RE: Shed Of The Week: Renault Vel Satis

[Abstraction]

wtf is happening to pistonheads?

a shed - as per their t shirt is a car that 'is much loved , discussed weekly'

and they do a feature on a vel satis that is from a dealer that has a fuel injection fault and needs tracking....

that's kinda fk the private buyers / car lovers? no?

there are other vel satis for sale privately without faults/same price... poor show take the pistonheads...

[myhandle]

LJK Setright said he thought Vel Satis came from the Latin for Really Enough, IE you don't really need an S Class for a luxury saloon.

[cookie1600]

A face only a Mother could love?

No, scratch that.

[anonymous-user]

Ugly, but not ugly enough to be striking.

Borked, but not borked enough to scrap.

And with a name akin to something The Apprentice teams would hamfistedly call themselves.

No thanks.

[Butter Face]

I sold one of these in 2008 to a good customer of mine, he loved it.

He bought it in Jan 2008 and in April it needed a headgasket, it was a total bill of £1988 (warranty obviously) but it sure tainted my relationship with the Vel Satis. Never touched another one!

[Vee12V]

Magnifique indeed. Loved these from the get go, very different, very French.

[dapprman]

Always loved the art deco looks of these and the other Renaults at the time. Tried one about 6 years ago, lots of gadgets, still loved the looks, very comfortable to be in, very nice cabin to be in. However on driving it I ten found out about the ride. not good for a big waft mobile. Dealer was a little dodgy as well so I walked.

BTW it was the bigger diesel I was looking at getting - don't rememebr the MPG being clsoe to 40 on them.

[swisstoni]

myhandle said:

LJK Setright said he thought Vel Satis came from the Latin for Really Enough, IE you don't really need an S Class for a luxury saloon.

He just made that up then. The name is just constructed from VELocity and SATISfaction. Nothing more clever than that.

[florian]

Good God. It was already ugly back in the day, but now it's just plain atrocious!
And that interiour... just depressing.

What about some luxo barges instead? CL, A8, 7 series ...

[anonymous-user]

From the front it looks like Marty Feldman.

No offence Marty.

[Lester H]

Ljust noticed the Vel Satis shed of Last Week. May be better bet would be Peugeot 405 Executive 2.2 HDI, it's cousin. Used one for while, one owner direct from main dealer, 110000 on clock. lovely! Plush saddle leather, like Vel Satis, memory seats working and memory mirrors on this example - it cost £500 as seen- full instrumentation including the clean hands oil check and useful, practical oil temp gauge - more important than coolant, electric rear window blind, normal profile tyres, thus v. comfortable, bit of real wood here and there. Yes, a bit of an oldie but no rust and would do 80% of what a new Grand Routier would. Solid engineering included twin auto bonnet struts great arrogant horns and decent carpets. Fast by rep mobile standards, late 90s, good torque and no diesel chugs-chugs audible inside. Incidentally leather not pleather - BMW and Ford Titanium please note.Much of this "thrifted out" by cost accountants on 406. Should probably have kept as a hack, with "OEC" reg - oh, heck! L

Edited by Lester H on Friday 20th November 20:51

Edited by Lester H on Friday 20th November 20:54

Edited by Lester H on Friday 20th November 21:21

[ZesPak]

florian said:

What about some luxo barges instead? CL, A8, 7 series ...

Yeah, it's not like you see those every day on every corner in every neighborhood!

[Jim AK]

Scottie - NW said:

I actually think this shed of the week is so poor, like the schoolboy who does such a bad job of their homework, the author should be made to take the article down and be made to do it again better. With a different car.

+1

Diabolical car. Diabolical article.

[Ozzie Osmond]

Mr Adds said:

I have had a soft spot for these, along with the Avantime.... Major brave pills to own one I think, however there is a chap near me who has both a Vel Satis and an Avantime, major cool!

You can keep the Vel Satis but I've always thought the Avantime was a bit special. Had a chat with an owner down at Goodwood a while back.

[pSyCoSiS]

I quite like these, something very leftfield.

Although I do agree that this is probably not the best example to use as SOTW!

[HTP99]

I remember both the Vel Satis and Avantime towards the end of their days in the UK; every time we had a visit from anyone at Renault UK head office whoever came to see us would be in a different one each time, Renault UK were obviously furiously registering them to hit their UK Haute De Gamme target, said area guy would run it for a couple of months and then be given a new one.

To get shot of the above mentioned used ones dealers were given a £5k margin, there was also an up to £5k deposit contribution and 0% finance.

Great cars a real conversation piece but there was no way they would work over here, cracking V6 petrol version though.

[hidetheelephants]

There's one of these local to me; I nearly fell over when I saw it the first time as it's not usual fodder for rural weegieland and in any case I thought they'd all gone to the big chantier de ferraille through having egregiously unreliable engines and electrics.

[kellyt]

Well 14 years later and it certainly still divides opinion, although most of it still hating it bitterly. You have got to admire the guts to do something different though. Just look at Audi almost 25 years of farting around with much the same inoffensive boring designs, all of them almost the same, just slightly bigger, or smaller. Well, you can't say that about this. I mean, it's horrible, but they had a go.

But that particular one? Run away and keep running till you definitely can't see it anymore.

Personal experience of Renaults is that they have engines made of chocolate, or might as well be for as long as they last. Sad, because they can be stylish, for a little while anyway.

Edited by kellyt on Saturday 21st November 01:18

[mybrainhurts]

PH said:

The French have discovered or invented some fairly major stuff in their time. Photography. The metric system. Pain au chocolat. Dynamometers. Oxygen. The Etch a Sketch.

You forgot the art of retreat and surrender.

[Matt Bird]

crofty1984 said:

hornetrider said:

Motorrad said:

A bizarre choice given that autotrader features 3 others at the same price that don't have stated faults

Er, not sure if serious. The whole point of shed is it's cars from the PH classifieds.

I could have sworn we've had adverts from elsewhere!
I guess not then. Shame. Suddenly seems a bit less fun/informative and more like a crafty advert for the classifieds. Which I admit is stupid as it's the same articles I've been enjoying for the last god knows how long.

Hi all!

I believe a few Sheds from Auto Trader have featured in the past but we do try to keep them from PH if at all possible. Comments noted on this car's current condition, we shall be a little more selective in future! For what it's worth I just thought it was rather cool and different, which is why it received my vote.

Cheers,


Matt