Paul's Pearl

[Paul_D]

Hi I'm Paul and I have a Renault problem! I've recently bought a pearl white Clio 200 which is my 10th Renault and currently No4 on our overcrowded driveway. I've owned my balck gold 182 for 6 years now and had the urge for a mk3 RS for a couple of years but just could'nt bring myself to part with the 182. Last year it broke, grinding its gears and spitting them out with the gearbox oil. After 9 months of pulling it apart and putting it back together the relationship has soured so I've bought a 200 that has been stood for 3 years or so.

My pearl is a 2012 car with cup suspension and spoiler having had 4 previous owners and covered 67k. It's MOT expired on the 15th of March 2019! This could be the worst car buy I've ever done. I'm still not sure which Clio will be sold later this year but unfortunately I cant keep both (the wife tells me) and I do need a reliable daily that will hopefully last me a good few years. My heart says the 182 but my head says repairs will only get harder and more expensive as parts become harder to find in the coming years. And I've always liked the mk3 RS shape, and pearl white is lush.

There it is, still with 3 years of muck and mould on but still draws my eye when I get home from work. And what needs doing to it? Let's see...

 

[Paul_D]

I spotted the car on facebook marketplace in early January with a very low price tag and even less information. It was a hundred miles away and I had never driven a mk3 RS so I hit save and carried on browsing. In February a LY 200 came up for sale locally so I went for a look. The LY tax was strong on it but to my surprise even lowered on unknown springs the ride was better than I expected and it wasn't as slow as everyone says they are. Even in a colour that every Renaultsport enthsiast wants to own at some point it wasn't the car for me. Cue a few more weeks browsing and a couple more test drives and I returned to see if the pearl was still listed. My enquiry on facebook was met with a "please ring for details" reply and a chat with Paul the owner revealed that it was his personal car and not a trade sale. Unable to resist I took a trip to Liverpool to have a look.

Even from the advert pictures it was clear the car was filthy with accumulated muck but as he said it was straight and apart from some cracked paint on the front bumper the body was in good condition. The engine fired up straight away and it makes my 182 sound like a bag of spanners in a washing machine. He had bought the car at auction in 2018 as it rolled through with the wheels a garish blue (see the front RS badge!) and attracted very little attention and he was planning on using it as a track car. That plan was shelved when he decided it was too clean for track and discovered how rare pearl white 200's are so he refurbished the wheels and fitted new brakes and gearbox and clutch then drove something else! I can't find any info about the car on any forums or facebook groups but I do know that besides ST12 OTX it has worn L600 HEP while with its 3rd owner. If anyone recognises it I'd love to hear what you know.

So why was it cheap? Obviously no MOT impacts value and who'd be daft enough to buy a car that hasn't had an MOT for 3 years? The MOT history is colourful too, although nothing majorly has gone wrong and some are through lack of prep by owners or overzealous testers.

There's got to be some problems with it though right? I have only had brief test drive in it and apart from an initial knock from the suspension there were no untoward noises, no wonky steering or lumpy running and nothing fell off. The only obviously broken things I found were the drivers seat wouldn't slide and the airbag light is on the dash and the brakes need a bleed. I was only the second person to go view the car and by that time I'd had it saved on facebook for 9 weeks! 2 weeks later it was delivered to my house.

Squeezed on the drive with the with the 182 I gave it a good look over...

 

[Paul_D]

Yeah it's mucky for a start!

 

[Paul_D]

And Inside is no better.


TBC.

 

[Paul_D]

And then theres a few other areas that require attention:
Rear beam looks a little crusty.

Engine bay full of crud.
Rad support very crusty and probably past saving.

Front dampers also look crusty.
F

And did I mention the wheels were previousley blue? Seems they were painted while on the car!

 

[Paul_D]

That's more than enough that needs doing right?

Spoiler needs painting, this has me thinking it may not have been factory fitted? The tail lights have been tint sprayed and its coming off. Unsure weather to sand and polish them or just buy new ones? The headlamps look like they may have had some laquer or maybe tint on too so they need polishing and the dipped beam didnt work. The drivers seat as well as not sliding because someone had pulled the release lever out of one of the runners also has a hole in the side. I'll be swapping these for the Recaro CS in my 182 anyway.

And it wants a service .

