Faults:
In the short time I owned this car, From April 2008 till August 2008, there were a few problems present, but the car was surprisingly reliable for one that had clocked up 250,000 miles and only cost me £200 spares or repairs with 5 months MOT.
I had to replace the front suspension top mounting as this was knocking against the top of the turret through severe wear.
The centre and back exhaust was rotten through and blowing; cheap replacement, did it myself.
Changed brake discs and pads on the front.
The car let me down once when the accelerator cable linkage broke off the fuel pump distributor, but I improvised and made a temporary repair to get me home.
Another problem was the fact that I had to bleed air out of the radiator every few hundred miles, which I believe was down to a faulty head gasket, but I lived with this as it got no worse.
The worst problem was body rot, this was beyond economic repair. This car was severely corroded below the radiator on the cross member and huge holes had developed. The rear arches were badly corroded.
The car had had a hard life, and it was only the second car I have owned that I have had to send to the knackers yard, but it would not have passed another MOT without a fortune needing spending. I put 6000 miles on it and scrapped it at the very respectable mileage of 258,000 - that's not bad going for a Renault Laguna, in anyones book!
Another niggly problem which most older Lagunas have too, was the fact that the rear doors leaked in the rain and soaked the carpets, but as this was an old nail, it wasn't that important, as I only used it myself to go to work in and had no back seat passengers.
All in all, It was the highest mileage car I have ever had, but by no means the worst. It did what I wanted it to do, get from A to B and cheaply.
General Comments:
I only needed it for commuting from Stoke on Trent to Telford daily for work until my job finished in August, so the car was just bought as a workhorse for a few months to be cheap on fuel, and this it was. It averaged nearly 50mpg on a 30 mile run, which was excellent for an old Renault diesel of family size.
It's the second Laguna I have had, the first one was a 1.6 Alize and I am not kidding, they are superb cars, I love the comfy seats and large airy cabins.
This 2.2 diesel was bought for peanuts and I knew it was a high miler, but aside from the few problems above, it was very nice to drive, and started every morning without fail. It's a very simple and crude standard diesel engine, and that's probably why it lasted as long as it did - its slow and plodding, but very frugal.
Even with the head gasket on the way out, I was still confident about driving it 60 miles a day, it had a slight misfiring problem from time to time, but it just kept going - poor old car, I was sad when it came to the day the knacker man turned up and put it on his wagon to go off to the great scrapyard in the sky.
Its final worth, just £80!
Well that's my review, my old Renault, even in its last few months, it still kept on going - you could do a lot worse than to buy an old 2.2D, it's a solid, steady, long lasting, reliable old workhorse, and I would have another Laguna Mk1 any day.
