Clio 172 Daily Driver

[llgsimpson]

Yesterday I purchased a 2003 Silver Clio 172 for a smallish sum of £1100.

This will be my daily driving car and will replace my current 2008 Clio 1.2

I know the car is not in pristine condition but I believed the price reflected this..

It has 86,000 on the clock, 5 previous owners but has a full service history every 10k or less miles!, has many stamps and the last few a Renault themselves which was a winner for me really. and driving home it achieved an average of 42mpg!

My plans for the car are relatively simple..

I like this car so maintenance will be the top priority, keeping up the services and getting a full belt change as soon as possible!

The belts were changed at 67k according to the history however due to a couple of odd noises under the bonnet I'm not taking any chances.

Any advice on the issues would be appreciated..

1) when the engine first starts there is a mosquito sounding noise from the left side (is sat in driver’s seat) this goes after a few minutes but is quite loud
2) when turning hardish right there is a fast knocking noise from the rear left.
3) When braking they clunk! they sound like they are grinding (similar to when the Mrs. cars ABS broke) also during the noise the fog light on the dash lights up. strange! it still brakes fine though.

The other issues are relatively simple and I should be able to solve..

1) Exhaust is blowing ever so slightly from the centre pipe, it’s a bit rusty so a replacement is on the cards
2) there is some scratches along the passenger rear quarter, apparently from a trolley, these are pretty light and I am hoping can be worked out. if not I could maybe wrap the car? (thoughts)

Pics will follow shortly but its fully standard and I’m sure you all know what they look like by now

 

[llgsimpson]

So! had the car 5 days now, and what can I say, I am impressed..

in my old clio I gave it foot to the floor quite often, this car a light throttle and im way ahead of where my old clio would have been. so much so that I dont feel the need to floor it at all, just cruise along nicely at 40mpg

although this morning on my way to work, I joined the motorway in 2nd and well.. I hit 5000rpm and it felt like heaven!!! pinned back to the seat!

I have discovered the brake problem is a cracked ABS ring so I need to replace that.

will get some pictures tomorrow also going to get another clio tomorrow for the wife, although thats a 5 door 1.4.

 

[llgsimpson]

Pictures as promised!

 

[llgsimpson]

Couple of instagram photos

My rear knocking is a narkered exhaust mount (new one ordered)
ABS rings on order (hopefully got the right ones)

Been looking into the cost of getting it turbo'd, im interested

 

[JAParker]

nice, needs a splitter tho!

 

[llgsimpson]

nice, needs a splitter tho!

Have my eye on a mates lugana splitter, although he doesnt know it yet, possibly colour code it too.

 

[George182]

Looks smart!

(the passenger door looks like a different shade of silver though - could be the lighting I suppose)

Skoda Fabia splitters fit nicely btw

 

[llgsimpson]

Looks smart!

(the passenger door looks like a different shade of silver though - could be the lighting I suppose)

Skoda Fabia splitters fit nicely btw

Cheers, the door is a different shade, this is due to the previous owner getting into a scrap with a shopping trolly, for that reason I HPI checked it before I bought it, it does bother me a little but you can only really tell if your in the right light to see it.

Looked at the skoda splitters, god there expensive!, I think I am still swayed towards a vented laguna splitter to be honest, half the price too

 

[George182]

Cheers, the door is a different shade, this is due to the previous owner getting into a scrap with a shopping trolly, for that reason I HPI checked it before I bought it, it does bother me a little but you can only really tell if your in the right light to see it.

Looked at the skoda splitters, god there expensive!, I think I am still swayed towards a vented laguna splitter to be honest, half the price too

Ahhh makes sense!

The skoda splitters are £13 iirc? About as cheap as you are going to find mate!

Unless you think I meant the actual RENAULT CUP splitters?

Here's what £13 and a couple of screws looks like!

 

[llgsimpson]

Well, Got the new exhaust mount delivered

gone out to change it today, looks a bit rainy outside but thought I would have a crack anyway, actually turns out its a little more rusty than I thought.

its now got a blast of WD40 before I attempt anything, I am hoping to reuse the bolts!

 

[Aandyy96]

for you fog light coming on whilst braking might be a bad earthing point in the boot as mine has the same fault

 

[llgsimpson]

for you fog light coming on whilst braking might be a bad earthing point in the boot as mine has the same fault

Forgot to mention about this, tightened up the battery terminals and this problem disappeared

 

[llgsimpson]

Attempted to removed the bolts from the exhaust mount, and failed! its such a simple job but I am not getting anywhere with it!

