Expenditure on my car 182 so far

[z8jay]

It's starting to get a bit ridiculous now!

I bought a Black 182 earlier this year as I'd been through a rough time with cancer (all better now!) and was fed up of driving a boring car around. I previously had a Civic VTi and while it was quite nippy it was just boring imo. The Clio is an 04 plate with the cup packs etc. Had 74k miles or something on it, belts hadn't been done yet but it has had major services and I factored this into the price I paid - would basically cost me about £4k. The car seemed in good condition and drove well. Everything worked properly for the first few months of ownership then slowly started breaking.

Initial purchase price: £3600
Belts + dephaser pulley + service: £700

Then my front springs decided to snap. That cost me £250. (springs fitted + 4 wheel laser alignment/geometry).

Then I noticed my 2 rear tyres (PE2's... not cheap) which still had at least 4mm of tread, were starting to crack around the edges and were looking quite dangerous, so I got some Toyo T1R's to replace them. £153 before VAT. While it was up on the ramps, I noticed that my exhaust centre section was done for, it had been blowing for a while. So I got that replaced too. Total bill that day, £304.99

Now it seems my alternator has buggered itself. Burning smell, lights turning themselves off for no reason, etc. I'm taking it to Fred at BTM on Thursday for some diagnostics. If it is the alternator it'll cost me somewhere around £340 to get it done. Plus my exhaust is hanging low - that'll be another few quid to sort out.

Oh and my air con no longer works. There's also a grinding noise at 3-4k rpm but I'm hoping that's just a loose heatshield or something. To add to the list, my headlight washers work but my windscreen washers don't any more - that's an MOT failure and it's also very annoying when my windscreen is covered in dirt and I can't see properly. Tax runs out in November too...

Hopefully after all this the car will be ok again but that little lot adds up to nearly £5200. This isn't counting insurance and fuel, both of which are pretty expensive. (£65/month insurance, averaging 31mpg..). For that money I could have probably got something better :dapprove:

I was aware that these cars could be quite expensive to run but it seems like I never have any luck with my cars. Every single car (I think I'm at 8 cars now.. age 24..) I've owned has either broken down repeatedly or just cost me stupid amounts of money to keep on the road.

I know some of you have had more stuff going wrong with your cars (cambelt failures etc) but I feel pretty hard done by tbh. The worst bit is that I'm unemployed at the moment. Have been unemployed because of cancer but i'm all better now and there seems to be no jobs about. I really should have got a job first then it wouldn't be much of an issue but s**t happens.

This post is really just a bit of a rant! Oh well! But saying all that, sometimes when I get in the car and go for a drive, it all comes together and seems to work properly. So much fun. After spending all this money on it I don't think I'll be selling it any time soon!

 

[The Chubby Pirate]

Sounds like a friday afternoon car to me, used car buying is very much a lottery.

Your circumstances surrounding health sound bloody awful to add so i cant begin to imagine this 'unreliable' car would be helping

 

[RDH]

Sounds like you've been unlucky mate. Sell up. Some very tidy 182's on the market now around the 4500 mark!

 

[DrR]

My first 172 almost bankrupt me.

Sounds like you've been unlucky mate. Sell up. Some very tidy 182's on the market now around the 4500 mark!

lol no there aint! I've been looking for one.

 

[RDH]

^ People have different opinions on tidy, spec comes into it aswell. Plenty of early, fairly low mileage 182 cups around that price range.

 

[Daniel]

I don't mean to sound harsh, but if you've bought 8 cars and they've all been nails, have you not considered taking someone who knows what they're doing to look at it first??

Thats not a dig, but even after nail number 3 i'd be doubting my purchasing ability!

 

[Marc.]

I know what you mean. I bought mine in February for £5,500, and it had no evidence of the belts being done. That was another £500. Since then I've changed the front tyres, bought new exhaust mounts, and I'm about to give it a full oil change. I also want to get a new exhaust, which will be north of £300/£400, no doubt. SO much more expensive than my old car, particularly when you factor in fuel...insurance isn't too different, luckily!

All in all, yes, they can seem expensive, but just be thankful you're not rolling in an M3/M5 or something, then you'd have cause for complaint

 

[DrR]

I don't mean to sound harsh, but if you've bought 8 cars and they've all been nails, have you not considered taking someone who knows what they're doing to look at it first??

Thats not a dig, but even after nail number 3 i'd be doubting my purchasing ability!

TBH any £3600 182 is going to be a shed.

