Ritesh Madhok
Renault in India is known for the Duster and the KWID, both of which have sold extremely well, right since their launch. Off late the French car maker has seen some decline in its sales and they want to come back strongly with an all-new product - the Triber MPV. More car per car is what the Triber offers and we set out to lovely Goa just to find that out, here’s our detailed road test review of the latest French offering the Renault Triber 7 seater MPV.
Design and exterior
The Renault Triber is an extremely exquisite looking car in terms of design and styling. From the front, it looks like a compact SUV. But, when you look at it from the side, it looks like an MPV. With the overall length just under 4 meters, it falls right under the sub-four meter lineup of cars giving it some tax benefits. Having said that, the Triber has its very own identity. The bonnet of the car is muscular with some sharp yet subtle character lines. Front is dominated by the huge Renault Lozenge logo which is complimented by a mixture of matte black and triple edge chrome grille.
Headlight assembly is quite detailed and features a projector type low-beam, a multi-reflector high-beam and integrated turn signal indicator. LED DRL’s makes its way on either side of the dual-tone front bumper and its horizontally placed surrounded by black plastic and a chrome outline.
The front bumper has a huge air dam and a faux bash plate finished in silver. Coming to its sides, the Triber gets the typical black plastic cladding all over, which helps give the car a sporty stance. The waistline has a small kink on the rear door with variants badging on the C-Pillar. The B & C-Pillars are blacked out and the rear view mirror housing is finished in dual-tone.
Renault has a list of accessories for the Triber which also includes an SUV kit. Coming back to the design, the top of the car smartly hides the bulge at the rear thanks to the placement of roof rails, which are functional when it comes to carrying some load on the top. The eagle beak like split wrap-around tail lamps give the rear a rather interesting look. Thankfully the rear glass is not flat but curved on the sides and slopes down at a certain angle which adds to the overall design. The lower half of the rear bumper gets skids plates which creates the overall SUV stance of the car.
Interiors and safety
Just like the exterior of the Renault Triber, the interiors gets interesting with smart touches all over. The highlight of the interior is the massive 8- inch touchscreen infotainment system. The dual-tone dashboard is mostly black with some silver accents thrown here and there.
The Triber gets dual glovebox and the one at the bottom is a cooled glovebox. The hazard light, lock and the rear defogger switches are placed right below the infotainment system, followed by the rotary controls for the air conditioner. There’s small stowage tray right below the aircon controls and the engine start/stop button is placed there. It can also be used to place your smartphone etc. The steering is quite chunky to hold but does away with any steering controls for the infotainment system.
The instrument cluster is a digital one which displays all the required information and is backlit in white blue colour. The MiD gives out all the other information about how much fuel the car has consumed, two trip meters so on and so forth. The driver and co-driver seats are well bolstered, but the under thigh support is a bit lacking. There’s a smart cooled stowage between the drive and co-driver seats which is deep enough to hold more than a couple of instant energy cans. The rear passenger seat is 60:40 split and is fully adjustable for sliding and reclining.
The rear seats are comfortable and offers adequate support and more than enough knee room even for taller people. Wait, there’s more seats on offer! Yes, the Triber offers not just 5 but 7 seats in total, which is an added bonus. However, you might think that the third row of seats is strictly for small children. But, it can comfortably seat average sized humans too. However, it can get tiresome for longer period of time, but for shorter spins you won’t find the third row of passengers complaining about the space. With aircon vents available for second and third row of passengers and a decent sounding music system, we’re sure none of the Triber’s occupants will ever complain about anything.
Renault with it’s ‘more car more features’ philosophy has left no stone unturned when it comes to safety. Apart from the usual ABS + EBD combination and the standard two airbags for the front occupants, the Triber gets an additional set of side airbags for driver and co-driver. Speed sensing door lock, impact sensing door unlock, speed alert warning, rear parking sensors and rear camera just adds to the overall safety of the car and its occupants.
Engine, transmission & drive
The Renault Triber comes with only one engine offering which also does duty in the 1.0L Renault Kwid. It’s the same 999cc 3 cylinders powertrain which is tuned differently to generate more power and torque, 71 bhp @ 6250 rpm and 96nm @ 3500 rpm respectively. The engine is mated to a 5-speed manual transmission. We drove the Triber on the beautiful and well laid out tarmac in Goa. We were quite impressed with the ride quality of the Triber. The suspension setup is good for Indian roads and soaks up bumps and handled undulating roads quite well. Even on some broken patches the car didn’t lose its poise and held its line quite well.
Talking about the powertrain, the engine is quite capable within the confines of the city, but try to push it and it loses steam. But again like we mentioned above, the 3 cylinder engine has its own pros and cons. It’s a very refined engine, it’s extremely smooth and supremely silent at idling and fuel efficient all at the same time, but slightly underpowered for long tours. Overall we were quite impressed with the Triber and it’s ‘grown up’ car like mannerisms while on the move.
Verdict
An exquisitely designed car with almost all features a buyer looks for in a city car which fortunately is priced aggressively by Renault keeping in mind the Indian car buyers psyche and sentiments. We don’t see any reason for the Triber to not connect with it’s buyers and will conveniently ruffle a few feathers in the industry. This is keeping in mind the competition and what other companies offer for the same or slightly higher price. The Renault Triber has it’s trump card up its sleeve which offers a 7-seater car for the same amount of money, which absolutely no other manufacturer in India offers.
