Renault Lodgy long term review, first report

It’s spacious, practical and frugal, so of course the Lodgy has become an Autocar favourite after just a few weeks.

Published on Oct 24, 2015 08:00:00 AM

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Renault Lodgy long term review, first report

The ride is super flat at high speeds; expansion joints and small bumps barely register.

Tall fifth and sixth mean you rarely have to shift gears out on the highway.

Relatively flat seats good for short journeys, but can leave you with a backache after a long stint.

Make : Renault

Model : Lodgy

As a kid, did you ever have that one swimming instructor who, on your very first lesson, threw away your arm floats and flung you straight into the deep end of the pool? Well, that’s sort of what happened to our new long-term Lodgy, except the deep end of the pool was an 800km drive across monsoon-ravaged Maharashtra, and we were the cruel instructors. The arrival of Renault’s massive MPV just so happened to coincide with our shoot with an Audi TT for our Great Car, Great Road feature, set in rainy Ratnagiri.

It was a no-brainer, really. Four seats for the photo and TV crew, and plenty of place for bags and cargo with the last row folded away (in hindsight, we could have removed it and left it in Mumbai). That cargo, incidentally, included not just bags, tripods and cameras, but also 40 litres of fancy 97-octane petrol for the TT; the jungle juice you get out on the highway simply wouldn’t do. And, thanks to large windows, flexible seating and a wide-opening tailgate, there were also lots of, ahem, ‘mounting points’ for our photographer and videographer to shoot from.

It’s not just space; the low lip makes loading the boot really easy.

In early 2014, I drove our tough old long-term Renault Duster all the way from Delhi to Mumbai after the Auto Expo, and though I wasn’t its biggest fan before, it completely won me over after that long highway stint. I’m happy to report that it was much of the same with the Lodgy which, after all, shares its engine, gearbox and most of its underpinnings with the SUV. To drive, it feels like a slightly longer version of the Duster out on the highway. You just have to remember that it’s a fair bit lower to the ground — something that soon became abundantly clear as we tackled the minefield called NH17 just outside Mumbai. Mind you, we also had an even lower-slung sportscar with us, so the Lodgy was frequently sent ahead to, quite literally, test the water and find the cleanest path through. And forge a path it did, the superbly absorbent suspension pummelling through rough patches and broken sections without a flinch, so that the TT didn’t have to; what a trooper!