1989 Renault 5 GTS 1.4

Summary:

Cheap and ugly

Faults:

Bad connection when regulating the fan. You have to turn it up and down until you get connection.

Very hard to start at sub-zero degrees Celsius.

The outer velocity joint broke down, had to change the drive-shaft.

The front-left suspension broke and the spring ate the tire to the cord.

The engine stalls, no warning, just stalls sometimes.

General Comments:

Basically, if you get a Renault 5 you get what you pay for, not much.

The engine is very small and weak.

It's very small inside the cabin and the seats are uncomfortable.

Handling is OK if your in the city, but once you get out on the country-side with roads that actually turn you realize it is kind of odd they used to drive rally with versions of this car.

You get an awful long distance compared to what you pay for it though. Buying it is cheap and it does not consume much fuel.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? No

Review Date: 13th January, 2005

13th Jan 2005, 16:59

My oh my... You must have gotten a lemon. I'm on my second 5 and will buy another one! My current '90 TR has in fact amazing handling, brisk acceleration (OK, up to about 80 kph, from there on it takes patience) and has never stalled, anywhere. Some things broke over the years, but I'm glad I pulled through fixing them. Nothing so serious as to not being able to keep driving for a while.

I must admit that it doesn't like cold starts, but here in Holland, we have no winters anymore, anyway...

1st Apr 2005, 06:24

Having got my 5 GTS on a whim as it was far too cheap to let go, and was looking for a car to trundle about in for a bit of fun, I am now fully converted to the great little French cars. I have aways though of them as ugly, but now they just look dated and dare I say..'classic?' Performance is good from the 1.4 as it has a light chassis and the quirky design features make it very lovable.

2nd Jul 2005, 20:38

A good heavy duty battery is necessary on a Renault 5 for cold winter starting I find. You might need several attempts before it should normally start, otherwise I found it easily goes dead. Make sure the choke is correctly adjusted and operating fully too.

29th Jun 2008, 14:22

Great wee car easy run with very good fuel consumption however the brakes are rather undesirable for my small country roads, lovely looking wee car far from 'ugly'.

Bob.

13th Nov 2008, 20:06

Hey there, I just got my R5 GTS on the road again, and it's amazing. How could you not like these beautiful little cars?

One more question; can you turbo the GTS on the cheap??? Thanx.

1984 Renault 5 TS 1.4

Summary:

Economical city car

Faults:

The water pump started to leak and had to be exchanged.

The entire exhaust system was very rusty and had to be renewed.

The distributor and other parts of the electronic ignition system broke down and were exchanged for an old fashioned mechanical ignition system.

The speedometer cable came off.

Big problems with the rear brakes, the automatic adjustment of the brake shoes stopped working and so did the hand brake.

General Comments:

A nice little car to drive in town, very easy to park everywhere and quite fast. But for longer trips, the comfort is really not good enough. Every trip longer than 40 kilometres is a real pain!

Very, very economical, doesn't take much gas at all, and it's easy to find cheap parts at scrap yards.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 19th May, 2002

21st Dec 2002, 06:44

I too have had problems with the rear drum brakes on my 1988 5 GTS, it appeared that on one side, the self adjusting mechanism did not work properly and the brake shoes became tighter and were binding against the drums causing excessive heat, brake fluid became less dense (due to the rise in temperature) and the entire hydraulic system lost pressure until the fluid cooled down again, after a bleed and adjustment (I did not know what had caused the problem at that stage) the same thing happened again about 3 months later, this time I will hopefully sort out the brakes properly this time, and likely the next car I will buy will have all-round disk brakes as they are a lot less hassle.