MK1 laguna

Author
Discussion

charnock

Original Poster:

187 posts

197 months

Wednesday 9th April 2008
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lol no its not wind up and and probably not a labrador. its the red block volvo engine. kinda rare, found in 700series.

davidspooner

23,903 posts

195 months

Friday 2nd January 2009
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How's this going?

Alec

clonmult

10,529 posts

210 months

Friday 2nd January 2009
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Its a Laguna - uninspired, badly designed motoring at its greatest.

Have you had to repair the fan unit yet? The rear demister? What about the water leakage through the rear door seals? And what about wheel bearings - they go semi regularly on Renaults of that age.

They're comfy enough on the motorway, and don't handle particularly badly (although nowhere near as good as a Mondeo of the same age), and can often be fixed with a hammer, but they're incredibly bland.

Probably going to either run mine into the ground, or dump it if (when?) it fails its MOT in the next month. And hopefully get something considerably less french and more german.

H22K

182 posts

190 months

Friday 2nd January 2009
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Must admit, I've got a bit of a soft spot for the old 'gunas. Bland? Possibly by todays standards, but compare it to the Mondeo and Cav of the same age and I think it looks rather good.

My dad had two as company cars - a '95 M-plate 1.8RT with "airflow pack" (a big spoiler on the back, a deeper front lip and different seats) along with the auto climate, in Brooklands green. Will always remember him collecting me from my rugby match one evening, me standing with some of the other lads (we were 12-13 at the time) and them all crooning about how cool it looked when he pulled up.

We then had an R-plate RTi (the 16v version of the 1.8RT) in blue. Lovely colour and seemed quite fast after the 115bhp version haha.

I always thought the facelifted orange/red lights ruined it.

Wouldn't want one now though, if I'm honest, but a nice one for college!

cheezburger

27 posts

187 months

Friday 2nd January 2009
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clonmult said:
Its a Laguna - uninspired, badly designed motoring at its greatest.

Have you had to repair the fan unit yet? The rear demister? What about the water leakage through the rear door seals? And what about wheel bearings - they go semi regularly on Renaults of that age.

They're comfy enough on the motorway, and don't handle particularly badly (although nowhere near as good as a Mondeo of the same age), and can often be fixed with a hammer, but they're incredibly bland.

Probably going to either run mine into the ground, or dump it if (when?) it fails its MOT in the next month. And hopefully get something considerably less french and more german.
We rebuild the whole car practically and then the head gasket went and he couldn't be bothered with it anymore. I think the only thing that we hadn't replaced on it was the paint.

charnock

Original Poster:

187 posts

197 months

Saturday 3rd January 2009
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davidspooner said:
How's this going?

Alec
Its gone, got the 240 I wanted and didnt keep the laguna. I always thought they looked better than other cars of a similar age and it had moderatly acceptable amounts of handling ability but it was french. It was too much work for something fairly mundane and boring. It was horrible to work on it was as if the people designing it had no logic. In the end I wanted to spend my money on something diffrent and not on all the things that fell off. Sometimes litiraly. And then have to endure the horrors of fixing it. Id still get the 24valve V6 one though. Cheers

clonmult

10,529 posts

210 months

Monday 5th January 2009
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charnock said:
davidspooner said:
How's this going?

Alec
Its gone, got the 240 I wanted and didnt keep the laguna. I always thought they looked better than other cars of a similar age and it had moderatly acceptable amounts of handling ability but it was french. It was too much work for something fairly mundane and boring. It was horrible to work on it was as if the people designing it had no logic. In the end I wanted to spend my money on something diffrent and not on all the things that fell off. Sometimes litiraly. And then have to endure the horrors of fixing it. Id still get the 24valve V6 one though. Cheers
That sounds about right, but a shame.

They're a reasonable car - comfy enough, great for a family, plenty of leg room, but I get the same feeling - whoever designed the gubbins under the skin was on a permanent bad day. Either bad access, bad design, as you say - zero logic.

It does look better than a Mondeo or Chavalier/Vectra of the same age, but having owned both a Cav and a Mondeo, the Laguna is squarely in between on the chassis. The mondeo (I had a 1.8TD) easily outhandled the Laguna, but lacks interior space.

agent006

12,043 posts

265 months

Monday 5th January 2009
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clonmult said:
whoever designed the gubbins under the skin was on a permanent bad day. Either bad access, bad design, as you say - zero logic.
Replacing the heater matrix on a Laguna is listed as taking 16 hours. You'll have to do that twice if you own it from new (once when it leaks, then once when the redesigned replacement blocks up and the heater stops working).

clonmult

10,529 posts

210 months

Tuesday 6th January 2009
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agent006 said:
clonmult said:
whoever designed the gubbins under the skin was on a permanent bad day. Either bad access, bad design, as you say - zero logic.
Replacing the heater matrix on a Laguna is listed as taking 16 hours. You'll have to do that twice if you own it from new (once when it leaks, then once when the redesigned replacement blocks up and the heater stops working).
I had to fix the heater fan - a thermal fuse blows in there. Access was absolutely shocking, although ultimately it was a relatively easy job. Then found that the rear demister fails - you've got to take the cabling out of the connector block in the boot and remake it ....

Rear door seals are designed in such a way to allow water ingress into the car. Easy enough to fix again (just a cut at the bottom of the seals).

But the most irritating expense is replacing a keyfob. Renault will scam you out of £100+ - its just a basic remote FFS! Will have to rip mine apart and try to give all contacts a good clean, and maybe re-make the remote button.