GRANDER MASTER
Our Rating: 7.6 / 10
Renault’s large panel van is tasked with living up to its name by lording it over light commercial vehicle rivals. Steve Walker sees if it’s up to the job.
The strengths of Renault’s Master are easy to pinpoint. With front and rear wheel drive versions, it offers a wider range of carrying capacities than most, there’s a range of compact and advanced diesel engines and the cabin design impresses with its practicality and build quality. The driving experience isn’t the finest in the sector and ESP is only standard with the rear-wheel-drive models but most Masters do come with colour-screen sat nav which will be a significant draw.
Officially, the Renault Master is a light commercial vehicle but there isn’t very much that’s light about it. With gross vehicle weights stretching up to 4.5 tonnes, this a large panel van with big capabilities but the range should be wide enough to cater for less heavy duty requirements too.
Renault is confident in this Master’s ability to increase its share of the panel van sector. The French marque has been the number one light commercial vehicle manufacturer in Europe for well over a decade and the plan is for the Master to lift it to a similar position of dominance in the UK market. Rivals like the Ford Transit, Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and the Citroën Relay will, of course, have a different agenda and so will the Vauxhall Movano which shares the majority of the Master’s components. Renault had its work cut out but it designed the Master with some useful tricks up its sleeve. The choice of front or rear wheel-drive, specially developed engines and colour screen satellite navigation standard on most models should at least gain it a head start.
The engine range offered with the Master is based around a single 2.3-litre four-cylinder common-rail diesel configuration. On paper, that doesn’t look like a huge amount of engine to power a panel van of the Master’s capacity but in the real world, it proves more than up to the job. 99, 123 and 148 bhp versions are available, all producing a smooth and progressive flow of power from low revs. Even the 99bhp option develops 285Nm from 1,250rpm and there’s 350Nm at the same engine speed from the range-topper.
The engines can’t work miracles and it’s wise to specify the more powerful units with the Master’s larger bodies but refinement is good across the board with wind noise being the main accompaniment at motorway speeds. The rear-wheel-drive layout gives the larger Masters extra carrying potential but the trade-off is a rather clunky six-speed gearbox and handling that seems slightly less direct. On the smaller front-w
In all it’s guises, the big Renault never feels like a handful. The steering is on the light side which makes the van easy to manoeuvre but a little more accuracy and feel would be useful at higher speeds. Visibility is very good and the van shows composure in the corners, its bulky body resisting the temptation to lean too much.
There’s little deviation from the established panel van shape on the Master’s part but it does incorporate an element of style along with some nice practical features. The tall, thin headlamp clusters and the cheese grater grille serve to set the van apart from its contemporaries. The thick bumper adds aggression to the front end, curling up at the edges to protect the corners from knocks. Renault has also been kind enough to cut steps into the bumper so that owners can get a leg-up when cleaning the windscreen.
Further attention to detail rears its head inside. You’re confronted with a facia that doesn’t appear hugely different from that of the previous Master but closer inspection shows that the quality of the plastics has improved markedly. Attractive clusters of controls for the ventilation system and the bold design of the instruments also stand out. There’s now a minefield of storage options inside the Master’s cab (150 litres in total) from cup holders to glove boxes, cubby holes and even a clipboard that folds out of the dash to hold invoices or delivery notes. The clipboard isn’t particularly sturdy and the glovebox in front of the passenger closes with a brittle clunk but the general build quality is very impressively sturdy.
The availability of front and rear wheel drive Masters helps open up a vast array of load volume and payload options. We’ll concentrate on the panel vans here but Renault also offers chassis cabs along with a vast line-up of conversions ready for more specialist applications. There are four vehicle lengths, each with a pair of available height options, but only the largest L3 and L4 models are available
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