 

[burrellbloke]

All rear beams are crusty, or if they have been repainted/powder coated go crusty quickly.

The radiator support is a known issue and they tend to corrode.

The shocks might just have surface rust on them. If they are not leaking and still work okay you will be fine.

The first thing I would do in your engine pay is to take off the scuttle panel and make sure that the drain holes on either side of the car are clear.

Your car looks like a nice project. A bit of spit and polish and it will be a good looking car.

 

[deekay16v]

Well, it needs lot of love Great for a project. As said above.

 

[Chocice]

That’s a proper fb special, Nowt wrong with that car some turtle wax and windolene can’t fix, the mileage is low and all those bits you need to change are age related to all Clio’s. If you got that for around 3k you should be smiling. I have a mk2 and a mk3 and find the mk2 a better daily by a long margin but I love the look of the exterior and interior of the mk3, it feels huge on the inside, the airbag light issue is a nightmare it always comes back I ended up soldering the wires together out of frustration which sorted it.

 

[Paul_D]

All rear beams are crusty, or if they have been repainted/powder coated go crusty quickly.

The radiator support is a known issue and they tend to corrode.

The shocks might just have surface rust on them. If they are not leaking and still work okay you will be fine.

The first thing I would do in your engine pay is to take off the scuttle panel and make sure that the drain holes on either side of the car are clear.

Your car looks like a nice project. A bit of spit and polish and it will be a good looking car.

Yeah I was aware of the rad supports rusting, my mate broke a 197 and the support is reasonably solid so I'll have that and get it blasted and powder coated. The rear beam is slightly worse than my 182's and the last MOT had an advisory for light misting on the offside front shock. At least oe cup dampers are reasonably priced (+lowering springs ) but I'm hoping it'll pas MOT with whats fitted.

 

[Paul_D]

The first thing I wanted to sort out was the divers seat, I felt like Short Round driving it where it was. I was happy to see that the seats are bolted from inside the car and the wires are also easy to get to. In other words totally opposite to the 182!

So with the seat out I had to remove the runners, after the height adjuster handle, the side trim, position sensor, tilt slide wire, some more plastic trim and a lot of muck. God alone knows how the handle was pulled out and I'm not sure its fully relocated which is annoying as I'll have to fit them to my CS's. I managed to get it all back together and working though. But as it was so easy to remove the seat and the carpet needed a good clean it would have been foolish to not remove the passenger seat and rear bench and set about it properly.

This was after a very long period with the vacuum cleaner. Then my neighbour handed me a can of carpet cleaner foam which made a very clean spot but would have taken days to do all the carpet so in for a penny, out came the Bissell. Now I thought the dog hair was bad, it was white on black carpet too, but now I'm convinced the worst thing is women. Playing with or brushing their hair in a car should be on par with using a mobile phone!

The console was filthy with dirt in all the corners so that came out to be washed and allowed me to get all the hair that was trapped under it.

After a long time with the wet vac it was looking a lot better and the water it sucked out was disgusting. So glad I did it, until my daughter reminded me her twingo needs doing too.

I gave the seats a quick wash too but didn't go to town on them apart from the rear which came up lovely. The seats are all back in now but I still need to give the plastics a good clean so no finished pic just yet.

The next job was to see if I could get the dipped beam working. All the other lights worked and after reading a few threads I decided to take the advice in those and check the bulbs first. The guide on here about changing them without removing the bumper was very helpful so I pulled the drivers side bulb with the intention to test it after removal. Bulb swiftly removed I promptly fumbled it and dropped it on the floor. Yep it was definatley broken. I had 1 spare bulb so plugged it in and turned them on.

With that success I ordered a pair of nightbreakers and left the passenger side one until they arrive.

 

[Paul_D]

While the bonnet was up I decided to have a look under the scuttle. With all that muck and tree deritus there wasn't much chance it would be dry. The wiper arms came off nice and easily so I didn't crack the windscreen like I did removing the 182 wipers!
There's drains you say?

The water was just below the pump wiring plug and with rain forecast next week I'm glad I checked when I did. I managed to pull the passenger side drain pipe out but the drivers side had that much muck I couldn't even see where the drain was. A few prods with a thin screwdriver soon had the car relieve itself. What was left behind wasn't pretty.

