2002 Renault Clio Extreme from UK and Ireland - Comments

Bought a Clio expression 1.2 from a Renault dealer with a 51 plate about 3 and a half years ago. For the most part I haven't had any problems. That is until now. I have this intermittent problem every month or so, where the orange coil light will come on and I start to lose power.

Took it to a Renault garage who plugged a computer in to it "nothing wrong, take it for a drive if it happens again bring it back", did just that, managed to get it to the garage at 10 mph, the mechanic saw the problem and turned the engine off, turned it back on again "nothing wrong". The next time it happened I took it back, they kept it running and diagnosed that the accelerator pedal was faulty, had it replaced for £130, o.k. I can swallow that. Two days later I go to pick up my wife, who's six month's pregnant, from the airport. Guess what?. Wife makes her own way back from the airport with all her luggage whilst I wait 50 minutes for the AA. The car is now back at the Renault garage who are taking it for a drive every night until the can find the problem. Very unhappy!

What a load of bollocks, I can see you're trying to help, but you are just guessing at faults, truth is there are many different variables to each fault described in this list below (anonymous post), I am a qualified mechanic and have successfully repaired many clios suffering from all the faults listed in the pages above. See end of page for descriptions.

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30th May 2007, 13:36.

Problems & Solutions. clio ii.

1. Engine Misfire- most common cause "coil pack (s) " or Map sensor.

2. Non-start- Starter motor.

3. Turns over, but won't start- TDC sensor or Fuel isolator switch (usually found under bonnet nearside).

4. Difficult to start from cold- Engine management coolant sensor.

5. Engine emissions light on- Lambda sensor.

6. Air bag light on- seat belt pre-tensioner or steering wheel slip-ring.

Hope this will help any of your problems with the Renault Clio ii range.

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Don't take above as a guide, this may be correct in very rare occasions, but without a proper diagnostics inspection (which by all accounts a lot of supposedly qualified renault technicians cannot fix) it would just be guess work and could cause a very expensive.

In my experience I have found there are two main causes to the faults described above.

1) tamper proof ecu plug box rubbing through the wiring harness causing shorting of wires-causing juddering at idle storing map sensor codes, throttle body codes, none start faults.

2) the wiring harness running to the fuse box on the right hand side of the engine bay- ingress of water running through from the scuttle panel (PLASTIC WHERE WINDSCREEN WIPERS ARE LOCATED) causing corrosion of terminals in electrical connectors/relays etc, mainly not start faults due to fuel pump relay and starter relay faults.

Other faults include map sensors full of crap requiring cleaning out with solvent and refitting, occasionally new part required. throttle body faults (sticky throttle butterfly due to excess carbon build up) caused by positive crankcase ventilation requiring cleaning up with strong solvent such as carb cleaner and scotchbrite pad, misfires can be caused by faulty spark plugs, faulty coil packs (normally ht leads are part of coil on 16 valve therefore bought as a complete unit, sticky valves, burned out valves, blown head gasket, far far more faults can occur any1 need any more help please email me at rawrod22@hotmail.com.

Can some one please tell me why I have oil in my air box. its really bugging me. thanks.

Hello, I am having a lot of problems with my clio expression 51 plate, firstly I brought the car in January after my 03 plate got stolen, not knowing that that car I've just brought had been in an accident and was repaired quickly and sold to any mug who would buy it, that mug happend to be me! so I've replaced the drive shaft, got some of the electrics fixed (clock and heating stayed on without ignition) and now I'm experiencing more problems, I have already paid £1000 in labour and parts in getting the car road usable; anyway here are my current problems:

1) At times the car seems to have no acceleration, when I say this I mean my foot is to the floor and I'm doing 30 mph in 3rd can't go any faster, this usually happens in the mornings when my heating is on, a little light comes up on the dash which means ecu management light I have been informed, sometimes when this happens. I usually have to pull over and then continually try and get the car to move like normal, I get stuck in 1st gear and there is no acceleration.

I thought I had solved the problem by taking the car to a diagnostic garage who specialise in french cars for mechanical stuff, the faults come as the pedonminoter (accelerater) track 1 circuit fault, pedonminoter track 2 circuit fault and and a/c fault, but I don't have air con??? I got this fixed on thursday afternoon after paying £55 for the part and then £47 for the labour I thought I had got away with it pretty cheap (for a car anyway) but to my distgust and f***ing dissmay the same light came on and the car once again lost its acceleration!!! The mechanic himself wasnt to sure what the problem was at first and he went to the camden renault garage next door and they explained it could be either 3 things, 1) the accelerator pedal is not sending the signal to accelerate to the computer of the car 2) the throttle suming near or in the engine needs replacing or 3) the little electrical connecter thing at the top of the engine that usually gets wet and full of s**t is full of s**t, he cancelled out the 3rd one by checking it and said that it was fine, so this leaves only the most expensive option left.

Any ideas whether the mechanic was pulling a fast one on me or not??? I've never been to him, but thought I would because they offered a diagnostic at £30 and say they are french car specialists.

After reading all of these problems and them mostly being similar to mine, I cannot believe that renault are getting away with this, its ridiculous how they can say its this say its that and not actually know what it is. I'm concerned that the black box has cut through my wire, but where can I get this part on the cheap if it is.

My renault clio had to be towed home on Saturday. It's an extreme 03 plate. The warning lights came on and there was no power. Waiting now for it to be towed to a garage. It doesn't look good after reading all these comments. If these faults are common why can't Renault be forced to fix them free of charge.

Carrying on from my comment on the 3 June when I was waiting for my clio to be towed away.

Now had a new coil pack installed, an accelerator pedal fitted and still intermittently the Preheating/electronic fault light comes on. The mechanic is at loss what to try next and its costing me a fortune. Does anyone with any clout read these comments or are Renault just getting away with ripping people off.