 

[DrR]

I know what you mean. I bought mine in February for £5,500, and it had no evidence of the belts being done. That was another £500. Since then I've changed the front tyres, bought new exhaust mounts, and I'm about to give it a full oil change. I also want to get a new exhaust, which will be north of £300/£400, no doubt. SO much more expensive than my old car, particularly when you factor in fuel...insurance isn't too different, luckily!

All in all, yes, they can seem expensive, but just be thankful you're not rolling in an M3/M5 or something, then you'd have cause for complaint

Surely all that was evident when you bought the car?

 

[Daniel]

I know what you mean. I bought mine in February for £5,500, and it had no evidence of the belts being done. That was another £500. Since then I've changed the front tyres, bought new exhaust mounts, and I'm about to give it a full oil change. I also want to get a new exhaust, which will be north of £300/£400, no doubt. SO much more expensive than my old car, particularly when you factor in fuel...insurance isn't too different, luckily!

All in all, yes, they can seem expensive, but just be thankful you're not rolling in an M3/M5 or something, then you'd have cause for complaint

Cambelt, Tyres and exhaust mounts are all things you should have checked to be fair.

Too slow.

 

[chris182cup]

Dr rollo mines was £3600 and was fine, keeping it now getting it mapped at jms Saturday getting diamonds and bullets sprayed stripping interior getting recaros

I was just desperate for cash pay off wedding but wife got a bank loan so prob sorted

Someone would have got a great bargain with my car

 

[Marc.]

Well, it was from a non-Renault trader - I asked about the belts, and he said that he thought they'd been done, given it'd had a large service within a year ago. There was a Renault dealer service stamp at around the 5 year mark, but nothing in the service book under Cambelts. He was advertising it for £6k, so on the presumption that they hadn't been done, I knocked him down in price, and he also threw in new tax for a year, so was pretty mint about it. He was going to get the belts done for me, but I knew he'd just send it to Renault, when I'd already done some research and booked JMS to do it instead.

Exhaust mounts, to be fair, I hadn't looked at, which was my bad. Having had the car for 7 months now, they've worsened a lot of late, hence me replacing them (earlier today, in fact) but yeah, that was about the only thing I didn't check.

Otherwise though, it was mint when I got it, which was probably reflected in the price (bear in mind I got it at the start of the year, just before the prices started crashing) - lovely condition (bar the tyres, which were nearly borderline) and low miles, only 30k when I'd got it, and one owner.

 

[blambert]

Ive had mine a few months now.

Month 1
£3800 paid
+ £260 - Rear bearings went soon after purchase so new pads and discs as well.

Month 2
+ £105 - Service items & plugs & Silkolene, services mysef
+ £60 - Lambda sensor, fitted myself

Month 3
Upcoming costs:
+ ~£350ish for Aux Belt + PAS pump (starting to whine slightly and aux belt has never been changed! (my fault for not spotting it, he told me the beltS had been done, but just the timing belt was changed)

It's a 6 year old car so things are going to go wrong! But considering I get 182hp, nippy handling, nice exhaust note, xenons, air con, half leather seats, auto lights and wipers, cruise control, 40mpg etc for £3800... I don't mind too much.

 

[z8jay]

I don't mean to sound harsh, but if you've bought 8 cars and they've all been nails, have you not considered taking someone who knows what they're doing to look at it first??

Thats not a dig, but even after nail number 3 i'd be doubting my purchasing ability!

I can see your point tbh. I was tempted to go to a dealer for some peace of mind but chose to go private in the end. Dealer warranties for used cars are barely worth the paper they're printed on anyway. I just seem to have bad luck whatever I do!

A good friend of mine is a trader and buys/sells cars all the time, he knows what to look for. I took him with me and we both had a good look around the car, couldn't find any evidence of problems. I don't know what else you can do except looking at the car and test driving it. Must have spent 2-3 hours at the guy's place just looking around the car and talking about it. Everything worked fine when I bought it and did so for a few months.

I accept that some of the stuff that's gone wrong is wear & tear, some of it was necessary servicing .. but there's no way to tell if an alternator is going to fail in 6 months time, or the washer pump will stop working, etc.

I'd previously seen a 172 and 2 other 182's which were absolute dogs in comparison to mine, so I'm glad I didn't buy any of those. None of them drove anywhere near as well as mine either.

I suppose at the end of the day it's only money. There's not much else that can realistically go wrong with the car.

 

[Daniel]

. There's not much else that can realistically go wrong with the car.

Either delete that comment or touch some wood!! lol.

 

[z8jay]

Either delete that comment or touch some wood!! lol.