I removed the strut covers and then the plastic scuttle edge in those pics to clean the crud out. As the drivers side puddle submerged the wiper mech I removed that too and will take it to work and strip and grease it to prevent it ceasing up. I removed the wiper motor too to give a bit more room for the clean up and to have a good look at it as its got quite a lot of oxidation on it. A pump sprayer came in handy to blast the muck down the drain holes and I then cleaned the area with a detailing brush, a tool I have never used before! By the looks of the marks on the bolts only the drivers damper has been removed which is curious as that's the one with an advisory. Scuttle panels cleaned I had just enough time to refit the wiper motor and plastics before the rain/hail/snow started.

I'm no detailer and I've never cleaned an engine bay before but that certainly looks a lot better than it did, theres still lots more to do though.
Are the strut covers supposed to keep the top mounts dry? Mine certainly didn't and the spongey stuff on the underside of them was falling apart so I removed it and will replace it with some butyl tape to make them water tight.
In spring I think I'll revisit the scuttle and remove the A pillar trims too and clean everything I possibly can. For now I just want to remove the layer of crud.

One other issue I may need to look into is the keycard. It worked but the dash warned the battery needed replacing. I fitted a new battery and now it's telling me to replace it again!

The buttons on the keycard seem a bit iffy too so I might have to let Renault fleece me on a new one.

That's me upto date so far with the pearl. I'm hoping to get the wipers refitted and bulbs changed then bleed the brakes and send it for an MOT test next week. Watch this space.

 

[Paul_D]

All rear beams are crusty, or if they have been repainted/powder coated go crusty quickly.

The radiator support is a known issue and they tend to corrode.

The shocks might just have surface rust on them. If they are not leaking and still work okay you will be fine.

The first thing I would do in your engine pay is to take off the scuttle panel and make sure that the drain holes on either side of the car are clear.

Your car looks like a nice project. A bit of spit and polish and it will be a good looking car.

Thanks, I did the scuttle today and the car probably shed 10kg of water . I can't wait until I give it a good wash and a bit of polish.

That’s a proper fb special, Nowt wrong with that car some turtle wax and windolene can’t fix, the mileage is low and all those bits you need to change are age related to all Clio’s. If you got that for around 3k you should be smiling. I have a mk2 and a mk3 and find the mk2 a better daily by a long margin but I love the look of the exterior and interior of the mk3, it feels huge on the inside, the airbag light issue is a nightmare it always comes back I ended up soldering the wires together out of frustration which sorted it.

I paid 4 for it which seems to be half what 200's are up at with similar mileage at the moment. For a colour I really like it seemed worth a punt.
I was hoping the airbag light would be caused by the seat wiring as that's a common issue on the 182 but having removed and replaced both seats the light is still on. Tell me about these wires you soldered?

 

[Chocice]

Thanks, I did the scuttle today and the car probably shed 10kg of water . I can't wait until I give it a good wash and a bit of polish.


I paid 4 for it which seems to be half what 200's are up at with similar mileage at the moment. For a colour I really like it seemed worth a punt.
I was hoping the airbag light would be caused by the seat wiring as that's a common issue on the 182 but having removed and replaced both seats the light is still on. Tell me about these wires you soldered?

4k is a good deal for that spec as you can get all the bits up to scratch and know it’s been done right, I soldered the passenger side wires together rather than use the connector block, I tried contact cleaner but I think the wire had broken in its sleeve as it gets caught in the sliding mechanism, I have heard if wiggling the cable doesn’t turn off the lamp it may not be the seat wiring and could be the connection behind the steering wheel, try changing the tilt position of the wheel and see if it does anything.

 

[Chocice]

Get some standard rear lights on the back, those look tatty , be careful pulling the rear light cluster away the two plastic prongs like to hold on and you can scratch up the paint by wiggling the cluster too much.

 

[RSRowe]

What’s remarkable is how tidy it actually is under the grime.

 

[Maidens1979]

Keep at it mate. I bought one last December and it wasn't far of the same condition as yours, Although mine did have a bent rear axle
Four months later of hard work and visits to garage I finally feel like its now presentable.

 

[Beany]

Corrr looks like it’s been at sea…

coming up well considering

 

[joehodges154]

This is my new favourite thread.

 

[Paul_D]

This is my new favourite thread.

Oh god, I can't take the pressure .


(and the emojis didn't appear!)