Faults:

Few things have gone wrong with the car in the year I owned it!

Alternator went, although I think this is because I drove through a massive puddle and got the poor thing wet!

Clutch cable snapped.

Wheel bearings replaced once.

Brake pads on front changed twice.

CV boot left and right.

Had to replace a few water hoses due to them leaking.

Watch out for rust, both rear wheel arches became a cropper.

Although may sound bad these were all just little niggles with the car!! Nothing major let me down at all!!

I managed to fix all of these things myself as well so most of the repairs cost me next to nothing and were very simple to do!!!

General Comments:

The RSi is often overlooked in the Clio range, but I was impressed with the acceleration and top end on this car!!Not as quick as the 16v, but not that far behind!!Could do with a bit more go once you hit about 5,500rpm, but pulls all the way there!!!

Handling on this car is ridiculous!! You actually feel like your driving on rails!!I put 15" alloys on the car and slammed it 40mm, but even before that it was very good on handling!! Took everything I threw at it!!

Main problem with the car was I am quite tall 6"3 and if I was on long journeys I did start to feel the pain!! I wasn't a big fan of the driving position!!!

Can be quite economical if driven sensibly... once you get a bit happy with the right foot you can almost watch the petrol gauge go down!!!

In general I absolutely loved the car! Fast, fun and looks really nice with the right mods!! Sad to see it go!!!

Rough performance about 7.8 0-60 and a top speed of 126mph!! That's the kind of performance I found it was capable of!!!

Faults:

Starter motor jammed, that's it in 2000 miles.

General Comments:

Very good first car... economical, practical, handles very well, not thrillingly fast, but v. good for 1.2. The 0-60 time is meant to be 14.7 seconds! I myself have done 0-60 in late 12 seconds, that's with an ITG panel filter though.

Faults:

One of the diesel injectors started leaking heavily - £30 to replace.

Glow plugs were past their best and the engine struggled to start - rectified by replacing them at £8 each.

Alternator failed - £90.

The power steering reservoir isn't holding its fluid.

CV joint is starting to grate in hard driving.

General Comments:

I bought this car to replace my dead old VW Polo, and for £500 it isn't too bad especially for the specification - electric windows, remote central locking and power steering.

Although it's had a couple of problems they haven't been disabling other than the alternator and have been easily and cheaply fixed.

Costs-wise, the car constantly gets 50mpg despite being driven quickly over rural roads and wearing snow tyres, the parts are relatively cheap and insurance is acceptable even for an 18-year old (just over £200 per quarter with Pass Plus).

The car handles brilliantly, despite the weight in the front end. To dial out its natural progression to understeer all you have to do is drive faster and the tail will swing out gently. You can take practically any corner at any speed without any troubles. In the snow it's nearly faultless, it'll plough through foot-high drifts fairly happily - probably helped by the skinny little 155-section M+S tyres, but the tail tends to break away quite sharply. I've even taken it for a bit of light off-roading and it took to that easily too (despite the lack of ground clearance).

The interior is well-appointed and fairly well-built - nothing has broken off, but there are a couple of rattles. It's fairly comfortable, but on longer journeys I get backache, smaller passengers haven't complained though so it's probably to do with my height. It's also very spacious for the size of the car, with easily enough room for four six-footers and a boot big enough for a week's family shopping.

It still looks sharp, despite the rusty old 13" steel wheels. I guess the foglights and colour-coded bumpers on this spec-level help, and in my opinion the Phase 1 Clio looks a lot better than the Phase 2 (with the ugly headlamps). There's a little surface rust around a couple of the arches and on the driver's door bottom, but nothing half a day's work with a sander and some primer wouldn't fix.

Maintenance is relatively easy, but the engine bay is very cramped and a job such as changing the alternator involves removing the bonnet, side-light, headlamp, and one of the radiator hoses (necessitating a bleed of the system - I just pushed the hose away from the alternator bolt and hoped for the best). It just adds to the irritation.

To sum up it makes an excellent small car, with constant 50mpg economy and a lot more guts than the god-awful, whiny, gutless 1.2litre Clio you'd get for similar money.