New (to be!) 197 Owner

Hello All,

Winston here, I live in N.Scotland and have changed from a Mk3 Golf Gti 16v.

Collecting my Metallic Blue (unsure of exact name) 56 Plate 197 in a few weeks.
It's in fairly decent condition, a few tiny car parks dings and marks but for a 12 year old its pretty good.

It has had a few little tweaks but nothing over the top, a full stainless exhaust which is quiet cruising, and a rear renaultsport spoiler. It has been lowered a little as well but I am getting the stock springs included so if I find it too stiff after a while I can put it back to standard :smile:

I'm pretty happy to tackle most mechanical jobs on the car so hopefully anything it throws up I'll be able to sort myself. The only issue I have spotted so far are the door seals (the one alongside the rear window in the door shut) have perished. Where would be the best place to source a replacement for these?

Once I've collected her and got some presentable photo's I will get them put up on here.

Cheers
 
Welcome to the forum, Winston!

As above, the window seals are available on ebay, I think they're around £9 each IIRC. It's a straightforward job to replace them, just make sure you remove ALL of the old glue residue, or the new ones won't stay stuck on for very long.
 
Welcome to the wonderful world of RS Clio!

I'm sure you'll enjoy the car, Golf GTI's are good but these cars feel something special.

The part number for the door strips you'll need is 8200341503. I changed them earlier this week, the old ones pull out and you'll need a decent tar/glue remover to remove the old glue. I also used an angled pick tool to scrape out the glue as it was really stuck on after 10 years. Once clean and dry the new ones slide in with a good push.

I'm no expert mechanic but bar timing belt carry out all the work myself, thoroughly enjoy it and sure you will too.

Make sure to get some of those pics up :wink:
 
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Evening chaps,

So I have now had my clio 197 for almost a week, I haven’t really had much chance to drive it properly yet, or take some decent photos.

I have noticed a few little niggly issues:

The washer jets seem to take a while to actually fire water out onto the windscreen. Has anyone fitted non return valves in the pipe(s) and has it had a good affect? If that won’t help then what could help? Also the pressure seems to be a bit crap, I assume it could possibly be a split pipe but I wouldn’t know where to look. The car has projector headlights but no washers in the bumper. Is this normal? My thought was that if a vehicle had projector headlights it requires a headlight wash for MOT purposes.

The next issue is that the driver side door handle seems to be a little bit loose feeling and feels as though it sticks a bit when opened. Is this a common issue and a simple repair, or would it need to be replaced?

3rd one. My key card (the one that actually works) is falling to bits, has a chunk out of one corner and the key bit falls out. The other keycard I have (which looks new) doesn’t actually unlock the car. Is it possible to swap the internals over between the two or are they a dealer only programmable item? I have yet to try a new battery in the spare remote though so it may actually work!

A weird one today, car didn’t start on first press of the button, then when it did start it came up with an error for the stability/traction control, saying it was disabled. The button had no affect, then later on after I started it up again it had cleared. Very odd.

I cleaned the scuttle drains this evening, just the driver side was blocked (which seems to be the common one) so I stuck an air hose down the really awkwardly placed drain hole and blasted it out. Once I’d done that I got the air line all around to blow out all the leaves and crap, then gave it all a rinse out with the hose to clean the grime out!

Any tips on this stuff would really help. I have had a search for the issues but couldn’t find much, unless I’m just using the search bar wrong!!

Cheers
Winston.
 
welcome along- i am also currently trying to get a spare key. this is what ive found out so far:

i bought one from ebay but i am told there is no guarantee they will work so not sire if to fork out £70 to have it program (and it might not work) or if to shell out about £150 for a Renault genuine one and then another £70 to have it programmed.

any advise?
 
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