Renault Master VS Mercedes-Benz Sprinter

I did a mix of driving in the Master over the week I had it, including more than 600km of unladen driving. 

Why so many kays? I used it to move house, which meant I completed two “full” trips between Sydney’s inner-west and Cowra in the Central West of NSW, and two “empty” trips back to Sydney, as well.

I’ll get to how it drove with a load on board in the section below, but the unladen experience was pretty positive.

The engine and transmission are well teamed, and there’s a good amount of usable torque and very little lag to speak of. 

As with this entire generation of engines - a derivative engine in a different state of tune is used in the Nissan Navara - the refinement is mostly good until you reach higher in the rev range, where it can get a bit noisy and clattery. But the best work is done down low in the rev zone anyway. 

The manual shift action isn’t what I’d call “slinky”, more “clicky”. But it’s easy to row between gears as the action is light and the clutch isn’t too heavy, either. The gearing is generous, meaning you can saunter in sixth gear around 70km/h without the engine labouring too hard, and it’ll accelerate from there to freeway pace - provided you’re not going uphill.

There is a bit of ratio management required if you encounter a steep incline, but generally it’s a decently strong powertrain for its intended use - more on that below.

I’m always astounded about the steering and ride characteristics of vans of this size. Yes, it’s large, and yes, it can get blown around a little by crosswinds, and yes, you need to factor in the longish-wheelbase and larger turning circle that results from that… but it drives a lot smaller than it is.

The steering is direct and accurate, easy to judge at high or low speeds - which is great news when you’re parking (and there’s a good quality reversing camera and rear parking sensors, but you’ve just gotta remember the roof height, too).

The ride is adequate without a load on board, too. The independent McPherson strut front suspension copes well with changes in surface and bump control, though it can be a little bouncy at times. The rear suspension is a leaf-spring torsion beam setup, and it can be a little clumsy over road joins when unladen. 

It also brakes well, with solid and trustworthy response from the four-wheel disc brakes at all speeds.

Wide door openings and large assist-handles on the windscreen pillars make for easy cabin entry.

Finding a comfortable driving position is not hard either, given the combination of a height/reach-adjustable steering wheel and supportive bucket seat with adjustments for backrest angle, seat-base rake/length and lumbar support.  

The optional 'Campervan Package' seats, with fold-down inboard armrests, can also rotate towards the centre of the cabin. We assume this pivoting function is to aid rear-of-vehicle access, but was of no use in our test vehicle given the mesh cargo barrier.

Our only criticism of the driving position is that the slim pillar between the fixed and sliding glass in the driver’s door partly obscures the driver’s eyeline to the door mirror. However, sliding the seat base forward solves the problem, so it’s only an issue for tall drivers like me that need to sit more rearward.

The ride quality without a load is good, given the robust rear suspension. It also has nicely-weighted and responsive steering plus good braking, along with acceptable internal noise levels at sub-80km/h city and suburban speeds given the absence of a solid bulkhead and minimal cargo bay linings.

However, tyre roar emanating through the rear-wheel housings and amplified by the cargo bay can be uncomfortably intrusive at highways speeds, depending on the coarseness of bitumen surfaces.

So, we’d recommend either installing a solid bulkhead (or use ear-plugs) to reduce noise levels if you’re planning to do regular highway driving in this configuration.

The 2.0-litre turbo-diesel and nine-speed automatic display great efficiency, with throttle response at its most immediate and energetic when operating within the 450Nm peak torque band between 1400-2400rpm.

The refined auto’s snappy but smooth shifting gets the best out of this engine in most situations, without the need to paddle-shift in manual mode.

To test its load-carrying ability, we used up all of our weights to forklift 1300kg into the cargo bay, which was still more than 400kg less than the GVM rating.

As a result, the Sprinter made light work of hauling this 1.3-tonne payload around town, with the only differences being a slightly firmer ride and more accelerator pedal required to maintain engine performance.

It easily hauled this load to the summit of our 13 per cent gradient, 2.0km set climb at 60km/h, although engine-braking on the way down was (as expected) not as strong given its small displacement.

In a manually-selected second gear, road speed quickly increased as the engine climbed towards the tacho’s redline on overrun, before the auto dismissed our manual gear selection and shifted up to third.

This automatic engine-protection protocol is common in Euro vans. However, if you’re not ready for it, it can spring a surprise when you’re leaning on the drivetrain to assist with engine-braking during a steep descent and it suddenly shifts up and starts running away from you. The quartet of disc brakes, though, easily compensated for this shortfall.