Faults:

Nothing at all that was fundamental, only general wear items eg brake pads, discs, tyres.

General Comments:

This has been a car that I've always wanted. My brother owned it when it was 4 years old, and he had it for 6 years, then sold it. I got hold of it again last year, and finally had it.

Owning this car at age 18 is just fantastic. I love everything about it; to drive it's great, superb road holding and the engines in these run beautifully if you maintain them.

The car has always been serviced every 3,000 miles using good oil as I am mainly doing short journeys. It's been my daily driver and I've done a lot of miles in 1 year. It's never let me down and it has the best leather bucket seats I've sat in as standard in a car.

You have to get to know them to really drive them, as like most of the french hot hatch engines, they only boil after 3,500 revs. Once you hit that mark, they just free rev and the car whooshes you away with a fantastic growling engine note. The 19 16valvers are known to be unreliable, but as long as you keep an eye on them, they run great.

I have to sell it now and I will just miss it so much. If you can find one that's been looked after, go for it because they are different to a lot of cars in that field. It will still eat most hot hatches even today; 0-60 is around 7.5 seconds, but they are more interesting when you are cruising at 70-80 and then put your foot down, because the power is there and they just go!

The styling is so great as well; people always look round at it. Also in metallic green I think it's one of the best colours they came in.

Faults:

No Faults as yet!

General Comments:

I bought this car a couple weeks ago for £200 as a run around to shops and to work (which can be anywhere as I am freelance).

It looked a bit shabby in the dark when I got it, but it drove fine which was the main thing so I bought it.

Next day I washed and waxed it and it came up like new! It now looks in fantastic condition, a compliment to renault paint finishes I'm sure as you see any cars around this age from other manufacturers with faded paint.

The RL is the base model so has no luxuries whatsoever. Wind up windows all round, no central locking, no sunroof, no nothing. Less things to go wrong some would say? Only the lack of central locking annoys me.

I am very happy with the car here are the pros and cons:

Acceleration:

Adequate. The 1.4 does perform much better than other cars I have had (It is faster than a citroen ax 1.4 gt I used to own), however it doesn't inspire over taking manouvres on single carriageways. I am happy with it like that as it has pretty good MPG.

Handling:

Handling is its weak point, it has soft suspension and body rolls more than i'd like on bends. Firmer springs would fix this, maybe springs off the higher end models such as the 16v. Normal driving conditions it handles fine, but when you want that little bit more out of it, I wouldn't be confident with its handling, it just isn't sharp enough for my liking and it oversteers too much.

Brakes:

Brakes are great. Plenty of feel from them and much more in reserve if you need it. Sharp in both dry and wet yet no chance of locking in the wet.

Overall, it is probably the best car I've owned. It is my first renault and I am very impressed. It'll do exactly what you want from it. The only thing left to do is put alloys on it from one of the higher end models to make it handle and look little better. They can be got for £75 with nearly new tyres on. Last point is: it looks a damn sight better than escorts, cavaliers, astras and the usual. A little bit more class I would say.