Ah thats intresting, would you say the 225 and 230's were comfy on the motorway in comparison to a Clio 197? (its got to have some creature comforts)
Hello there matey, I have a Megane 225 'Cup', so far its been very reliable. The motorway comfort is pretty good since it has nice, form fitting leather seats. However the hitch is with the stiffened suspension comfort suffers quite a bit on some A roads and most B roads. Also noise on motorways is pretty reasonable, not at all that noisy, in-fact they aren't noisy period.
Also don't believe a single thing you read on these so called 'reviews' about MPG as well, around the town and local area (to and from work, quite low speeds, stopping and starting) I manage to average around 30 MPG in mine, not driving like a complete nun either, got plenty enough power to keep revs under ~2,000 through the gears, gets you up to 40 MPH and such plenty quick enough.
The handling is absolutely fantastic, no other word for it, have driven a friends Focus ST before, me brother in laws VXR and a Civic Type R, would have my Megane every day of the week for handling over those. Also think they are quite the lookers as well, and the surge of torque you get when the boost kicks in is fantastic fun, best thing is the engine has quite a bit of torque anyway so the climb to ~2,000 RPM (which I think is turbo threshold) doesn't take at all long then the things just go. Drove up to Kielder in Northumberland with two mates last night for a bit of a chill and some stargazing (~9:30 PM we set off..) and never had so much fun driving along unlit B roads before.