pros
Roomy and versatile cabin
Pleasant interior
Refined hybrid powertrain
Cons
Lots of road noise
Ride can be firm
Four-wheel steering can feel twitchy
The CarGurus verdict
There’s a lot to like about the Renault Austral SUV, which there will need to be if it’s going to make any sort of impact in such a crowded and competitive sector of the market. It looks good inside and out, it has a roomy cabin with fairly impressive build quality, the infotainment system looks swish and the car comes with an impressively smooth hybrid drivetrain.
We do, however, have reservations over the ride comfort, and would also caveat this review by saying we've so far only driven the top-spec model complete with its fancy four-wheel steering system and more expensive rear suspension.
What is the Renault Austral?
The Austral is a midsize crossover SUV, and as such it has no shortage of very talented – not to mention popular rivals. The Nissan Qashqai, Ford Kuga, Vauxhall Grandland, Kia Sportage, Peugeot 3008, Citroen C5 Aircross, Hyundai Tucson, Mazda CX-5, Toyota Rav 4, Seat Ateca, BMW X1 and Volkswagen Tiguan all count among its competition.
The new car is instantly recognisable as a Renault because it has the same C-Shaped motifs for the headlights and taillights that we’ve previously seen on the Clio, Captur, Arkana and pretty much every other Renault going. It’s also recognisable as an SUV thanks to a lofty ride height and skid plates front and rear.
How practical is it?
A family SUV obviously has to be practical, and on that score the Austral does reasonably well, not least because the 555-litre boot (in its maximum setting) is a very decent size by class standards. The rear seats also fold down in a 60/40 split for when you need to carry bigger loads, but annoyingly, they don’t lie quite flat, and the leave a sizeable step in the floor.
The two portions of the rear seats also slide backwards and forward to let you use the space available for legs or luggage as needed. There’s lots of travel, and in most settings, there’s enough legroom for a tall adult. Headroom isn’t half bad, either, so even tall adults will be comfy back there.
The quality on show inside the car looks very good in most places, and there are plenty of thoughtful finishes to brighten things up. However, there are one or two bits - like the glovebox lid and the door grabs - that don’t feel anywhere near as plush as the rest.
One very unconventional feature is the sliding handle the runs along the partition between driver and passenger. It looks like the handle with which Mr Sulu shifts the Enterprise into warp drive, but in fact, it’s little more than a place to put your phone, and to rest your hand on when you’re using the touchscreen.
What's it like to drive?
In the UK, the Austral is only being sold in E-Tech self-charging full hybrid guise. It uses a 1.2-litre, three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine, combined with two electric motors and a lithium-ion battery to give a combined power output of 196bhp.
There are various different modes the system can run in. The wheels can be powered by the battery alone for short distances, sometimes the wheels are driven by the engine, which can also recharge the battery at the same time, and sometimes both power sources drive the wheels. It’s all controlled by the car to achieve greatest efficiency, so you don’t need to worry about switching between modes or anything like that.
And performance is very decent. The various power sources juggle themselves around smoothly and largely imperceptibly, and it always feels like there’s enough muscle on tap to keep you moving at a decent rate of knots.
It’s also impressive how smooth and quiet the petrol engine is when it’s called into service. It does get a bit raucous when you work it to its limits, but there’s enough go lower down in the rev range that you’ll hardly ever need to do that. As impressive as the powertrain refinement is, though, there’s quite a bit of noise to be heard from other sources, partly from the wind, but mostly from the tyres kicking up a fair amount of road noise.
When it comes to ride and handling, standard Australs come with conventional front-wheel steering, but four-wheel steering features on the top spec model – which is all we've had a chance to sample thus far. And with it, the car feels really quite smart on the road. The steering is super-direct, reasonably feelsome and nicely weighted, although it’s so responsive that it can feel a bit twitchy at times unless you’re really concentrating on keeping your steering inputs smooth and precise.
The other slight fly in the ointment is that Australs with the four-wheel steering come with a sophisticated multi-link rear suspension, whereas Australs without it have a more basic twist beam rear suspension. That’s definitely going to have a bearing on your ride comfort, but until we’ve tried a car with the more basic setup, we can’t tell you how severe that bearing will be.
And even with the more sophisticated suspension, we have some reservations over ride comfort. Corners are taken with very decent body control and plenty of grip, and the car tackles urban potholes competently enough. However, on all but the smoothest of roads, the Austral is almost constantly jiggling its occupants about. This makes for quite an unsettled driving experience, particularly as it's so at odds with the smoothness of the powertrain.
Technology, equipment and infotainment
Three trim levels are available in the UK – Techno, Techno Esprit Alpine and Iconic Esprit Alpine.
