Renault Arkana - Reliability and safety
Safety kit is very good, but Renault failed to impress owners in our most recent Driver Power survey
The Renault Arkana is still new enough that it’s difficult to judge its longer-term reliability, but since it’s based on the same platform as the latest Clio and Captur models, parts availability should be good, and it benefits from plenty of R&D from the car maker.
The second-generation Captur was the only Renault that made it onto our latest list of the best cars, finishing 34th (out of 75) based on the result of the 2023 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey. Meanwhile, Renault as a brand finished a rather disappointing 29th out of 32 in our best car manufacturer rankings – down from 24th place in 2022 – so there’s work to be done to reclaim a few spaces on the leaderboard.
One area Renault always performs strongly in is safety kit, and the Arkana comes really well-equipped as standard. Entry-level models get tyre pressure monitoring, automatic emergency braking (AEB), traffic sign recognition, cruise control, automatic lights and wipers, lane keep assist, emergency call, rear parking sensors and a reversing camera. Move up to a higher specification and you also get a blind spot warning system and adaptive cruise control with stop and go functionality, plus rear traffic warning, auto high beams and front parking sensors.
The Arkana scored highly in its Euro NCAP crash test, getting the full five stars from the industry safety experts. It scored highly for adult protection and reasonably well for safety assistance tech – the score is actually taken from the related Captur’s crash test, but Euro NCAP decided the cars were similar enough to share a rating.
Warranty
All new Renaults come with a three-year warranty. There’s no mileage limit for the first 24 months, but then it’s limited to a total of 60,000 miles or three years, whichever comes first. That’s a pretty standard period of cover compared with rivals, but it lags behind the seven-year warranty offered by Kia, or the ten-year warranty package provided by Toyota – although you do have to get your car serviced annually at a Toyota dealer in order to maintain the warranty over this period.
There are (of course) extended warranty options once the manufacturer’s warranty period comes to an end.
Servicing
Renault's servicing plan is called EasyLife, and it covers the car for three years or 30,000 miles for £12.99 per month, or four years/60,000 miles for £17.99 per month. This works out at approximately £468 for the three-year package or £864 for four years of cover. The longer plan also includes an MOT and adds an extra year of warranty cover.
