RE: Renault 19 16v: Catch It While You Can

RE: Renault 19 16v: Catch It While You Can

Author
Discussion

PaulsM3

62 posts

127 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
Been a lot of these 'catch this old nail why you can' stories on pistonheads lately.
It's working wonders at inflating the prices of the old crap I've got kicking about in my scrap yard.
smile


Nors

1,291 posts

154 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
Anyone here have one of these? Haven't seen any for years.

Itsallicanafford

2,759 posts

158 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
The thing is, cars like this can be initially purchased relatively cheaply (if you can find one in the case of the 19). But the purchase price is only ever going to be a down payment on the costs to come...you have got to be dedicated and have deep pockets to keep a car like this on the road when it has already far exceeded its design life.

Even if it doubles in value over the next 3 years, you would be unlikely to cover the cost of the repairs and general de-bodging that you will have to outlay.

So catch it while you can if you loved the 19 back in the day and don't mind spending money to keep one on the road to relive your youth but don't think of it as some kind of investment.



rossub

4,400 posts

189 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
These were absolutely falling apart 15 years ago, never mind now.

I'm afraid they're just totally uneconomical to repair and destined for extinction.

Miner49er

382 posts

204 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
Back in the 90's I owned, at some stage or another, most of the decent hot-hatches on the market and I will still argue today that the 19 drove and handled better than all of them; Williams and 205 included.

zedx19

2,704 posts

139 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
foggy1974 said:
I did change the restrictive airbox which gave a gain of 14bhp and a noise to die for.
LMAO, ok, did you chip it as well for another 50bhp?

court

1,485 posts

215 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
Loved my 1993 cabrio I bought in 1999. Oil starvation caused the big end bearing to go, put a scrapper engine in and got shot fast as it never felt the same.


anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
Itsallicanafford said:
The thing is, cars like this can be initially purchased relatively cheaply (if you can find one in the case of the 19). But the purchase price is only ever going to be a down payment on the costs to come...you have got to be dedicated and have deep pockets to keep a car like this on the road when it has already far exceeded its design life.

Even if it doubles in value over the next 3 years, you would be unlikely to cover the cost of the repairs and general de-bodging that you will have to outlay.

So catch it while you can if you loved the 19 back in the day and don't mind spending money to keep one on the road to relive your youth but don't think of it as some kind of investment.

This man knows his st

GTEYE

2,092 posts

209 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
Problem is....you look at the (period) pictures in the article and think that looks great.

Then if you could find one....reality kicks in, unless its been in a time warp, 25 years of wear and tear are not likely to have been kind!

Roscco

276 posts

221 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
I had a metallic black phase 2 back in 2001.
It was a fun car to drive without being to fast to exploit the decent handling.
Made a great noise with a filter and exhaust too.

I think it was 'Hill Engineering ' that had a great reputation for sorting them out. I had 165-170bhp.

Great car.

Ultrafunkula

996 posts

104 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
I really wanted one of these in the mid ninties, but was put off because it was French (after bad experiences with a Pug). I heard that the F16 was a bit down on factory claims of 137bhp, closer to 130 on average.

nigelpugh7

5,997 posts

189 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
I had one from brand new as a company car in 1994, in the proper blue colour of course!

It was a fantastic little fun car to drive, superb to throw into corners which at the time seemed like,silly speeds.

I also remember it had the most fantastic leather seats in the front, really supportive and very comfy on long journeys too!

paulyv

1,017 posts

122 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
Myself and a colleague borrowed a 16v from work one afternoon to visit some satellite offices around 1998. Managed to get flashed by 2 speed cameras in 3 hours. Also took it around an empty car park - it didn't half rev, but we knew little about cars back then and everything revved quite hard whether it was designed to or not!

As I recall it had some rather natty black leather seats. To this day I still rather like the 19 convertible, in particular the two lumps behind the rear passenger seats.

People seemed quite keen on them here too:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=106...




PTF

4,252 posts

223 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
Itsallicanafford said:
The thing is, cars like this can be initially purchased relatively cheaply (if you can find one in the case of the 19). But the purchase price is only ever going to be a down payment on the costs to come...you have got to be dedicated and have deep pockets to keep a car like this on the road when it has already far exceeded its design life.

Even if it doubles in value over the next 3 years, you would be unlikely to cover the cost of the repairs and general de-bodging that you will have to outlay.

So catch it while you can if you loved the 19 back in the day and don't mind spending money to keep one on the road to relive your youth but don't think of it as some kind of investment.

I'm going through this with my GTI-6. Bought for a grand, which seemed a bargain for an 80k mile car.

So far it's had 4x tyres, refurbished alloys, new discs and pads all round, clutch and associated stuff, throttle cable, some interior trim to tidy it up. Next it could do with the cambelt and water pump changing, the dampers feel quite tired so some OEM spec ones will go on at some point. At that stage i might swap out the rear beam for a refurbished one and repaint/tidy the underneath, fit new brake pipes, etc. It could do with a couple of bits of bodywork doing.

In the meantime it's costing £200/year to insure on a limited mileage classic policy.

Think i've driven it about 200 miles so far, mostly the drive home nearly 2 yrs ago...

Itsallicanafford

2,759 posts

158 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
DoubleTime said:
This man knows his st
...I wrote that sitting in a 106 rallye contemplating the next thing that needs fixing...

Shnozz

27,423 posts

270 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
I've been searching for a Williams blue 3 dr tidy example for a while now. They aren't exactly plentiful...

Blaster72

10,775 posts

196 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
GTEYE said:
Problem is....you look at the (period) pictures in the article and think that looks great.

Then if you could find one....reality kicks in, unless its been in a time warp, 25 years of wear and tear are not likely to have been kind!
Yup, I bought one when it was 3 years old and it was an unreliable but wonderful car. What it'd be like now 20+ years later I'd hate to think.

Best left in the past.

katz

147 posts

91 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
If you really want one, or a Tipo, there are loads of them in France. try Le bon coin- its in French, but pretty intuitive. Lots of cool stuff like Alfa 155's that are hard to find here. Take a trailer, load it up, go to a French scrappies and fill full of spares.

Blaster72

10,775 posts

196 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
foggy1974 said:
Loved my 1992 red 3 door, bought in 2000 for £2000. It was immaculate, and I always preferred the pre facelift version.
Quickly learned all about lift off oversteer - Yikes!
I did change the restrictive airbox which gave a gain of 14bhp and a noise to die for.
Yep, I had to change the front subframe on mine after an episode of snap oversteer at around 50mph.

oceanview

1,511 posts

130 months

Wednesday 22nd March 2017
quotequote all
Back in early 1995, my brother bought a 1992, K reg phase 2 Renault 19 16v.
In its day, it was a bloody quick hot- hatch back and made my XR2 feel rubbish! Brothers car was in that lovely, dark blue.
Happy days!

Then, a year later, he bought a cabriolet version in a sort of burgundy. That was stunning and got admiring looks everywhere it went but, it was notably slower than the hatch and not as dynamic.

In 1997, this was replaced with Clio Williams 2- stunning and it became my car a year later!