 

[llgsimpson]

Got myself a tough set of sockets and Figured out there is nuts on the otherside!! going to try get at them when I can! although for now the exhaust is being held tight with clips.

on another note thought, today I bought a RStuner from Fastchip.nl although.. now what, do I get the Ron 98 map free? or do I have to pay for that separate??? Confused me slightly...

 

[Fastchip]

on another note thought, today I bought a RStuner from Fastchip.nl although.. now what, do I get the Ron 98 map free? or do I have to pay for that separate??? Confused me slightly...

Email sent

 

[llgsimpson]

What a disaster the last few days have been! hit a pothole on Tuesday night and got a flat tyre, fortunately I was like minutes from home so I limped carefully home. then I set about changing my wheel for the spare. my first problem was that there was no bolt cover unlocking key! the wife's tweezers sorted that out though.. then I set to loosen the bolts before jacking the car up as you do, 3 of them came out fine, all the standard 19mm bolts, the last one though.. was a 17mm and it just did not want to move at all, tried everything!! levering it out, jumping on the socket wrench thing, WD40, it just didn't want to move at all, left it for that night. the next day I finally managed to get the bolt out using a lighter and WD40 to heat the thing up, did the trick quite well although I wouldn't recommend it. anyway, changed the wheel tightened, lowered, tightened ect.. then prayed the tracking wasn't damaged. fortunately it seems okay!

my concern now is that 1 wheel has about 8mm tread and the other 4-5mm, the outer quarter of the 4-5mm seems to get quite warm compared to the rest of the wheel.

behind all that my RS tuner has arrived so will have a play with that this afternoon!

 

[llgsimpson]

Remaped using the RST today..

went quite smoothly, I was concerned as I didnt have a battery charger to hand but the battery was reading healthy so I took the risk and backed up the ECU and CAL then went about writing the new ECU and CAL provided by Fastchip..

I used the Performance analyzer before and after to see if there was any differences.. here they are!.
(Test around 45mins apart, same road, direction ect..)


BEFORE:

AFTER:

There does not seem to be a massive change to how it feel, although the idle is now dead smooth which I am happy with, and the sound at 7.5k is very nice indeed.

my concern is that 109KW is only around 145bhp, which seems low, Hopefully I just misjudged the weight! want to RR it now!

 

[llgsimpson]

I have noticed my lower front grill is not clipped in fully at the bottom, it will go in if held but pops straight back out, how do I get round this??

 

[llgsimpson]

Had a little bit of a play with some vinyl and a heat gun the other day and my bullets were the victims!

not sure which look to go for!

 

[Saul]

I would probably look into re-spraying that passenger door!

Looks good for the money though, enjoy it.

 

[llgsimpson]

Today I had a play with some headlight restorer, seems to have done the trick

and another bullet design! not keen though

I have a couple of things on order which I am quite excited for too

 

[llgsimpson]

Had a play about with a new spoiler today, im not sure hm.

 

[llgsimpson]

Well so far the spoiler has stayed on, mainly because I haven’t got round to switching them back, I have been to preoccupied by a recent engine problem! a misfire at lower revs when accelerating.

after having a look about on the site I figured it wouldn’t do any harm to change the spark plugs and coil pack to make sure they aren’t the culprit, turns out they was! new coil pack, leads and sparkplugs and its back to normal feeling pretty punchy to be honest!

not sure what old spark plugs are supposed to look like but here were mine..

Next on the to do list is an oil change, never done that before either!

 

[llgsimpson]

Well a month has passed by and not too much has changed!

The spark plugs came back out and was replaced with NGK Platinum's, made a massive difference over the Super 4's that has been in it before!

The spoiler has come off as I decided I didn't like it being blue!

She has been cleaned inside and out a few times

And after doing 1200 miles in Cornwall in just 6 days its been given a well deserved oil change and filter change, which I had never done before. It didn't take me long and I was shocked just how easy it was to do, even the filter which I thought would be a nightmare due to access wasn't that hard!

Best of all I got 51 mpg travelling on the motorway on the way down there and an average of 42 mpg throughout the hole trip! not bad for a little 172

 

[llgsimpson]

Think I have decided on the colour for my bullets!

 

[llgsimpson]

Another month has passed and all is looking good so far for me!

I have wrapped the front fog surrounds and the back bumper bar in the same blue I used on the bullets, I think it looks quite good!

best of all this week my car went in for its MOT and PASSED!, I wasnt expecting it, I took it to kwik fit to get an idea of what I needed to repair and it went through fine. bit of a bonus really, just a minor exhaust leak and a dodgy exhaust hanger.

 

[LukeJ]

Great progress mate and looks good too! Working on my own 172 at the moment keep up the good work!