Considering how much fun this car is I have been driving it like an old fart. So at 26000 miles when it broke down I was very surprised.
I checked the engine and found the pulley belt failed therefore I thought it was going to be straight forward belt replacement.
£3000 later the 'car' is back on the road.
Renault in their wisdom have designed the 2.0 engine so that if the pulley belt breaks (Even at 5 miles an hour) for any reason (E.g. failure of the: water pump; alternator; power steering pump; air con unit or for that matter the belt itself just breaks).. Then there is a high chance of the timing belt getting fowled up as well. This in turn causes the values all 16 of them to crash into the rest of the engine.
In short the dealerships get a tidy little repair job of rebuilding the top of the engine because a glorified fan belt breaks...
If you live in London don't use Renault West London. They don't follow even simple requests and when you ask what caused the problem even their workshop manager just says "it just happens". The most frustrating company I have ever spent £3000 with.
If you have a warranty with Renault they basically just cover the initial part that broke not the rest of the damage... for me it was a power steering pump, and if you know anything about the car industry you can be sure Renault will get than money back from it's supplier.
The ClioSport is a fun little car... at a cost. The engine and gearbox are great, but it's the little things - the rattles, the electric problems, the expensive servicing - that let it down.
I thought it may just be a one-off, but everyone seems to have these same problems.
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