My computer desk is wooden

 

[jenic]

Oh dear, for the past year of owning my 182 I have just worked out my spend.

For:

Car
Insurance
Petrol
Coilovers
PAS repair
Water Pump repair
Service 1
Service 2
Cage
RARB
F1's + R888
Yozza
RSTuner
Tax
Stereo
Coil pack
Injector
ABS repair
Cruise repair
Seats
Battery
Xenons repair

Spent just shy of £11K in total, might aswell of bought a 200 new last year lol

 

[gouldy1985]

There is always something every month that goes wrong!
But when you driving it on a twisty country road, you love it

 

[hughski]

Oh dear, for the past year of owning my 182 I have just worked out my spend.

For:

Car
Insurance
Petrol
Coilovers
PAS repair
Water Pump repair
Service 1
Service 2
Cage
RARB
F1's + R888
Yozza
RSTuner
Tax
Stereo
Coil pack
Injector
ABS repair
Cruise repair
Seats
Battery
Xenons repair

Spent just shy of £11K in total, might aswell of bought a 200 new last year lol

fml.

 

[Phil_tilt]

Bought my 182 27kmiles
£5700

One lamba sensor £70

Thats it so far, nothing else has broken... am ijust lucky?

 

[blambert]

23k is still quite young... just you wait lol.

 

[Malachi]

In the past year I've had,

Four new PE2s
2x discs and pads all round
Cam + Aux belt service
Minor service

And I will be getting,

Exhaust
Wheel refurb all round
Lowering springs
New third brake light

Considering what you and others have had to fork out, I suppose I've been quite lucky as they're all generally expected wear and tear items, although not quite as lucky as Phil_tilt it seems.

 

[Jonny1*2]

Oh dear, for the past year of owning my 182 I have just worked out my spend.

For:

Car
Insurance
Petrol
Coilovers
PAS repair
Water Pump repair
Service 1
Service 2
Cage
RARB
F1's + R888
Yozza
RSTuner
Tax
Stereo
Coil pack
Injector
ABS repair
Cruise repair
Seats
Battery
Xenons repair

Spent just shy of £11K in total, might aswell of bought a 200 new last year lol

lol jesus Mike. Could have got yourself an ex cup race car for that, and had spares with it.

 

[Addicted]

sounds like you chose a bad 182 tbh!

 

[ScarySquirrel]

Well, my experience hasn't been great either. I bought the car in April 2010:

(These prices are off the top of my head, but they were there or there abouts):

Car price - £4,900
PAS pump replacement - £400 (I'm sure I got ripped off for this)
4 x PE2s - £500 (ripped off because they quoted me without VAT, but I didn't know this until they were fitted!!!)
New engine, clutch, belt kits, water pump, all the bits that come with an engine change - Around £2200
Eibach Sportlines - £65 + £50 fitting
Replacement lower suspension ball joint - £15 part and £60 labour
Milltek cat-back (old exhaust was screwed) - £400 fitted
Service - £140
Various gaskets, clamps and other bits and bobs - Around £50
Recent work to fix a rattle on acceleration - £75

So yeah, I've spent a lot. The car is as I want it now though (although I'm looking for a cup spoiler). I don't plan to spend much more on it because to be honest it's a joke how much I've had to put into it to keep it running. I love it though, which is why I have done it. Also, when you commit a certain amount of money it's very hard to let go of something if something serious happens (like the engine thing).

In the last 6 months though I've brought the car up to what I believe is a really good standard

 

[blambert]

What happened to the engine?

 

[ScarySquirrel]

What happened to the engine?

Engine dropped a valve and everything broke (from that description you can probably tell I am not a mechanic )

http://www.cliosport.net/forum/show...nded-expensive&highlight=it+sounded+expensive

 

[EllD90]

OP, you paid £3600 for the car and have now spent £1500 on it. Plenty of 182s are selling for £5k so you've not really done too bad. Obviously spending money on unexpected repairs is a pain, but that is what happens when you buy a 5 year old car with 70k+. Welcome to running a car! PS...my car has cost me £250 in a maintenance/running costs in 15 months

 

[Ali]

lol. Buying a clio with 30k on the clock is bad enough!! Buying one with 70k+ is natually going to have it's issues!

 

[JD]

CLIO

It's a Clio. They fail, regardless of the comments I get from people on here who have had cars go on for 1,000s of miles without issues...

They were built on a budget, Renaults are notorious for having cheap parts that fail...

Learn and buy German/Jap!

 

[z8jay]

lol. Buying a clio with 30k on the clock is bad enough!! Buying one with 70k+ is natually going to have it's issues!

