13th Dec 2008, 14:24

I have a 2003 Megane Scenic Fidji 1600 and I'm just about to have a second coil fitted this year. The ABS warning light flashes on and off too.

13th Mar 2009, 07:08

We have a Renault Scenic Expression Plus 1.4 2001 Y reg. We bought the car from a garage (not a main dealer) in 2003 with 9,000 miles on the clock and only 1 owner.

Before the car had reached 10,000 miles, but out of all warranties, the steering rack and pump failed and had to be replaced. Renault were no help at all and would not even contribute to the repair. We have had a few coil problems and have replaced them a few times.

Then last year on the motorway the engine blew with a hole in 1 of the piston, 29,000 miles on the clock. We had a replacement engine fitted with 19,000 miles on it and we have had coil problems twice since we had this done. Please Beware!

13th Jun 2009, 05:45

Go to ebay for your parts. I saved £250 on 4 disc and pads + £200 on door winder mech.

2nd Sep 2009, 10:12

We have owned a Renault Scenic 2001 Dynamique + for 6 years now and were hoping to have it for a few more, however having taken in for a Major service, cambelt change, auxiliary belt, brakes changed 1200 miles ago our baby just stopped working on us.

The dealership has said it was the alternator pulley that slightly moved out which caused the new auxiliary belt to Frey, which in turn broke the cambelt and destroyed the engine. Of course the garage are taking no responsibility for this, it is going to be a whopper of a bill.

So my advice... when changing the timing belt, change the auxiliary belt, pulleys and get the alternator changed too if it has a freewheeling pulley because you could be the next to loose your car. I loved my car but it is now too expensive to repair for the price it is worth.

Avoid taking your cars to Renault dealerships, stick to local garages they seem to know more. A sad lady from Kettering.

23rd Sep 2009, 18:58

The same happened to us in 2004 just before warranty ran out. Our local garage fitted performance HT leads and it ran like clockwork after they were fitted. Seems a common fault on 1.4/1.6/1.8 engines.

6th Apr 2010, 13:23

I have a 2001 Scenic for 3 years now, 92000 miles to date. I do a lot of mileage and find the car very comfortable to drive, and if I'm honest, I'm quite attached to the car; plenty of room, strong on the road and not the worst looking car.

However, my problems started not long after buying the car, the sunroof developed a leak, water would run in through the electrics and drip down on me, the garage couldn't seem to find the problem, this went on for 6 months!!! Eventually the garage fixed the leak after 5 attempts and about 3 months off the road. That was problem number 1...

Secondly was the brake pads, they had to be replaced twice in the last 3 years, and the disc in one case. I've done 40000miles on the car, but it doesn't seem enough to justify changing the brake pads twice.

Then the wipers started making funny noises, and one morning failed on me; they had to be replaced, as did a shock on the back passenger side of the wheel.

And of course the coil problem, been there many times now, and only waiting for it to happen again. I've had the coils replaced many times, and every time the garage don't seem to care, however, 2 weeks ago I had a coil replaced, and since then the car is very slow to start in the morning, lots of revving of the engine, a lot of white smoke coming out the back, and cuts out many times before it properly gets going. The car also lost power while in 5th gear on the way home from the garage.

I have returned with the car, and they have checked it over, charged me for checking it on top of the coil replacement, and told me they cannot find a problem; this isn't good enough. I fear that the car may be on the way out, as these problems are becoming more frequent, other little things like electrical problems with the central locking and bits and pieces falling off, door handle, mouldings etc.

Also has anyone had any problems with their lights? My fog lamps have to be replaced every 6 months.

9th Jul 2010, 18:49

I was looking here in order to decide whether I should swap from a Laguna to a Scenic. As described here, the Scenic seems to offer a great nice space, while my Laguna (99/1.6, 16V) is hard to beat on sportiness for a 5 door saloon.

Now the Laguna's exterior as well as the interior are pretty beaten up, and it shows its 190,000 miles. However, we got it with 125,000 miles, AND ALMOST 70,000 miles later have not changed any coils. The ones on the car are Denso-Japan, and I thought they are as provided by Renault from factory.

I had some light juddering when going slow in a high gear or when going over 35000rpm (foot down while accelerating), but I put in a new set of plugs (4 electrode Bosch) and it cured it. The only inconvenience now is that it judders slightly at idle (just slight shake if you look at the gearbox knob), but that has not affected performance or fuel consumption.

Anyway, I found a pristine looking 2001 Scenic with 200,000 miles believe it or not, and was planing to swap its 1.4 engine (not much history) with my Laguna's engine, which just received a new timing belt. Must see though how hard is it to do the swap and if it's worth it... Any advice?

21st Aug 2010, 15:35

Hello. I've driven Scenics for about eight years now, first one a 2000 (W reg) 1.6 petrol which was great, only problem being an intermittent fail to start caused by a faulty TDC sensor. The car was written off in France by an inattentive French driver in 2004! It had 70,000 miles on the clock and had no problems relating to the ignition coils!

I liked the Scenic so much I bought a second one, this time a 2001 2.0 litre petrol RXE. The bigger engine was excellent for towing, but quite thirsty. I do about 18,000 miles a year and have found the car very comfortable indeed.

It had a very strange electrical fault, which was never properly fixed - the throttle potentiometer fault light would appear, and the throttle would be disabled if I ran the car for less than 2 minutes. I 'managed' this once I'd figured out what was going on by just not running the engine for less than 2 minutes... bit of a pain though.

I had no problems with coils on this one either, until recently when it had 137,000 miles on the clock. I replaced all four with non-Renault parts and have had no problem since. Also had the TDC sensor replaced after a weird running fault, and this sorted it out. I've recently part-exchanged it for a new car as small electrical problems seemed to be getting more frequent, and living out in the countryside, I had to have a reliable car.

In all, a brilliant car to drive, loads of space, very comfortable on long journeys, tons of storage space. However, the electrical faults let it down, and I would be reluctant to buy another one for this reason alone.