RE: PH buying guide: Clio 172/182
Discussion
Got rid of a nice 182 Cup a couple of months back after owning about 9 months. Did a few trackdays and an extended Ring trip in it and it was fantastic. Great ride handling compromise, very good brakes, and was 100% reliable - also 40 mpg cruising. Poor driving position, low rent cabin and the lastest turbo hatches eat them in a straight line. My advice - either buy a Trophy with the Recaro option - will be held in similar esteem as the Williams in years to come - or go for a well maintained but cheap 172 - the 182 doesn't really move the game on so might as well pay as little as possible.
thewheelman said:
Hoygo said:
VR46 said:
The new polo gti has 178 bhp and more torque; hardly "30% down on power". The fiesta st only has 148 bhp but is tuneable to nearly 200.
Both are far more reliable and much better built. Does stating the truth albeit anti french crap make me a troll?
The fact is french cars are cheap for a reason; they are vastly inferior. Market forces dictate pricing and depreciation. Some die hard (retarded) french car fans like roadrunner cant see the wood for the trees.
Mr.Troll we are comparing a 2004 Clio R.S (182/ph2 172),and a 1998 Clio R.S (172),which correspond to the 2000 Polo GTI 125 hp and to 2004 Polo GTI 148 hp, which are much much slower than a Clio R.S in every way.Both are far more reliable and much better built. Does stating the truth albeit anti french crap make me a troll?
The fact is french cars are cheap for a reason; they are vastly inferior. Market forces dictate pricing and depreciation. Some die hard (retarded) french car fans like roadrunner cant see the wood for the trees.
Edited by VR46 on Sunday 3rd June 18:10
The Guide is about the Clio 2 R.S not 3 (the 200),if you gonna compare the new Polo GTI with the "GT3 of hot hatches" do it on another thread.
And the reliability of a 2000 and 2004 Polo GTI (the latter is better) is shocking no better than a Clio,so don't talk s
t.I can't comment on Fiesta ST because i know nothing,but regarding speed/laptimes a Twingo R.S keeps up,a Clio 182 is 4-5 sec faster on every track.If you don't like french cars do us a favor and don't comment your usual s
te anymore. FFS!Without a doubt the Clio is the faster & superior handling car. For me the Clio wouldn't be satisfying enough to have as just a trach car, & as an everyday car I think there are better options.
Also, not sure why the Renault being a French car is relevant? Didnt realise the manufacturers country of origin really matters. After all, many "German" cars are made all over the world.......even Mexico so I believe. And several of these very reliable Japanese cars are built here in sunny Blighty.
Polarbert said:
I don't know which Clio sport you've owned, but I've had mine for over six years and can count the number of faults its had on one hand. Engine temperature sensor and the heater matrix. That's it.
2.5 years and a one dead speedometer sensor here. £20 and 1 minute to change.Beats the £800 turbo failure my mate had on his 2005 Audi A3 that's for sure.
I graduated through a load of other warm and hot hatches (Fiat Punto Sporting, 2x (8v & 16v) Mk2 Golf GTi, 106 GTi) to a Clio 172 which I had for 3.5 years and did around 32,000 miles in.
My memories should be better - I went to the 'Ring in it, travelled all over Ireland in the thing and had some excellent motoring experiences. It was ridiculously fast when wound up and there was very little that would keep anywhere near it on a back road. As mentioned in the guide, I uprated the front stoppers to a Brembo/DS2500 combination with Goodridge hoses and it always had immense stopping power, even after a number of 100mph stops on track.
Sadly, I felt that the comment 'built to a budget' in this thread is completely justified. It always needed something. I would imagine the issues have been resolved in the later cars, but to me the 172 always felt like a parts bin special where all the attention was paid to the engine and little or none to the bits that had to keep the show on the road. When you were done with the engine mounts, it wanted wheel bearings. And window regulators. And rear shocks. And ABS/road speed sensors. And handbrake cables. And driveshafts. I spent thousands on the car and what pissed me off was that you never had a 6,000 mile run between services without it needing something, somewhere.
