Facelifted SUV eyes class honours with a more down-to-earth approach
Renault is flying at the moment, with most of the headlines going to its electric cars, not least the critical and popular success that is the Renault 5. At the same time, the brand hasn’t neglected its range of combustion-engined cars.With the Austral, it has a player in the hugely popular medium SUV segment, yet since launching in 2023, it has only sold a fraction of its chief rivals, the Kia Sportage and Nissan Qashqai.So what gives? When it launched, we found a generally likeable car with excellent fuel efficiency that was undone by some ambitious but undercooked chassis tech.Now the Austral has been facelifted, and it seems Renault has taken this criticism to heart, because aside from the expected visual tweaks, the Austral loses its flawed four-wheel steering system (at least in the UK) and gains a couple of refinement-boosting upgrades.Read on to find out if it’s now finally in contention for the class lead.
