1988 Renault 11 GTL from Venezuela - Comments

Clutch cable went at 2 years.

Accelerator cable (3 years).

Gas tank leaked (5 years).

Wiper motor (5 years).

Tailpipe went at 6 years.

Clutch and clutch pedal (6 years).

Timing chain made all kinds of noises at the end. Sold it - the new owner changed a chain puller or straightener or something for $50 and is still running. It now has 200.000 kms.

Excellent little car. Wish they still sold them here. I'd buy one again.

J am driwing renault11 GTL 84`in Polland. The motor machine stop when J ride 170km/h, after 370000km. Sorry for my english.

I am the owner of a 1988 Renault 11GTL. It is off the road for 2 years now, but I use it a lot for 'mess about' driving. The car was quite troublesome when it was every day on the road... Head gasket went twice, bearings, numerous amount of clutches, and many starters, and also the steering rack once! I was handed down this car from my parents for practice and fun driving. I have kept the car running for the last two years and have a private road in which I drive it. The reliability was always very questionable, but all the same, I have never had any real problem with it. The starter was the only problem I faced. It is very hard to get parts for the Renault 11, so I took it out and examined it. I thought that it was ceased, but after hours of attempts, it spun when I connected it directly with jump leads to a 12v battery. The following I discovered which all Renault 11 owners should pay attention to; There is a design fault with these starters... There is a metal guard which is bolted onto the starter. The bolt in which holds this on is too long and ends up flattening a plate on the end of the starter up against the rotating shaft inside the starter. This puts pressure on the starter and eventually burns it out, which explains the many starters replaced in it! The way to resolve this is by (i) taking out the starter and either taking off the metal guard altogether (because it serves no real purpose) and by hammering back out the plate it pushed in, or (ii) cutting a piece off the bolt which pushed in the plate, hammer the plate back out, and bolt the guard back on, (making sure that the bolt doesn't push it in again), in other words, make sure you cut the bolt short enough. When putting the starter back in, be really sure to take note of the wires you took out and connect them back up the correct way; I didn't connect up all of them, and when I turned the key and it wouldn't start, I concluded that the wire was damaged or something (it was how I didn't wire the last wire!), so I wired a line from the starter to a push button on the dashboard, and then the original wire which I forgot to put back on started sparking against the engine and one night nearly put the car into flames!!, so just remember to note your wires on taking out the starter, and put them in the right way again. Doing this I highly recommend because your starter WILL eventually burn out otherwise. Thank You, Radix.