Renault Sandero

Guess what? The Renault Sandero has finally hit our shores. And guess what, no one cares. Seriously I don’t think most people will have heard that it was being produced, much less that it’s actually being made and sold here in South Africa. But, none-the-less, I was given one to test and test it I did.

You see Renault have suddenly got it in their heads that no one can afford a donkey anymore, much less a car. To the extent that they’ve brought out two cars in the last year or so that are under the R130 000 mark. Namely the Logan and the Sandero. They ramble on about how its form following function, because apparently those are people’s priorities in this day and age – what with the credit crunch and all.

That’s crap though. Yes people are experiencing a bit of a squeeze at the moment – there’s no disputing that fact. However that doesn’t mean that Renault can start making terrible cars and then justify it by saying people must expect and desire less. It’s almost as though the Frenchies have been over run by communists.

Which in fact they have. You see the Sandero is in fact not a Renault, but a Dacia hailing from Romania; which until only a few years ago was run by communists. Now if you know anything about cars built by such people you’ll know they are rubbish. Their production lines were ox-drawn, child-labourers ran the factories and paper mache made up a large proportion of the body work.

I fail to understand why people can’t make a car look decent even if it’s only being sold for R99,000 (which happens to be the price of the base model Sandero) I mean creating a mould that looks like a box with the edges cut off can’t really be cheaper than one that looks elegant, sleek or daring. Nor is it a case that such a car needs to be made out of materials any different to the box-shaped one. So what’s the deal exactly?

“Maybe it’s space,” I hear some of you muttering. To answer you, no it isn’t. The Sandero is a small hatch back. You can’t make the inside of a Poodle as big as a Great Dane, so why should that be the case with a car?

So the outside is pretty terrible and unfortunately things only get worse. I used to own a 1989 Opel Monza. Apparently not such a bad car back in it’s day but as with most things from the 80’s it hasn’t aged well. The interior of the Sandero appears to have been modelled on a combination of my Monza and the Freestate.

I hoped, nay I prayed that maybe the engine would make up for the other downfalls. But alas my hopes and prayers went unanswered. I’m not entirely sure where Renault, or Dacia, found this lump of iron but I’m reasonably sure I could’ve made it to my destination faster by crawling. What makes it worse is that apparently I was lucky I had the 1.6 – because there is a 1.4 model that I’m sure is still sitting in the factory, unable to move because it produces a negative amount of horsepower.

Then I had a conversation with my father, who is obsessed with cheap things that are “good value for money.” At the end of the day I must admit that the Sandero is actually good value for money. Nowadays you can’t buy much in the way of a car for R100k – unless you go second hand (in which case there is no peace of mind from a warranty perspective) or of course you go Chinese, but I’d literally rather have the Gulag send me to the Siberian coal mines than drive a Cherry.

With the Sandero you get a roof over your head while pottering from A to B, some space to take one or two mates, decent enough fuel economy, backing from Renault (even if they are now a bunch of communists) and for just R1 you can upgrade your 1.4 base model to the 1.6 Cup – so you’ll have airbags, aircon and a CD player. Not bad if you’re under the recession’s iron fist and it’s slightly better than walking.

Miles Downard
Photo Credit: Quickpic