Renault is seriously evaluating the attractive Koleos SUV for the Indian market. Its first crossover, the Koleos has a serious amount of four-wheel-drive hardware, which means that this car-based SUV has the ideal blend of attributes to make it a success in our market.
Similar in construction to soft-roaders like the Honda CR-V and Chevrolet Captiva, the Koleos is the first model that was jointly developed by the Renault-Nissan Alliance.
Unlike other Alliance models that share already developed parts, this grounds-up exercise was executed together from scratch. Renault did the initial design work, with Nissan using its extensive SUV experience to engineer the car and 4x4 system. The vehicle is built at the Renault Samsung Motor plant in Korea for various markets and this will give the Koleos a cost advantage.
The Nissan X-Trail's excellent ‘All Mode' four- wheel-drive system has been used on the car and this gives it a fair amount of off-road ability as well.
The Koleos can be powered by a choice of engines. One of them, the 2.0 dCi Euro-4 diesel engine (code M9R), also seen on the Megane and Laguna, is available in a choice of two power outputs — 150hp or 175hp.
It features the very latest diesel engine technologies, including Piezo-electric injectors, common-rail 1600-bar fuel injection and a water-cooled variable-geometry turbo.
The Koleos can be ordered in either the 4x2 or 4x4 versions and mated with either a six-speed manual gearbox or six-speed automatic. Also, the 175bhp version of the 2.0 dCi engine can be mated to a six-speed manual gearbox and all-wheel drive.
