- You want a new car with a nice touchscreen, and the Renault Kwid’s low price makes it work for your budget.
- But these Indian built Renaults, have a problematic safety reputation.
- We explain why a new Kwid might not be a better buy than a used Swift or Vivo.
Forget about the Toyota Tazz and that Citi Golf experience your parents had. Nobody does small cars better than the French.
From the amazingly durable and simple 2CV to the Renault5, and then the Clios and Twingos from Citroën, small French cars are brilliant. Inspired design, excellent steering and suspension, and wonderfully clever interiors. When they work, there is really nothing to rival the driving joy and ownership experience of a properly engineered French city car.
But French compact-car planning and production have changed. Like many of the legacy European car companies, the French have become more global. And that means that a lot of the French cars you buy in South Africa now aren't really true to the legendary French design principles of those amazing French city cars of yesteryear.
That brings us to the issue of Kwid. The very affordable Renault, which has absolutely nothing in common with the brand's legendary city cars like Renault5 or Clio.
Understanding what a really Kwid is
This is a cheap car designed and engineered to a price, not a standard. It's the reason why Renault doesn't sell the Kwid in France. And that's telling. Why? Because it's engineered for emerging markets, like India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa. But also because it's safety spec is too low for Europe. Something you need to think about, especially in a driving environment like South Africa, where the risk is so high.
But the driving performance is mixed. The electric power steering is very light at parking speeds, which is good, but at highway speeds, the Kwid feels noisy and unrefined.
Its 1-litre 3-cylinder engine only makes 50kW, so it feels very slow at highway speeds, on the Highveld. In a fully loaded Kwid, the power-to-weight ratio becomes even worse, making overtaking truck traffic or taxi traffic very risky due to the poor throttle response.
Not built to French or European safety standards
The Kwid feels cheap because it is. There's no clever Renault industrial design in its cabin architecture. The mechanical bits are reasonably simple, but not very refined.
How important is owning a new car to you? That's the question with Kwid. Would you rather own a new vehicle with poor safety specifications, or buy a used car for the same price with much better structural engineering, safety features, and highway cruising performance?
The other reality with cars like the Kwid, engineered for all BRICS countries, is that South African driving conditions are very different from those in Russia, India or Brazil.
The traffic density in India means that highway speeds are very low. In South Africa, inter-provincial travel in a compact car means you'll be sharing the road with high-speed luxury SUVs and bakkies. And with an underpowered car on the highveld, like Kwid, with very average steering and high-speed handling, you are going to have a stressful experience.
What Kwid does well
The styling is quite charming, and because budget car buyers, or parents buying for kids, are so obsessed with anything digital, the Kwid's 8-inch infotainment touchscreen is a valid selling point. And yes, the luggage capacity is generous, too, at 279-litres.
There are aspects of the Kwid's budget engineering that do work well in South African conditions. Especially when you need to travel on some dirt roads, where its ground clearance and rugged suspension cope better than traditional hatchbacks.
But the truth is, Kwid has terrible crash-test scores. That is why Renault won't sell Kwid to its own people in France. Kwid is designed for emerging markets with poor road conditions and lacking safety regulations.
It has good ground clearance (180mm) for rough roads, but its handling dynamics are not true to Renault's legacy of the Clio and Twingo.
Pothole strike survivability is decent, though. Yes, the Kwid is capable on dirt roads. Because it has reasonable ground clearance. So when you need to journey on a route with terrible potholes, that ground clearance makes a difference. And that is a driving reality for anyone travelling into rural South Africa.
The Kwid safety issue
But the biggest issue with Kwid, is safety. These budget Renaults are cheaply built in India, and their structural crash safety is very poor. Add to that, it doesn't have ESP, either. Take the 2-star GNCAP rating as a fair warning.
Why do Kwids score so poorly in crash testing? It’s all about the Kwid’s vehicle structure and its build cost. Integrating ultra-high-strength steels and alloys into a vehicle's structure is expensive. Those speciality steels add to the build cost, and they are complex to integrate into a vehicle's structure during production, further increasing production costs.
Remember: Kwid is built to be very affordable. And that means it is cost-optimised regarding steel composition in the vehicle structure. What does that mean for you as a Kwid owner? You are driving in a vehicle with a floor and a front body structure, where cost savings in its steel composition have been the design priority. Think about that…
You can always upgrade a vehicle's infotainment system aftermarket. That's easy. But you can never improve its structural safety. If a car is cheaply built with lower-grade steels, that’s it.
The simple truth is this: you are stuck with the safety spec you buy. You can’t improve a car’s crash safety structure aftermarket, like you can with other components. Sure, you can upgrade to tyres with a grippier compound. That might marginally enhance braking and steering when you need to take evasive action to avoid a collision, but
New Kwid or a used Swift/Vivo?
There's just no way a new Kwid, priced in that R180 to R220k range, is better than a used, low-mileage Suzuki Swift or VW Polo Vivo. With much better safety structure, ESP, a comfier cabin, lower noise levels, and better suspension and high-speed stability.
Unpack its technical features and design, and you discover that Kwid doesn't have the deep engineering, driving excellence, or safety that a French compact car should. And that's why Renault doesn't sell it to its own employees in France.
In a high-risk driving market like South Africa, you should probably look beyond the status fallacy of new-car ownership with a Kwid and buy a better-engineered, safer compact city car like Swift.
Yes, the Swift is not perfect. It does not have remarkable crash safety ratings, and it's also built in India to sub-European safety standards. But it has ESP, superior brakes and better crash safety than the Kwid. Even the entry-level Swifts have six airbags, while all versions of the Kwid have only two.
Even the VW Polo Vivo, which technically has an older vehicle platform and core engineering than the Kwid, is a better high-speed cruiser. VW also integrated ESP with the Polo Vivo as part of its 2024 upgrades.
And the truth is that the Polo Vivo, which is effectively a legacy late-2000s Polo platform, still has better engineering, safety, and driving experience than the Kwid, which was designed a decade later.
Kwid might look cool and have that high-contrast touchscreen infotainment system. But the most important vehicle feature in South Africa is crash safety, given the high risk on local roads. And there's no way a new Kiwd, even at entry-level price points below R200 000, is better value or safer than buying a used hatchback, like the Vivo or Swift.