It's a shame French cars aren't able to do normal mileages without having everything go wrong. I guess coming from a Honda I didn't expect to have so many issues! That was approaching 100k and I only had to replace wear & tear items like brake pads and tyres.

 

[Ali]

It's a shame French cars aren't able to do normal mileages without having everything go wrong. I guess coming from a Honda I didn't expect to have so many issues! That was approaching 100k and I only had to replace wear & tear items like brake pads and tyres.

Touch wood my clio has been fine for the time i've had her. Been great infact, more reliable infact than my german workhorse...

Like anything tho, if it's not well maintained then it will break, and for 3600, my head would of been thinking...Hummm...

 

[Harpham]

Ive actually been quite lucky then, although mine did go wrong in August, it cost £370 to fix. Thats the only money that ive spent on it unwillingly.

Everything else ive changed is because i wanted to, like the exhaust system, cup spoiler, did the rear brakes etc.

 

[Englebert]

With respect, you should have known about the tyres and servicing issue...i always have a good ol' haggle regarding those two items. Thing is, you only paid £3600 for the car? Like Ali said, high mileage cars are going to have their issues, especially French ones. To be fair, doesn't mean you're going to have an expensive month for as long as you own the car, you've just hit a bad patch...

I bought an M3 with 12,000 miles on the car and it went wrong on the first journey i took it. Then the rear spring snapped after a month. So, it doesn't' necessarily mean because it's French, it's going to be bad! Fortunately i had a warranty.

 

[Craigus]

It's a Clio. They fail, regardless of the comments I get from people on here who have had cars go on for 1,000s of miles without issues...

They were built on a budget, Renaults are notorious for having cheap parts that fail...

Learn and buy German/Jap!

Forearms speaketh the truth.

 

[z8jay]

Touch wood my clio has been fine for the time i've had her. Been great infact, more reliable infact than my german workhorse...

Like anything tho, if it's not well maintained then it will break, and for 3600, my head would of been thinking...Hummm...

Well I thought it was cheap but also factored in the fact it hadn't had the belts done, like I said this effectively put the price at about £4100. The guy initially had it up for £4k so I think I did well to knock £600 off it!!

With respect, you should have known about the tyres and servicing issue...i always have a good ol' haggle regarding those two items. Thing is, you only paid £3600 for the car? Like Ali said, high mileage cars are going to have their issues, especially French ones. To be fair, doesn't mean you're going to have an expensive month for as long as you own the car, you've just hit a bad patch...

I bought an M3 with 12,000 miles on the car and it went wrong on the first journey i took it. Then the rear spring snapped after a month. So, it doesn't' necessarily mean because it's French, it's going to be bad! Fortunately i had a warranty.

I did know about the servicing issues, I'm not too bothered about that cost. It was necessary spending. Tyres were fine when I got it. They had loads of tread and weren't cracked. I have no idea what's happened to them in the last few months but the car does sit outside all the time, perhaps it's sun damage. Really weird but at least I don't have to worry about tyres for quite a while now.

Like I said above I wouldn't consider ~70k to be "high mileage" especially for a car made in 2004. That's pretty much bang on the average mileage you'd expect.

I won't be buying French again. As much fun as the car is, it's ridiculous how poorly built these cars are.:boring:

 

[Revels]

Ignore Ali the mileage fairy. 70k isn't high in the grand scheme of things.

But you should have had a proper look or at least got someone to look for you. Cars are expensive. That's their nature. Things will need replacing.

Personally, had the tyres just 'cracked' on me like that and they hadn't been sat for months/years, I'd have taken pictures and complained but I'm a consumer warrior.

 

[alex-avfc]

Why are people quoting stuff like tyres, brakes and servicing into these costs when moaning about what their cars are costing them?

Surely you expect to pay for the above on any car?

 

[Sir_Dave]

lol. Buying a clio with 30k on the clock is bad enough!! Buying one with 70k+ is natually going to have it's issues!

Try buying one with 170k miles, every journeys like an adventure ...

To be honest, the OP bought a 182 for £3600, it was never going to be perfect at that price!!

 

[EllD90]

Do you check the tyre pressures reguarly? The sidewalls often crack when they have a low pressure.

You can't blame the tyres on the car, you can't complain it was due for a cambelt. Exhausts need replacing on plenty of cars after a certain mileage. The only "freak" repair, may be your alternator problem. All cars have have faulty parts, that need replacing after miles of use. You're just upset you didn't budget for the majority of those costs and they happened whilst you were unemployed, all at once.