Renault Megane EV - a cautionary tale

I am posting this as a cautionary tale for anyone thinking of buying of ordering a Megane EV.

I bought a Techno off the showroom floor and picked it up on 1 March 2023. Beautiful car and gorgeous to drive. Over the next 2 to 3 months I noticed a clunking sound from the steering and it got worse. My Renault dealer (SMC in Aldershot) diagnosed a number of missing bolts in the steering/suspension. Obviously, an omission and failure of quality control at the factory! Bolts were ordered and fitted on 7 June. It made absolutely no difference.
The same day, further parts were ordered for a second-level solution. The parts took over 3 months to arrive from France. Car was booked in 26-28 September and they replaced the left front suspension coil, top mount and the drive shaft (it sheared when they removed a bolt). This cured the problem. On 25 October the car went back in to have the right-side spring and top mount done after dealer was contacted by Renault.
During November and into December I became aware of a foul stench within the cabin that got worse and worse. I was unable to locate the source until 18 December I discovered that the carpet under the mats in the passenger footwell was wet. Further investigation, pulling back the carpets, revealed soaking foam and standing water in both front footwells and even in the low point of the rear passenger foot area. Took car to the dealer the same day and they eliminated usual suspect cause (windscreen wiper drainage). Car booked in on 8 January 2024 to investigate and carry out (hopefully) the Renault agreed bulletin solutions for this problem. The car was stored under cover between 18 December and drop off on 8 January. During this time I recovered approximately 1 litre of foul smelling brown water out of the floor area with a Vax machine. At drop-off I also reported significant condensation present in the complete rear light arrays on both sides of the car.

I collected the car on 23 January and was told that the wheel arches had been sealed using specialist sealant, the front foam and the entire carpet replaced. Rear lights were on back order. I was surprised that they hadn’t removed both wings as EV forum members with identical problem claim that this is essential and is the fix required by Renault. On 23 January I washed the car with a standard hose and checked the passenger footwell after easing back the carpet. Once again it has become saturated. The car had not been driven or left in the wet since pick-up so the water ingress must be from my wash or from a wash and/or testing at the garage.

This is the most expensive car I have ever owned and it is by far the worst car in terms of problems. I am appalled to learn that Renault were apparently aware of a problem with the ‘robot’ that sprayed the under-wing area on 6 October 2022, when a re-calibration was carried out. This means that Renault were aware of a defect affecting my car when I bought it and did nothing about it. The lack of care and attention and quality control is evidenced by the range of defects I have outlined.

I have lost all confidence in the car and am literally braced for the next problem. I have told my dealer that I want to reject the car but I know this is tricky after 6 months. I am awaiting their reply.
I have absolutely no confidence that they can solve this problem, based on the experience of others whose dealers have had their cars for literally months, testing and re-testing to try and find the source of the leaks. I have had the windscreen resealed along the way and there is chatter on-line about a leak around the charge port area. Who knows? It is clear that Renault do not know the exact cause of the leak and have pumped out a set of bulletins covering a range of possibilities. This suggests that there are multiple and inconsistent defects affecting different cars.
Presume I am expected to keep going back until they finally sort it. This is unacceptable. If it was just the leak I could accept it (new model teething troubles etc) but it is just one of many defects.
My car is clearly not of a satisfactory quality and the defects were clearly present at the point of manufacture. Quality control failed to reasonably identify the defects and omissions.


I am a reasonable man and all I want here is to be put back in the position I should be at this point with a car that has done just 7,000 miles. Right now, I have a Megane sitting in my garage, unused, saturated again with my new carpet and foam slowly stagnating and a constant low level damp smell pervading everything, including the fabric of the seats. Oh, and an OTA software update failed on 17 January so I have had to escalate this through the Renault Technical Whattsapp route. I happened to notice this myself, no notification on the ap or anything. Add to that the real problems I had in March getting the system to register with the Orange free data. Endless Whattsapp messages back and for to get sorted.


Al in all, and sorry about the length of this(!), I bought an absolute lemon of a car and I feel a combination of disappointment and frustration with Renault. I cancelled an order for an MG4 to buy this as I was shocked by the problems being reported. I thought I had dodged a bullet but not so.

 

OK. Thanks. I have just launched a special military operation against Renault and am hitting every EV community and guess I missed the location of this one! Renault are knocking out new models with inherent defects and then waving the warranty at their customers when they find them and expect them to return endlessly while they try and sort them out until they either fix the problem or the customer gives up or dies of old age. I have had a loan car so many times that my neighbour was convinced I had bought another car.
The marketing tag for the Megane in europe is renault.rethink which, with hindsight, was a subliminal message to me that my brain didn't pick up! Hope you have better luck with EVs in your part of the world.