Faults:

Normal wear and tear for a car that is 24 years old and made to last 5 years, tops.

General Comments:

This car was obtained from a friend in Atlanta, Georgia for $300. It sat in his back yard for many years with a tree growing up through the engine compartment, and served as a home for feral cats. His hobby at the time (early 1990s) was buying up Le Cars from Atlanta owners who were being quoted $800 for normal wear-and-tear maintenance (due to the need to jack up the engine to reach the starter and other user-unfriendly attributes). He performed the needed repairs, and sold them to his friends. We replaced the worn convertible top for $200 and bought some other goodies from a Miami distributor (e.g., halogen headlights, aluminum wheels, hood scoop).

Although this car was clearly not made to drive long distances on the interstate, it is the perfect city car. Its extremely narrow width allows parking in nooks and crannies that even a Toyota Camry would overwhelm. And in my town, where the majority of vehicles are SUVs and large pickup trucks, there are many such "unparkable" spaces to be had.

The car also functions as the foul-weather car of our fleet, and is one of the few cars to sit out in the elements. When the roads have been salted, we are reluctant to subject our “nicer” cars to this corrosive influence. Since Le Car is already a little rusty (but not too bad, being a southern car), we drive it on snowy and rainy days. It never fails to start, even on the coldest days in Tennessee (where the temperature rarely dips below 15 degree Fahrenheit). Unfortunately, the cloth top is getting a little leaky now, so dry towels are in order for any rainy day drive.

Faults:

Wheel bearings failed, head gasket blew.

General Comments:

I am VERY sad that I sold this car. I owned it for a very short six months before the head gasket blew, then I sold it. It was a stupid choice, because I really miss this car now.

Le Car handles very well, and is extremely comfortable - it can handle speed bumps and dips like no other car out there.

The economy was a little lower than expected, my previous car, a 1982 Toyota Tercel got about 40mpg, and this Renault only returned 31mpg, despite having a smaller engine.

The performance was excellent, this car was much quicker than my Toyota.

Anyway, Renault no longer sells cars here, if you're very lucky you can find an older Jeep dealer that still has Renault parts from the old AMC/Renault days - but otherwise you're totally out of luck if you're expecting Dealer service.

I look forward to owning another Le Car someday.

Faults:

Nothing so far.

General Comments:

Great little commuter. Seats 4, revs high, high mileage per gallon, easy to maintain, good urban ride.

Just a little noisy, but so cute!

My $19.000 Ford Exploder went through all the recalls, 5 transmissions and one couple converter within six months. My $700 Renault already went through 4000 miles without blinking.