Anyone any suggestions what to try next please email me cabbaxter@btinternet.com

Hi further from my comments posted on the 3rd of june 2007, I have since returned to the garage who got Renaults top technician a the site next door to look at the car, it cost me £30 instead of renaults £78, anyway he looked at it and ran tests like diagnostics and all of that and it came up with the same fault, what he put it down too was that the throttle thingy on the engine sometimes gets clogged up with dirt and this forces it to stick when you accelerate so no air intake to the engine can happen to accelerate, so he advised the people who were looking at my car to take it off and clean it. They proceeded intaking it off and told me that it was indeed full of dirt and then put it back on, it cost me £47 in labour to fix it, but 4 days and counting now, no problems so far. hope this helps because it may solve the problem a lot cheaper than replacing the other parts.

Iv tryed fixing my oil leaking in my air box, hope its worked! I cleaned out all my inlet manifold and my breather pipes, took me all day. However, I have a new problem which you all seem to be having. The coil pack light coming up on my dash, the engine idles very low and nearly stalls. I have to rev the engine so it doesn't happen. Also when it did happen I was reving the engine n for sum strange reason it got stuck at 2000rpm even when I had my foot all the way to the floor, I tryed pulling off only to have my engine stall on me n everyone around me beeping, it was kind of embarrassing. I started the engine back up and it was fine, but still idling low. Oh by the way this only seems to happen when the engine is cold. When I was fixing my oil leak I had to disconnect the battery, I was wondering if this could be the problem because I had it disconnected for sum time. Iv bin told that after a while the ECU can get wiped of its short term memory. is this true? I hope sum one can find out what these problems are, but if I do sum how find out, you will all be the first to know. Thanks.

I own a 2001 Clio Authentique 1.2 litre.

I have experienced;

1) The engine has not gone beyond 3000 revs (this has happened twice)

2) The front right light cannot be moved up or down

3) The driver door will sometimes respond to the remote locking key, and sometimes not

4) The service light shows on the dashboard whenever the passenger airbag is turned on.

I have a strong suspicion that the car has electrical faults, and when I look under the bonnet there seems to be a worrying amount of wire that is seemingly exposed (however, not being a mechanic, I can't verify this).

If any of you could help me with advice on what to do now, I would greatly appreciate it, as the garage has not being able to detect any faults.

Gerry.

My wife has an S REG Clio 1.6 RXE. Problems started about 8 months ago with it really running rough, or simply refusing to start after it had just had a good run (just turning over, but nothing happening).

I read loads of stuff on the web in discussion rooms and decided to try changing the coolant temperature sensor, and TDC sensor. This was after reading all the scare stories about being told I'd need a new throttle body stepper motor, ecu or wiring loom!

I also had it checked by an ex Renault employee who had a test kit and the diagnostics did show an error on the engine temperature sensor which he cleared from the memory.

Things seems to run OK for about 6 months, but now things are happening again.

If you start from cold in the morning and go for a drive it runs brilliant. Come back to the car after a say 20 minute stop and it starts, but runs really rough - feels like it's only running on three cylinders and there's no acceleration at all. It's always on the verge of conking out.

Get the feeling it relates to temperature again and might try a new thermostat, but I am clutching at straws now.

Any advice or comments much appreciated.

I recently purchase a W reg 1.2l Renault Clio MTV edition for my first car.

Was OK in the beginning, but now when I go to start it, it just ticks over and won't fire up.

Sometimes you go out and start it first time with no troubles. Then it cuts out when on junctions etc.

Starting to get annoyed and as a 17 year old student I can't afford to foot these sorts of bills that people seem to be coming up with here.

I have a problem which you all seem to be having. The coil pack light coming up on my dash, the engine idles very low and nearly stalls. I have to rev the engine so it doesn't happen.

Has anyone found out what causes this? somebody must have resolved it at some point? Could you give us an idea how it was fixed.. and what it cost to fix?

Thanks.

After reading through all the pages of comments, I am still struggling to see what the problem could be with my 98 S Reg Renault Clio 1.2. In the last month, I have experienced a loss of power when driving at lower revs (generally in gears 3 of 4) and after pulling away from junctions. I have experienced all the horror stories of previous posts and can sympathise with them all; only yesterday the car stopped in the middle of a busy junction! The car will start, but only after trying the ignition two or three times. I have taken it to a nearby Renault garage who ran a diagnosis, but they could only see a water coolant problem which they said could be unrelated. They cleared the computer memory, but this has not resolved problem.

I am at a loss as to what to do. I have had a new fuel filter added in case it was related to the low level of petrol in the car at the time of the first problem.

Any help would be much appreciated.

C.

Throttle body problems.

Having had the rough idle and stalling at junctions problem that many of you are experiencing, it came down to the throttle body. Picked one up off eBay for £30, fitted it and the ECU light (the light that many of you are calling a coil light!) went off and had no problems since. If you take it to the dealer, they will want about £700, with re-mapping the ECU etc.

Before this I changed: TDC sensor, coil pack (which includes leads), spark plugs, cleaned throttle body, it had already had both lamb sensors and a new wiring loom before I purchased it!

If it has had a new wiring loom, worth checking if they spliced the wires on to the MAP sensor (The sensor that sits on top of the rocker cover) if they have, the solder joints are worth a look at under the heat shrink.

Hope this helps.

We purchased this car 2 years ago it's a 2002 dynamique (excuse spelling) Nothing but all the troubles you have all mentioned. It is now 12 days out of warranty and no one wants to know... The coil with the 4 plugs has just been changed as well as the 4 spark plugs... again at £7 each... and still I get the warning light (Monitoring Exhaust gas) blinking at me. Come on Renault sort yourself out...