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Renault Scenic Bose Edition 1.6 130dCi

A boombox on wheels?

Tech tucked everywhere

The Bose pack doesn’t stop at the aural. It also includes those funky 17in black Schuss alloy wheels you can see in the pics, the gloss black door mirrors, Bose badges on the front wheel arches, piano black finish to the dashboard, stereo surround and air vents and the door sill Bose logos.

Renault Scenic Bose Edition

Alloys come as standard with Bose pack

On a more practical level, it adds dual-zone climate control, front and rear parking sensors - handy in a car whose frontal extremities are impossible to see from the driver's seat - and a sliding centre console to the spec list. That’s a fair amount of kit, but for £1500 so it should be.

Bose Edition Scenics are by default also TomTom Scenics so you get a very good connected satnav to accompany your very good stereo. There’s little point going into details about this because we’ve reviewed enough TomTom PNDs in these pages over the years to give you a good idea what to expect: HD traffic, Google’s Local Search and all TomTom’s Live services.

Renault Scenic Bose Edition

Bose speakers all over the place

Managing all these ancillary systems in the Scenic does take some getting to grips with because the navigation and audio systems stand alone: two distinct systems, two distinct screens, two distinct control systems. This means menu navigation for everything other than the TomTom has to be done using the three-line LCD instrument strip rather than the satnav’s much larger 5in screen.

Without the benefit of a touchscreen, the dash is rather crowded with controls, some of which duplicate those on the steering column control paddle, which itself hides behind one of the wheel spokes. It all makes you appreciate the ease of use that comes with a touchpanel and I’d suggest a good read of the various user manuals and some thorough familiarisation before you set off.

Renault Scenic Bose Edition

Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed MPV

Under the bonnet, the new 130bhp 1.6 litre turbo-diesel delivers 236lb ft (320Nm) of torque from 1750rpm, which makes for pretty energetic progress but only as long as you keep it spinning at more than 1500rpm. Below that it struggles to pull the skin of cold rice pudding - I found myself grabbing for first gear on a number of occasions when second really should have done the job - and would have in the old 1.9 litre model.

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