1988 Renault 5 GTS from Australia and New Zealand - Comments

The accelerator was sticking.

Choke knob was stiff and I pulled it too hard and snapped it off.

There is sometimes a faint smell of petrol inside the cabin, possibly from the carburettor when the choke is left on for a while.

Nothing really apart from that, except that the bright red paint has started to fade slightly.

Nippy little car, even though it isn't a turbo version.

Good as city car and on the open road.

Hard to find certain parts for it in this part of the world as they aren't very common.

Nice sharp handling, even without power steering.

Nice to drive, only the clutch seemed a little heavy, but I am used to it now.

No rust, pretty amazing for a 14 year old car.

Kind of rattly inside, mainly the the dashboard

The body panels are rather tinny, even with side intrusion beams.

Practical 5 door, with a large boot compared to similar sized cars.

A bit nicer than the common Japanese cars.

In my opinion, nicer than a Peugeot 205.

BEBOBBECKY.

I have a Renault 5gts. This smells inside of petrol as well. I had to put a new starter motor on. This is a very tricky job to do from above the engine, I only just managed to do it after turning the motor around in the compartment it is 'hidden in' and withdrawing it upwards. Another nightmare job is changing the heater matrix, the dash has to be taken completely apart including the centre consul to get it out. The floor was wet for weeks inside the car! The steering became absolutely terrible. It turned out that both track rod ends were worn out as were the lower bushes. Brakes aren't too good. Tyres became badly worn due to the problems with the steering. Put new disks and pads on front. Rear cylinder leaked and had to be renewed. Bled the system, but brakes still aren't good. The hinge on the boot lid mysteriously became bent and now the boot lid does not seal properly. The paintwork seems to be lasting extremely well and there is virtually no rust on the car. The full beam on the lighting circuit stopped working, have not found out the reason for this. Clutch cable snapped. The engine seems to be burning a small amount of oil. Purchased with 29000miles on clock, now at 68000 miles. 1989 r5 gts.

I have had my R5 GTS 1988 for 6 months, I have had to replace whole clutch system, cooling fan, engine mounts, it also smells of petrol inside, the window winders don't work, in car heating doesn't work, radiator leaks and overheats a lot. Apart from that it is a really fun car.

---original author here----

I sold the car in early 2003. Prior to that I did have a lot of fun with the rear brakes. Fluid leaking from the cylinders caused the brake surface to separate from the shoe and cause binding. Replaced all cylinders and shoes, but the self-adjust mechanism played up. This led to brakes overheating and bad unbalance problems (annoying at safety check time!) Had to realign boot catch on a few occasions too, as it would not shut (mysteriously).

Never had any problems with the cooling system as such, but did have a small leak somewhere I suspect though. The twin barrel weber carburettors on the GTS are odd thing; easily flooded, probably something to do with the petrol smell too.

Never had a clutch cable break on me either, luckily!

Undeniably ace little cars though; I'm always on the lookout for my old red 1988 R5 GTS with its cool poly/plastic trim and bumpers. ha ha.