MatraSport Forum

Hello All
This is my first post here! :)

I'm going to buy a JE Espace and I was wondering some things.
1. Can somebody direct me to big pictures of the interior? I searched a lot of sites and asked even uncle Google but only few little pictures were found! Especialy where is the Radio!

2. As I'm going to br getting a 1997 JE F3R can you tell me how many kilometers are these engines capable of with normal use (aproximatly)

3. Any fuel ratings will be apreciated! Liters/100km

Please Excuse my English!

Welcome aboard !

I have just realised that I only have one JE interior picture in the Espace gallery:

  http://www.matrasport.dk/Cars/Espace/Gallery1/Med/espace_ph4_interior.html

But the radio is mounted under the passenger seat (in UK its the drivers seat). It is operated from a stalk on the steering wheel or via an IR remote control.

If you are thinking of replacing it, then you might be in for an adventure, as it shares the info display on the dashboard with the rest of the car. However, I have recently heard that converters *do* exist, which should make a replacement possible, while retaining "modus operandus".

As far as I know, they are in general quite robust, provided they are serviced properly. Be advised though, that the Espace JE is a heavy car.

The weight also affects fuel economy as much as the rather large frontal area - so 9-10 l/100km is probably what you should expect.

Ha - don't worry. First of all your english is excellent, secondly a lot of the members on this forum do not have English as their native tongue either. Including me :-)

/Lennart Sorth

Thank you very much for the info!  :)
Can you give some additional information about the audio in JE? Some diagrams and maybe a guide how to put normal stereo? I have SONY MEX-R1 DVD Player and I love it very much! It have been with me in the last 2 cars I've own. It will be nice to be able to use it again!

I understand you very well, but that will be very difficult. You may find that the car you get has the radio in the dash board inside the megabox in the middle, and this can hold your Sony player. But you will not be able to interface it to the display or the steering wheel remote. The latter can be removed, but the LCD display if disconnected will show "OFF" permanently.

This is a mis-feature for many owners, but the standard radios are generally of good quality and you learn to love the interior design of the car. This includes the fact that there are no visible controls for the radio - no switches spread all over the dash board like all other cars have it. It's very french, and very beautiful!

I think the F3R will generally run 300 kkm without serious problems, possibly more, but it's heavily loaded on the Espace, so it will be spinning faster than in other cars like the Laguna or Scénic. It's a good engine, though - we used to have an Espace with this engine, and liked it a lot.

In city traffic I think we did about 9 km/litre, on the motorway 11 km/litre.

Gearboxes are good too.

- Anders 8)

Yes I like the internal design very much! Its like in space ship! I like such designs! Thes is one of the main reasons to select Espace over the cheaper Peugeot 806/Citroen Evasion/Lancia Zeta/FIAT Ullyse or for shorter Eurovan U60.
I'm sure about the radio quality but I have a lot of CDs and even a couple of DVDs full of MP3s and I would like to be able to listen to them! I'll try to find a way! :) After all one person integrated a lot more than aftermarket stereo! PS2, DVD, multimedia monitors and so on! :)

I would listen to and use the the 'hi-fi' before you start replacing it.

imho it's a very high quality unit and I think Renault claimed that it had been acoustically tuned to the car.

I'm old enough to remember music before the Beatles first release so my views no longer count, but it will play to a very high volume without distortion if that's what you want.

Hi,

I "googled" this pictures, and, b.t.w. I just bought myself a JE 2000 and love it, the only problem I have is that the instruments are "dead"
But I like the layout and the placement of the instruments in the dash board, realy works fine!

http://www.autoweek.nl/images/480/2/6aaf5c130cc5dce3221fb9c3953a07c2.jpg
http://oldievan.de/assets/images/Renault-Espace-III-PM2000-16.jpg
http://dinsen.net/espace/dashboard.jpg
http://english.renaultclub.cz/images/prototypy/espace/espace_02.jpg

There are ways to connect your beloved Sony to the under-seat original radio/amplifier - provided your Sony has a line out connector. I've connected a dvd player for my mp3-cds in my car - works just fine.
Search the forum(keywords : mp3 , aux), and you'll find the "how-to".

This might also apply to the original megabox mounted version -I believe.