Living with a 197 cup.. Vilnius or bust!

[PaulV]

I bought my 197 Cup with FSH at 60k in June of 2017. it looked very tidy in nimbus grey with the cup spoiler and the red rear quarter logos that matched the red calipers. What niggled me was that the cambelt was changed at 55k, so the previous owner had sold it soon afterwards (should have been a red flag). Anyway to cut a long story short I get the thing home to find tyre pressure on the FNS wheel at 45psi. I put all tyres to correct value and i get this noise coming from the FNS wheel. I noticed that the wheel had been clouted so I bought a spare speedline and swapped it over. No change. Meanwhile oil,(admittedly nice clean oil), is pissing out of the cam covers under the bolts, so thanks to this forum I fix the oil leak. Take the car for an MOT to be safe and the FNS spring had snapped so needed to be replaced. All well and good. Noises seem to have gone for now. Armed with a fresh MOT I emigrate to Vilnius, Lithuania via European roads.. covering 1260 miles in two days. Made Guildford to Berlin on day 1 and Berlin to Vilnius on day 2. By the time I got to Berlin all sorts of noises and vibrations were coming from the FNS Wheel and suspension. What a pisser, German Autobahns and I could only really do 85mph max. Anyway I nurse the car all the way to Vilnius and take it into 'Capital' Renault on Ukmerges gatve (anyone know it? ;-) ) . Luckily the service guy there speaks great English and has a sense of humour. After an inspection they replace the FOS spring which has snapped, and replace both front dampers as the FNS damper is bent. Lower ball joints, stabiliser bars and top mounts are all replaced too. By this time its October 2017 and so far the ownership experience hasn't been good. Luckily I get no kangarooing but on a cold start finding a gear from neutral is a bitch (though leaving the car parked in gear seems to ease this problem). I'm thinking that now the car can be put through its paces as its finally fixed, and have been waiting a long time to do this. Hold on a minute, where are those amazing B roads and good surfaces like back in the UK.. nowhere to be found. So I find a nice stretch of smooth motorway (the only one in Lithuania) and off i go... sneakily get up to 120mph to test and then get a misfire. Back to Renault, new plugs installed. Apparently water gets into the coil packs or something...ALREADY have the fix for the washer pipe dumping water onto the coils.. Man this Renault is seriously flawed! Ok so new plugs are installed.. off I go next morning in -9 degrees centigrade and the car stops dead a few hundred yards from the house. I call out the flatbed truck and back we go to Renault. Fuel pump has failed. The mileage is now 65K and have done 5k miles and spent well over £2500 on repairs. What's the point of all this you say.. well stop a minute and be thankful for those beautiful countryside B roads, that fabulous weather, amazing scenery and the really good standard of driving and road surfaces that you take for granted in the UK. Me, well if I can avoid the potholes and the kamikaze Lithuanians, navigate their rather weird roads, avoid skidding out on snowy roads at some ridiculously minus temperature and find a smooth road without a speed camera.. for just a few minutes with revs above 3500 in all gears, (and assuming the fecking car doesn't break again) it finally all makes sense and I find automotive heaven.

 

[///M]

My god what a post!!!

Everything crossed for you that you’re not going to have any further issues and you can get some time to properly enjoy the car.

Oh and really hope you can find a road trip to some good roads somewhere

 

[Johnny 99]

Not the most positive start to ownership then. Hope you find those elusive good driving roads & get to enjoy the capabilities of the car. Also hope your days of fixing problems are over for a while.

 

[Cossers]

Thanks for taking the time to post all that! Sorry to hear your woes with the car :-( hope your luck changes soon for you

 

[shells2074]

I bought my 197 Cup with FSH at 60k in June of 2017. it looked very tidy in nimbus grey with the cup spoiler and the red rear quarter logos that matched the red calipers. What niggled me was that the cambelt was changed at 55k, so the previous owner had sold it soon afterwards (should have been a red flag). Anyway to cut a long story short I get the thing home to find tyre pressure on the FNS wheel at 45psi. I put all tyres to correct value and i get this noise coming from the FNS wheel. I noticed that the wheel had been clouted so I bought a spare speedline and swapped it over. No change. Meanwhile oil,(admittedly nice clean oil), is pissing out of the cam covers under the bolts, so thanks to this forum I fix the oil leak. Take the car for an MOT to be safe and the FNS spring had snapped so needed to be replaced. All well and good. Noises seem to have gone for now. Armed with a fresh MOT I emigrate to Vilnius, Lithuania via European roads.. covering 1260 miles in two days. Made Guildford to Berlin on day 1 and Berlin to Vilnius on day 2. By the time I got to Berlin all sorts of noises and vibrations were coming from the FNS Wheel and suspension. What a pisser, German Autobahns and I could only really do 85mph max. Anyway I nurse the car all the way to Vilnius and take it into 'Capital' Renault on Ukmerges gatve (anyone know it? ;-) ) . Luckily the service guy there speaks great English and has a sense of humour. After an inspection they replace the FOS spring which has snapped, and replace both front dampers as the FNS damper is bent. Lower ball joints, stabiliser bars and top mounts are all replaced too. By this time its October 2017 and so far the ownership experience hasn't been good. Luckily I get no kangarooing but on a cold start finding a gear from neutral is a bitch (though leaving the car parked in gear seems to ease this problem). I'm thinking that now the car can be put through its paces as its finally fixed, and have been waiting a long time to do this. Hold on a minute, where are those amazing B roads and good surfaces like back in the UK.. nowhere to be found. So I find a nice stretch of smooth motorway (the only one in Lithuania) and off i go... sneakily get up to 120mph to test and then get a misfire. Back to Renault, new plugs installed. Apparently water gets into the coil packs or something...ALREADY have the fix for the washer pipe dumping water onto the coils.. Man this Renault is seriously flawed! Ok so new plugs are installed.. off I go next morning in -9 degrees centigrade and the car stops dead a few hundred yards from the house. I call out the flatbed truck and back we go to Renault. Fuel pump has failed. The mileage is now 65K and have done 5k miles and spent well over £2500 on repairs. What's the point of all this you say.. well stop a minute and be thankful for those beautiful countryside B roads, that fabulous weather, amazing scenery and the really good standard of driving and road surfaces that you take for granted in the UK. Me, well if I can avoid the potholes and the kamikaze Lithuanians, navigate their rather weird roads, avoid skidding out on snowy roads at some ridiculously minus temperature and find a smooth road without a speed camera.. for just a few minutes with revs above 3500 in all gears, (and assuming the fecking car doesn't break again) it finally all makes sense and I find automotive heaven.

I enjoyed reading that. I've had mine just 3 years now, a cup also in nimbus. I think I've spent well over 2k on it. I didn't mind at first but now it's a case of getting it tiptop thinking nothing else could possibly pop up and low and behold I'm back at the garage handing my bank card over for at least £200 everytime.
I'm not finding this fun anymore. The bad almost certainly outweighing the good.
Since its most probably taken my summer hol funds, enough is enough. I mean no holiday so my car can rinse me each month. Nahhhhhh.
I just don't know what to get next but what I can say is Renault can suck my proverbial d***!!!