Colossal Koleos

The resurrection of the SUV market has come upon us, which many thought was long and gone, Renault launched their second generation of the Koleos. The midsized SUV is based on the Nissan/Renault platform that is shared by the third generation Nissan X-Trail, so you can be the AC is in this car is FREEZING.

I was given this car twice since my purchase of the Megane RS Trophy, and took it on two separate and different adventures. One desert fun, and the other a more day to day basis. Let’s start with latter.

A trip to the avenues and IKEA, were a must to test the capacity and see if it could handle the day to day battering of the Kuwaiti streets. May I say I was surprised, during the midday of Kuwait’s heat I was unbelievably cool due to the ventilated seats and the freezing air conditioner. Finding a parking space in the crowded parking spaces in IKEA, I loved the hands free parking feature, made getting in and out of parking spaces so much easier. After picking up a couple of KALAX shelves, pair of sweat pants and some new sunglasses walked over the car flicked my foot under the back of the car and enjoyed the hands free easy trunk access. Loaded up the stuff, and head back home.

The beauty of it on the road is the fact that the Koleos unexpectedly more spacious on the inside that it looks like. The fact that I could fit all of this stuff, drive back home with ease and comfort. The thing that really surprised me was not the on-road capabilities, but the off-road capabilities.

I took the Koleos out to a camping trip with some of my friends. We packed our gear into the trunk without the need to put down the seats, and headed out to the Subiya Desert in Kuwait. After an hour drive on tarmac it was now time to get off it and head down the dirt roads. With everything that was in our way to the camping area, from soft desert sand, to most of the hills that we came upon, this midsized SUV did a lot better than I ever expected, especially when you take into consideration that the Renault Koleos comes with something called ALL MODE 4x4-I technology, giving me the ability to switch between 2WD and 4WD, while helping with traction control considering the terrain I’m on.

After spending the day in the desert we got back into the dark, and in the pitch darkness of the night, the LED lights illuminated our path back to the road, and our way back home. Before departing that morning the Koleos had a full tank of gas, an hour drive to the camping area, and another back, not including the off-road driving that was needed the car had only used up a quarter of the tank.

After putting it through a number of daily tests, and the camping trip, I’ve come to the realization that this machine is much much better than I ever expected. The spaciousness of the interior, the off-road capabilities, the beauty of the color I was given was the icing on the cake. All of this for a price that’s unbelievably reasonable, with the base price of around 6000kd, missing out on some of the features that made the car so surprising and putting on par with other competitors, but the top of the line model with a price of under 9000kd, it made it unbelievably worth every dinar.

Check out https://www.renault-kuwait.com/cars/new-koleos/koleos.html for more information about the Renault Koleos in Kuwait.