Akbar Merchant
Our long-term Renault Triber AMT has been driving steadily. Since the extended maintenance of our Lodgy, this practical MPV is undoubtedly the busiest member of our long-term fleet; it shuttles our camera crew and their equipment to every corner and corner of the city (and outside). This small MPV ran 12,000 kilometers recently, and it feels very new. However, this month, Triber got a break from busy work, this is my long-term cycling for a few days.
Hands-free: Lock/unlock the car when you are nearby.
Although our office is now partially open, most of my work is still done at home, which means I use Triber less when the office is running, and more for other errands, including short but tedious work in heavy traffic travel. This is where Triber shines with its automatic manual transmission. Although the automatic transmission makes driving in the city a breeze, Triber’s transmission does have a lot of unexpected bumps. The crawl function is not always linear. When you release the brake pedal while moving from a standstill, the car will sometimes jump. The steering is very light at low speeds, but the accumulated weight at high speeds is relatively weak. Once you exceed 60-70kph, this will indeed become a concern.
Lightweight: very helpful in the city; especially useful in heavy traffic.
What I really like about Triber is the hands-free door operation-it unlocks when you approach the car and locks when you walk away-it really feels good and it’s premium quality. For an MPV of this length, the internal space is quite spacious. Yes, it’s less than 4 meters in length, but the excellent packaging and spacious cabin ensure a comfortable second row of three seats, and if you don’t use the third row, you can also provide a huge cargo space.
Some internal parts of Triber are very familiar, such as a fully digital instrument panel and infotainment screen, similar to the long-term car Kwid Climber I often use.
STUTTER BUG: The gear shift is not smooth, it destroys the automatic “box” experience.
The water distribution project I volunteered for received urgent drinking water requests as part of flood relief in certain areas of Maharashtra. So Triber started to move water from the supplier to the team heading to the ground zero. Its huge cargo space (folded in the third row) can easily swallow nearly 300 one-liter bottles, which many other compact SUVs and hatchbacks of this size cannot do.
Insufficient power: The engine needs to accelerate harder to start from a stop.
Triber will stay with me for a few more days, but will soon be back to work with our super busy crew. Although I am using this smart Renault MPV for a very short time now, I am deeply impressed by Triber’s practical features, good feature list and city-friendly footprint.
