Faults:

Car cuts out at low revs (i.e coming to a stop at traffic lights).

Both spare and my normal key need replacing, as they will no longer start the car; £130 each!

Hazard light button broke, and had to be replaced.

Seal on the sunroof had to be replaced due to leaking.

Seatbelt and service light came on frequently, as wires kept coming loose under the passenger seat.

General Comments:

This car is a great little car when it's good, but boy, when it's bad (which is most of the time), it's really bad!!

If you're unlucky enough to have bought a car from the same year as mine, chances are that you will end up spending more money on trying to find and fix problems on it, than what you paid for it!

Normal mechanics will find it hard to pin point any electrical faults with this car, and so will Renault, but they will charge you a fortune to look!!!

Faults:

Very DANGEROUS FAULT!! Engine throttle does nothing, and engine revs uncontrollably. Car just creeps along. Engine management light appeared at approx 45000 (orange coil) and engine revs up and down with no input from throttle.

Took to it a local garage, and diagnostic test produced faults with either throttle pedal, throttle body or ECU. Changed throttle pedal (cheapest option first!) and fault occurred again.

Took to Renault, as they are believed to have better computers that can 'pinpoint' problems. Had report (£70 down!) and 'suspect' fault with ECU... wait for it... £700 + VAT.

Determined to fix the fault myself, I cleaned the throttle body with carb cleaner, checked looms etc, and discovered a metal plate loose at the rear of the air intake (behind plugs). The metal plate had worn insulation off white cable, which can be traced back to throttle body. I have secured the plate and covered the bare wire, which was shorting, with insulation tape, and the problem seems to be solved. All for the cost of insulation tape.

I recommend checking all looms, and re-taping any exposed wires that are not in ducting.

Faults:

Intermittent starting issues.

General Comments:

Average build quality - squeaks and rattles, but nothing fell off.

Auto box is terrible - holds onto gears too long, then snaps your neck with surprise changes. Seems to drain a lot of the 90bhp, which should make this a nippy hatch.

Performance OK around town, but underpowered on the fast roads; pulling out into a faster lane takes planning.

Seats are pretty uncomfortable for a french car.

Faults:

I owned my Renault Clio Expression 1.2 16V for 5 months before my first experience of the engine management light or electrical fault light came on. Within a minute, the engine had cut out and I had broken down in the middle of the road. It seemed that this time after leaving it to cool down for a few hours, it allowed me to drive it home very slowly.

After a trip to the garage, no faults showing up on their silly machines, and them telling me that I've been ragging the hell out of the engine as an excuse/reason for the fault light - it left with new tires and a unnecessary bill.

A few months passed however with no problems. Then on a busy evening I was driving with my boyfriend on the Blackwall tunnel approach; busy road, lots of traffic, crawling in first gear and the light comes on and again the car shuts down. After checking under the bonnet etc, by chance we found that if you rev the hell out of the engine in neutral, the light goes off and you can continue with your journey. However, now I know this trick, it seems that the light fault problem is happening more frequently and it is quite embarrassing having to rev the car so loud when stuck in traffic. It's probably happened to me around 30 times in the last two weeks.

It is in the garage today, and all they have done is plug it in and now fit a new mapping sensor.

From all the previous posts though, it sounds like this probably won't work, so I'm fuming it cost me nearly £300. We'll see!!! If it happens again, I might try that electrical tape on the wires trick that I read on previous threads.

Kalin.

General Comments:

It's cheap to run, however I'm not sure that's the case once all the garage trips are added together.