Renault Kiger CVT

We drove the Renault Kiger equipped with the CVT to find out if it is the more compelling package

- Mandar Sawant

LAUNCHED EARLIER THIS YEAR, the Renault Kiger’s claim to fame has been its highly competitive pricing, interior space and eye-catching styling. We drove it at its launch in manual guise, and put in close to 10,000km driving it across the country on the 28 States, 28 Plates drive. The manual transmission, after all, has always been the choice for us enthusiasts. However, an automatic gearbox just makes more sense in our daily encounters with bumper-to-bumper traffic. And the Kiger CVT promises just that.

Renault offers the Kiger CVT only with a 1-litre turbo-petrol engine which produces 99bhp and 152Nm torque (8Nm less than when it’s coupled to the five-speed manual gearbox). The lower torque output is not noticeable from behind the wheel but what is evident is the powertrain’s wider powerband. The engine has been tuned to deliver peak torque both lower down and higher up in the rev range to suit the CVT.

CVTs are known to deliver power effortlessly because of their lack of gears and the engine tuning which Renault has applied here goes hand-in-hand with a CVT’s characteristic rubber-band effect. The transmission masks the engine’s turbo-lag and that is something that the manual transmission can’t conceal. At lower speeds, the CVT feels like it picks up more quickly on small throttle inputs, but just like the manual Kiger, it really starts to move past the 2000rpm mark i.e. once the boost kicks in.