Then there's Renault, who are generally fine for run of the mill parts like anti-roll-bar bushes but who will open you up for oddball stuff. By now, the ones you'll buy for a grand will need another grand spent on them to get them right. I drove a lot of 172s over the years and a bad one is a rattly oul bag of assorted problems while a good one is a road-going Tasmanian devil.
Also, claims of 40mpg (a mate of mine even saw 50mpg one time) on the OBD are spurious. If you use RoadTrip or a similar app, you'll find that the most you can expect is about 35. Over the last winter my average Sept - March was 27mpg. My 20 year old MX5 does much better than that.
Should you decide to buy one, have your eyes wide open.
My memories should be better - I went to the 'Ring in it, travelled all over Ireland in the thing and had some excellent motoring experiences. It was ridiculously fast when wound up and there was very little that would keep anywhere near it on a back road. As mentioned in the guide, I uprated the front stoppers to a Brembo/DS2500 combination with Goodridge hoses and it always had immense stopping power, even after a number of 100mph stops on track.
Sadly, I felt that the comment 'built to a budget' in this thread is completely justified. It always needed something. I would imagine the issues have been resolved in the later cars, but to me the 172 always felt like a parts bin special where all the attention was paid to the engine and little or none to the bits that had to keep the show on the road. When you were done with the engine mounts, it wanted wheel bearings. And window regulators. And rear shocks. And ABS/road speed sensors. And handbrake cables. And driveshafts. I spent thousands on the car and what pissed me off was that you never had a 6,000 mile run between services without it needing something, somewhere.
Then there's Renault, who are generally fine for run of the mill parts like anti-roll-bar bushes but who will open you up for oddball stuff. By now, the ones you'll buy for a grand will need another grand spent on them to get them right. I drove a lot of 172s over the years and a bad one is a rattly oul bag of assorted problems while a good one is a road-going Tasmanian devil.
Also, claims of 40mpg (a mate of mine even saw 50mpg one time) on the OBD are spurious. If you use RoadTrip or a similar app, you'll find that the most you can expect is about 35. Over the last winter my average Sept - March was 27mpg. My 20 year old MX5 does much better than that.
Should you decide to buy one, have your eyes wide open.
Edited by klaus23 on Monday 4th June 09:38
Edited by klaus23 on Monday 4th June 09:41
I've only just caught up to this thread, and just wanted to add my views about reliability of the renaults.
I worked at a used car dealers for over 3 years, and we sold everything from cityrovers to year old range rover sports, so plenty of VW's renaults etc in between. I'd like to say ive had plenty of experience with bread and butter cars.
anyway to my point, I used to deal with after sales and warranties, and I kid you not, we had more VW's and fords come back for repair than we had french cars (mainly citroens and renaults) luckily fords are easy to work on and we had a vw specialist nearby.
My point is that in my experience cars that are so called more reliable and better built were giving us more grief than Clios etc.
So perhaps save the x is more reliable than y unless you actually have something valid to back it up.
I worked at a used car dealers for over 3 years, and we sold everything from cityrovers to year old range rover sports, so plenty of VW's renaults etc in between. I'd like to say ive had plenty of experience with bread and butter cars.
anyway to my point, I used to deal with after sales and warranties, and I kid you not, we had more VW's and fords come back for repair than we had french cars (mainly citroens and renaults) luckily fords are easy to work on and we had a vw specialist nearby.
My point is that in my experience cars that are so called more reliable and better built were giving us more grief than Clios etc.
So perhaps save the x is more reliable than y unless you actually have something valid to back it up.
Grovsie26 said:
Steady on. Very little that could get anywhere near it on a backroad? LOLs ok.
Perhaps it's perspective. I live in the west of Ireland where a three-door Megane is considered a performance car.Hairs could be split about this, and a lot of it is down to the ability of the wheelsmith following you, but at the end of the day in a 172 you have roughly 1090kg of weight wet plus driver, an engine with daycint mid-to-high range shove, good stoppers and FWD predictability, all of which is certainly useful. I bought an E36 328i when I had the Clio, a car that would share paper figures with it and on a backroad the Beemer wouldn't have know which way the French car went.