All versions get the two plush-looking 12-inch screens, one landscape one behind the steering wheel to serve as your instruments, and one portrait one in the middle of the dashboard to take care of all your infotainment functions, and they’re both merged into a single L-shaped unit. It all looks good, and it works well, with quick responses and fairly logical menus. What's more, because the system is backed by Google, you can use Google Assistant to sync with smart devices in your home so that you could, for example, ask it to turn on the kitchen lamp before you get home. How useful this really is remains to be seen.
If that’s not enough digitisation for you, there also a 9.3-inch head-up display on all models that projects a whole bunch of information onto the windscreen in front of you.
Renault boasts that the Austral has no fewer than 32 driver assistance systems on board. Some of these, including blind spot monitoring, are standard, while others only come on the higher trim levels. All versions of the Austral have been awarded the full five-star safety rating from the experts at Euro NCAP.
All models are well equipped, but if you want a heated steering wheel, heated front seats and a powered tailgate you'll need to move up to the midrange Techno Esprit Alpine. Top spec Iconic Esprit Alpine adds the four-wheel steering, a panoramic sunroof, wireless phone charging and a Harman Kardon sound system.
Renault Austral running costs
The Austral is priced to squarely match the competition, so don't expect it to be a bargain, but nor will you be paying over the odds for the class. At its UK launch, prices ranged from just under £35,000 for the entry level trim to just under £40,000 for a top spec model. Renault does however boast that the car's predicted strong residual values should help to keep monthly finance costs very competitive.
The hybrid drivetrain can return fuel economy of 60.1mpg in WLTP tests, along with CO2 emissions from 105g/km, both of which are good by class standards. With the hybrid system able to run in electric mode for a good portion of the time, Austral drivers can expect to see 500-600 miles from a 55-litre tank of fuel.
Is the Renault Austral reliable?
Considering that the Austral is all-newit’s no surprise that there’s not any reliability data yet, making meaningful predictions in this area pretty much impossible.
Renault’s past performances in reliability surveys might provide some insight, and it makes for mixed reading. The brand finished mid-table in the 2022 What Car? Reliability Survey, placing 18th out of the 32 manufacturers considered, while in the 2022 Driver Power Survey - which is a customer satisfaction survey in which reliability plays a part – Renault placed a disappointing 24th out of 29 carmakers.
Although not market-leading, Renault’s warranty package is still more generous than most, which should provide some peace of mind. Your first two years cover in on an unlimited-mileage basis, and thereafter, you’re covered for up to five years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first.
- The 4CONTROL four-wheel steering system we talked about earlier is a clever piece of kit. The rear wheels turn as well as the fronts, up to a 5% articulation. At low urban speeds, the rears turn the opposite way to the fronts to aid manoeuvring and dramatically tighten the turning circle (at 10.1M the 4CONTROL Austral has a tighter turning circle than a Clio), while at higher speeds, the rears turn the same way as the front to aid agility and stability. Note, this is only available on the top trim level.
- The L-shaped digital screen arrangement in the Austral -first seen in the Megane e-Tech Electric SUV - is something that Renault (confusingly) calls ‘OpenR’. The manufacturer claims that when you add together the display areas for the portrait screen, the landscape screen and the head-up display, the Austral has one of the largest display areas of any car on sale.
- Two of the three trims available are based on the ‘Esprit Alpine’ name, which translates to ‘Spirit of Alpine’. This is the first instance of Renault trying to leverage the glamour of Alpine – the firm’s sports car brand – to sprinkle a little bit of stardust onto more mainstream models in the company’s lineup. You’ll notice a fair amount of Alpine badging on these models, albeit little of the dynamic excellence.
- If you’re sold on the Austral: If you’ve already decided that the Austral is for you, then you don’t have many more decisions to make. Only one powertrain is offered in the UK despite there being several on offer in other countries, so it’s either the E-Tech hybrid, or nothing.
- If you like to follow the crowd: The Nissan Qashqai is one of Britain’s bestselling cars, and has been for several years, so there’s no shortage of them on the road. And, thanks to the alliance between Nissan and Renault, the Austral actually shares its platform and a variety of other componentry with the Qashqai.
- If you like the reassurance of a long warranty: The Kia Sportage is another popular choice in this class, and for a variety of reasons, not least the fact it comes with warranty cover that lasts seven years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first.
- If you’re on a budget: The Dacia Duster is another midsize SUV with a healthy following, mainly because it costs a good slice less than pretty much every other car in the class. It’s available with four-wheel drive should you need a proper 4x4 rather than just a crossover. If you need more versatility, you could also go for the Dacia Jogger, which isn’t much bigger than the Duster, is still very affordable, but comes with seven seats.
