Turkish Megane For Egypt – Special Renault Cars For Israel

After an almost 3-month involuntary pause (caused among others intentionally by some incompetent actions at the Renault Service and After Sales in Egypt), we have now resumed our Renault Megane long-term test-drive. Although Renault Egypt and their lawyers were urging and 'kindly asking' (others would call it threatening or even black-mailing) us to stop this long-term test-drive, we picked-up our test-car, repaired it outside the Renault service in El-Mokattam district in order to guarantee a friendly and competent service and now it's rolling again on the streets of Egypt.

After conducting almost 2000 km in the second part of our 100.000 km test-drive we were surprisingly asked through an official ministry messenger to show up for a meeting at the Ministry of Interior Affairs as Renault Egypt / EIM filed a complaint against us at the Department of Information & Internet research, in a desperate attempt to keep us from publishing the results of our long-term test-drive, which would inevitably show our negative experience with the Renault service & after sales.

In this complaint, Renault Egypt claimed that we are intending with our 'coverage' to harm Renault's business and car sales in Egypt. After a long and informative meeting between Auto Arabia's representative and the gentlemen at the Ministry of Interior, the whole story became much clearer to the Egyptian authorities and that our media coverage is in no way intending any defamation. It is more or a less a very precise and accurate listing to what actually happened to our test-car and what we have experienced together with several witnesses at the EIM / Renault Egypt facility. How pathetic is that!

Anyway, our Megane test-car is now doing much better and is running and running. In a few days we will publish a more detailed summary about what we are experiencing in part two of our long-term test-drive.

So far the most annoying thing is the squealing and squeaking sounds of the interior panels, the sun-roof and the mirrors. Sometimes you feel like driving a 10-years old Turkish Dogan-Taxi rather than a 2-years old Renault Megane assembled in Turkey. Probably that’s the reason why EIM / Renault Egypt is explicitly using the term '100 % French' in the Renault Megane Grandtour version. But that’s not as dangerous as the sense-less feeling of the brakes and the disturbing noise of brake-pads and brake-discs as well as the wheel bearings.

After reading the different articles on our website and in our magazine, several readers asked us if we would recommend the Megane or not as they were confused by our articles and features which are completely contrary to what Renault Egypt is claiming in its advertisements and media campaigns in Egypt.

Well, the answer is very simple: After what we experienced with Renault Egypt / EIM recently in terms of professional and honest service and after sales, we surely disadvise and discourage anybody at the current stage from buying anything from Renault Egypt or the other companies of EIM Group, which includes KIA and Alfa Romeo as well., until EIM and Renault Egypt changes its behavior, which we felt is very consumer-unfriendly.

And in specific do we recommend not to buy the Renault Megane, not only because its Made-In-Turkey and because of our not so pleasant experience, but also because the new Megane will already be launched next year!

As you can see from the picture the new Megane 2009 will much less masculine, and will have reflect the design philosophy of the Altica concept car. It will be offered as a hatch-back version with 3- and 5-doors, as a 4-doors sedan, coupe, convertible, station wagon and possibly also as a cross-over version. The technical base will be the Nissan-Renault-groups' platform, which is already in use in the Nissan Qashqai.

So, if you still would like to buy a French car, then I would advise you to either opt for the brand-new Kangoo or just simply go to Citroen or Peugeot dealer how just launched brand-new models like the Citroen Berlingo, Peugeot Partner or the Peugeot 308. And the service and after-sales of Citroen or Peugeot will surely be much better. As a matter of fact Peugeot just called its customer recently to reimburse them an amount of 900 LE (Egyptian Pounds) after an official recall for the Peugeot 307 was officially announced by the mother-company. Those 307-owners who had already repaired their car where asked to pick up the amount of 900 LE again. Now, that’s what I call a real and professional French after-sales and customer service. Hopefully the other French importers in Cairo will learn their lesson.

Another interesting news about Renault is the fact that the French manufacturer announced to assemble Electric-cars starting in 2011 exclusively for Israel. For the time being those electric car, which will be based on the current Renault model range, will exclusively be for the Israeli market. The environment-friendly models will use Lithium-Ionic batteries which were developed together with the Japanese battery-manufacturer NEC.

This is an agreement between Renault and the US-American company Project Better Place. This venture capital company is organizing the infrastructure and operation in Israel through battery-charging stations and battery-changing points. Renault is delivering the electric cars while the Israeli government is supporting this pilot-project trough tax incentives until 2019. for the environmentally conscious Renault buyers.

Those Renault cars will be so-called Zero-Emission vehicles comparable to conventional 1.6-litre Renault cars with similar power outputs. Project Better Place is planning to establish 500.000 battery-charging stations in Israel, where Renault owner will be able to recharge or exchange their batteries.
So why did Renault and Project Better Place decide to do this Zero-Emission project in Israel? More info about this project after our live TV show next week (20.2.2008 / 8 pm) here on www.AutoArabia.org