172 Clunking

[Tyrell]

Hi Folks,

Ive had my 172 since 2000 and must admit to having more than my fair share of niggles. The latest is a mystery though and I wonder whether anyone else has experienced it in their car. The car has done 22,000 miles so not many really. It has over the last 5 months developed a clunk noise which is intermittent and seems to come from the transmission. Ive also noticed the gear lever flicks back and forth more than it used to in stop start traffic. You can induce the clunk also by putting the car into reverse then back into 1st and moving off. The clunk seems to get less as the car warms up. My Renault dealer has been rubbish and keeps pretending theyve fixed it when they clearly havent. Please does anyone have any ideas as its ruining the driving experience.

Cheers

Rob

 

[BigBoreBri]

Ur lucky thats the only major problem uve had so far...

Sounds like maybe an engine mount to me, and yea renault dealerships are generally useless im afraid

 

[Tyrell]

I thought it was that and the dealer checked and allegedly reset the engine mounts. This had no effect and I wondered (not being technical) does the gearbox have mounts that could go out of alignment? (excuse my ignorance everyone) as the transmission shunt seems quite bad.

Cheers

 

[BigBoreBri]

There are three engine mounts, one under the battery, the top left of the engine and a dog-bone on the back of the engine/gear box..

i thinks its just more than likely the dog-bone one is knackered and needs replacing, dont believe anything the dealers say... they probably had a YTS kid on it for six hours

 

[Tyrell]

Cheers, Ill give the dealer a ring tomorrow and try and establish exactly what checks they performed on the car. I gave a detailed list of when the clunking occurs and they gleefully told me theyd fiddled with the engine mounts and that they couldnt hear anything. About five minutes down the road in stop/start traffic it went again. Arrrggghhhhhh!

Never work with children, animals or Renault dealers!

 

[Viv172]

Mines started clunking too on full lock, but Im not sure if its coz I lowered it..does anyone know if that would make it clunk???

 

[BigBoreBri]

If youve lowered it too much the extra strain on the driveshafts can cause CV joints to go more often... only wen its lowered a lot tho

 

[Viv172]

Thanx Bri,

Its not lowered very much...Ill get them to check the mounts...oh well another visit to Renault, they did promise me a drive in the demo 182 they have on order, so its not all bad