Discussion
Thanks, 25min was the longest I did but that was only due to track closure, would probably have stayed out longer. The car didn't seem to have any ill effects from prolonged abuse!
Camera is nice but I need to play with the sound. Annoyingly the footage where you can see my car was taken with a camera that cost less than £5, the Contour was a lot more, it is a nice pic and you do get the GPS but you can get more data with a smartphone; though the picture won't be quite as good.
Camera is nice but I need to play with the sound. Annoyingly the footage where you can see my car was taken with a camera that cost less than £5, the Contour was a lot more, it is a nice pic and you do get the GPS but you can get more data with a smartphone; though the picture won't be quite as good.
Edited by FlashBastd on Thursday 15th September 12:51
Couple of things I forgot to mention previously, firstly one ill effect of the mileage seems to be a gearbox that while nice to use when driving gently, gets uncooperative when down changing and pressing on. A few solutions have been suggested, including replacing the gear lever cables, clutch slave cylinder and the gearbox. I have a spare 'box from a much lower mileage car so may fit that in the near future - of course if we are going to do that we might as well also replace the clutch and slave, which sounds like more expense.
On the subject of expense, my rattle finding mission on Saturday morning identified that I have a blow from one of my flexi pipes, which will necessitate removal of the manifold, dropping the subframe, etc. again. What was especially annoying is that the starter motor heat shield was slightly loose and I spent over an hour with my arms stretched up behind the engine fannying around removing and refitting this for it to make no difference whatsoever.
The bad news is that a new manifold is £750+VAT. I could get a custom manifold made for around £600+VAT but the benefit would be limited as the standard 4-2-1 is already pretty efficient. With this in mind I have bought another manifold with damaged flexis which I will get replaced before fitting to my car.
At the same time as changing the manifold we will swap the ARB back to standard, and may think about swapping the 'box, etc.
On the subject of the manifold the faults are interesting, someone more knowledgeable than me might understand the reasoning, but the faults both the cracking at the flange and the failed flexi both involve the middle two pipes. According to the garage the flange cracking appeared to relate to the middle pipes twisting rather than the up/down or back/forth motion of worn engine mounts. I think the two flexis sit next to each other so one would have thought the leverage against the flange would be the same. Odd in any case and the commonality of the fault is concerning. I know of at least one owner with a car outside of the warranty period who had a strong goodwill contribution from Renault, but his car had done far fewer miles than mine, and my servicing has been done by an independent garage rather than a franchised dealer.
On the subject of expense, my rattle finding mission on Saturday morning identified that I have a blow from one of my flexi pipes, which will necessitate removal of the manifold, dropping the subframe, etc. again. What was especially annoying is that the starter motor heat shield was slightly loose and I spent over an hour with my arms stretched up behind the engine fannying around removing and refitting this for it to make no difference whatsoever.
The bad news is that a new manifold is £750+VAT. I could get a custom manifold made for around £600+VAT but the benefit would be limited as the standard 4-2-1 is already pretty efficient. With this in mind I have bought another manifold with damaged flexis which I will get replaced before fitting to my car.
At the same time as changing the manifold we will swap the ARB back to standard, and may think about swapping the 'box, etc.
On the subject of the manifold the faults are interesting, someone more knowledgeable than me might understand the reasoning, but the faults both the cracking at the flange and the failed flexi both involve the middle two pipes. According to the garage the flange cracking appeared to relate to the middle pipes twisting rather than the up/down or back/forth motion of worn engine mounts. I think the two flexis sit next to each other so one would have thought the leverage against the flange would be the same. Odd in any case and the commonality of the fault is concerning. I know of at least one owner with a car outside of the warranty period who had a strong goodwill contribution from Renault, but his car had done far fewer miles than mine, and my servicing has been done by an independent garage rather than a franchised dealer.
Ok, just got the car back from the garage, the car went in sounding pretty rough, for the following work;
Everything went relatively smoothly, until it came to getting the lambda out of the old manifold, as the threads came off, mind you it had been there for 93k miles so probably didn't want to come out. Replaced with a genuine Bosch courtesy of Andrew Page, delivered within a couple of hours and at half the cost of the same item from Renault.
Renewed the oil in the replacement gearbox with Fuchs Titan Sintofluid, at the time of fitting the flywheel was inspected and was in good shape.
The clutch wasn't worn to excess but the slave cylinder was knackered, a common thing with these cars, loads have been replaced under warranty at much much lower miles than mine.
Excellent service as usual from both F Cross Renault in Shorpe and Andrew Page in Doncaster.
Original manifold
Repaired flange
Broken flexi
Repaired manifold
Original clutch
New Clutch
Original slave cylinder
New slave cylinder
Going back to September this was the hub carrier that we replaced
This was the X85 Cup ARB that we have now replaced
- Replace manifold with repaired item due to damaged flexi
- Remove X85 Cup anti-roll bar and replace original
- Replace gearbox with low mileage TL4024 (from low mileage later 197, longer 5-6 than that fitted to the early cars.
- Replace clutch and slave with new standard parts
Everything went relatively smoothly, until it came to getting the lambda out of the old manifold, as the threads came off, mind you it had been there for 93k miles so probably didn't want to come out. Replaced with a genuine Bosch courtesy of Andrew Page, delivered within a couple of hours and at half the cost of the same item from Renault.
Renewed the oil in the replacement gearbox with Fuchs Titan Sintofluid, at the time of fitting the flywheel was inspected and was in good shape.
The clutch wasn't worn to excess but the slave cylinder was knackered, a common thing with these cars, loads have been replaced under warranty at much much lower miles than mine.
Excellent service as usual from both F Cross Renault in Shorpe and Andrew Page in Doncaster.
Original manifold
Repaired flange
Broken flexi
Repaired manifold
Original clutch
New Clutch
Original slave cylinder
New slave cylinder
Going back to September this was the hub carrier that we replaced
This was the X85 Cup ARB that we have now replaced
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