When I went to the 'Ring with two mates who are really, really handy pilots the 172 humbled a lot of supposed faster cars. You can tell me I'm talking out of my arse all you want.
klaus23 said:
Perhaps it's perspective. I live in the west of Ireland where a three-door Megane is considered a performance car.
Hairs could be split about this, and a lot of it is down to the ability of the wheelsmith following you, but at the end of the day in a 172 you have roughly 1090kg of weight wet plus driver, an engine with daycint mid-to-high range shove, good stoppers and FWD predictability, all of which is certainly useful. I bought an E36 328i when I had the Clio, a car that would share paper figures with it and on a backroad the Beemer wouldn't have know which way the French car went.
When I went to the 'Ring with two mates who are really, really handy pilots the 172 humbled a lot of supposed faster cars. You can tell me I'm talking out of my arse all you want.
What cars did it humble?Hairs could be split about this, and a lot of it is down to the ability of the wheelsmith following you, but at the end of the day in a 172 you have roughly 1090kg of weight wet plus driver, an engine with daycint mid-to-high range shove, good stoppers and FWD predictability, all of which is certainly useful. I bought an E36 328i when I had the Clio, a car that would share paper figures with it and on a backroad the Beemer wouldn't have know which way the French car went.
When I went to the 'Ring with two mates who are really, really handy pilots the 172 humbled a lot of supposed faster cars. You can tell me I'm talking out of my arse all you want.
klaus23 said:
Perhaps it's perspective. I live in the west of Ireland where a three-door Megane is considered a performance car.
Hairs could be split about this, and a lot of it is down to the ability of the wheelsmith following you, but at the end of the day in a 172 you have roughly 1090kg of weight wet plus driver, an engine with daycint mid-to-high range shove, good stoppers and FWD predictability, all of which is certainly useful. I bought an E36 328i when I had the Clio, a car that would share paper figures with it and on a backroad the Beemer wouldn't have know which way the French car went.
When I went to the 'Ring with two mates who are really, really handy pilots the 172 humbled a lot of supposed faster cars. You can tell me I'm talking out of my arse all you want.
With upgraded brakes it might stop well, but the standard brakes on a 172 are shocking, at least my experience with them, and the lack of ABS doesn't help in certain conditions, a mate slid over leaves down a b-road for a fair distance.Hairs could be split about this, and a lot of it is down to the ability of the wheelsmith following you, but at the end of the day in a 172 you have roughly 1090kg of weight wet plus driver, an engine with daycint mid-to-high range shove, good stoppers and FWD predictability, all of which is certainly useful. I bought an E36 328i when I had the Clio, a car that would share paper figures with it and on a backroad the Beemer wouldn't have know which way the French car went.
When I went to the 'Ring with two mates who are really, really handy pilots the 172 humbled a lot of supposed faster cars. You can tell me I'm talking out of my arse all you want.
It's niippy yeah, but you are majorly exagerating.
Grovsie26 said:
It's niippy yeah, but you are majorly exagerating.
Clio 172 brakes aren't the best i agree on here,but really not having ABS is not a problem once you get used to it,ah and...there are many jokes about 172 Clios beating God in the "twisties" already. 
(very capable on B-roads on overall really)And as this topic is about the Clio 2 R.Ss,anyone remember an issue of EVO mag circa 2005-06,Clio Trophy VS BMW M6 on a B-road.The Trophy triumphed there,says it all.
Hoygo said:
Clio 172 brakes aren't the best i agree on here,but really not having ABS is not a problem once you get used to it,ah and...there are many jokes about 172 Clios beating God in the "twisties" already. (very capable on B-roads on overall really)
And as this topic is about the Clio 2 R.Ss,anyone remember an issue of EVO mag circa 2005-06,Clio Trophy VS BMW M6 on a B-road.The Trophy triumphed there,says it all.
http://www.motorworld.net/forum/showthread.php?t=47067 (very capable on B-roads on overall really)And as this topic is about the Clio 2 R.Ss,anyone remember an issue of EVO mag circa 2005-06,Clio Trophy VS BMW M6 on a B-road.The Trophy triumphed there,says it all.
Very interested to read this. Never seen it before!
Polarbert said:
VR46 said:
^^^^^^^^
my point exactly. The whole ownership experience is what counts and this is where the clio makes an epic fail.
Not really. Had mine for over 6 years and the 'ownership experience' has been fantastic.my point exactly. The whole ownership experience is what counts and this is where the clio makes an epic fail.
klaus23 said:
Also, claims of 40mpg (a mate of mine even saw 50mpg one time) on the OBD are spurious. If you use RoadTrip or a similar app, you'll find that the most you can expect is about 35. Over the last winter my average Sept - March was 27mpg. My 20 year old MX5 does much better than that.
The OBD on mine over reads by about 1-2mpg(and i'm sad enough to actually calculate this). I have found it's much more accurate when running on Super unleaded. If you averaged 27mpg(winter months I know) I suspect something was wrong with your car. Over the same period I averaged a real(not OBD) 37.83mpg. I have a reasonably heavy right foot. Over the last couple of months my average is about 39mpg. 40mpg would be easily do-able on my commute if I drove at a more sensible speed. I do doubt 50mpg though- its still a 2.0 litre petrol with relatively short gearing.I had one [a 172 CUP] since 53reg and I can say with some authority that I definitely drove in the style for which it was designed... On more or less EVERY journey! I traded it in last year for a Z4C.
Picking up the 'falling to pieces' topic. It pains me to agree with the general consensus. There are some very common problems - which you've no doubt read about and I'll summarise below - but I'd urge people to be realistic about this. Bits fall off every car.
In short, this is what I fixed:
WARRANTY ITEMS:
• Exhaust
• CV boot - therefore the joints and therefore the discs and pads from contamination
NONE WARRANTY:
• Both front drive shafts
• Both track rod end
• More or less ALL bushes
• Dog bone and top engine mounts
• Rear springs
• Rear dampers
• It also seemed to eat rear discs
Anyone know a 10 year old performance hatch that HASN'T had most, or all, of the above done in its life time?
OK, it was a BIT fragile, but no worse than the DC2 I had - now that thing felt like tin foil!
Picking up the 'falling to pieces' topic. It pains me to agree with the general consensus. There are some very common problems - which you've no doubt read about and I'll summarise below - but I'd urge people to be realistic about this. Bits fall off every car.
In short, this is what I fixed:
WARRANTY ITEMS:
• Exhaust
• CV boot - therefore the joints and therefore the discs and pads from contamination
NONE WARRANTY:
• Both front drive shafts
• Both track rod end
• More or less ALL bushes
• Dog bone and top engine mounts
• Rear springs
• Rear dampers
• It also seemed to eat rear discs
Anyone know a 10 year old performance hatch that HASN'T had most, or all, of the above done in its life time?
OK, it was a BIT fragile, but no worse than the DC2 I had - now that thing felt like tin foil!
Grovsie26 said:
With upgraded brakes it might stop well, but the standard brakes on a 172 are shocking, at least my experience with them, and the lack of ABS doesn't help in certain conditions, a mate slid over leaves down a b-road for a fair distance.
It's niippy yeah, but you are majorly exagerating.
The 'lack of ABS' refers only to the 172 Cup, the normal 172 and Exclusive versions had ABS.It's niippy yeah, but you are majorly exagerating.
Unreliable ('55 plate Trophy on original engine, box & clutch):
No fun:
Boring:
Shed:
Best car ive ever owned (had a 182 cup, 172 cup, this is the 2nd 182 Trophy) and various other things if you check my profile ... in March i had to decide whether to sell my e46 M3 or the Trophy, the M3 didnt stand a chance.
No fun:
Boring:
Shed:
Best car ive ever owned (had a 182 cup, 172 cup, this is the 2nd 182 Trophy) and various other things if you check my profile ... in March i had to decide whether to sell my e46 M3 or the Trophy, the M3 didnt stand a chance.
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