A Monaco Blue 2002 Clio 172

[jameswrx]

Regards wipers.

I’ve never had any issues removing arms (and I work in a garage) and never use removal tools. All you need to do is take the nut off, grab the wiper arm on its solid part and push down and up on the arm towards and away from the windscreen. That frees it from its grip as they’re tapered.

You’ve also got to think the spring of the arm itself is helping to hold the arm on the post so I kind of grip them with my right hand on the solid part and kind lift the sprung part away from the screen (as this puts an angle pressure on the post) with the part of my grip near my little finger too.

You could effectively break the seal between the two and still struggle to lift them off straight (as the arm spring puts an angle on the taper fit and locks it on) so lift the sprung part off the screen and they release their grip.

If they ever look really rusty a squirt of wd40 and the same process.

 

[Nose]

Hi there, i have juste created an account to reply to this post.
I'm from France, few weeks ago i've made a shop done a timing belt service on my recently acquiered clio rs2 172hp.
Turns out the car ran like crap at idle, just as shown in your video few pages ago. (btw im the guy commenting the vid on youtube)

Thanks to the orginal poster and all the people participating to this topic, i've been able to sort out why the car ran that bad and to make the shop re-check the timing, wich they did, and found out that they messed it up.
Now it has been properly timed and it run way better !
Thank you alot, if someone here in the future is looking for an idle problem after timing belt service, ths is another proof/clue/testimony you can have about how bad timing could cause issu at idle !

Apologize for my hasardous english

Cheers from france !

 

[SiC]

Hi there, i have juste created an account to reply to this post.
I'm from France, few weeks ago i've made a shop done a timing belt service on my recently acquiered clio rs2 172hp.
Turns out the car ran like crap at idle, just as shown in your video few pages ago. (btw im the guy commenting the vid on youtube)

Thanks to the orginal poster and all the people participating to this topic, i've been able to sort out why the car ran that bad and to make the shop re-check the timing, wich they did, and found out that they messed it up.
Now it has been properly timed and it run way better !
Thank you alot, if someone here in the future is looking for an idle problem after timing belt service, ths is another proof/clue/testimony you can have about how bad timing could cause issu at idle !

Apologize for my hasardous english

Cheers from france !

No worries glad it helped!

Even though float cam timing is a common thing nowadays and used on many other cars, the Clio seems to be a bit more awkward.

The biggest issue I think is that the cams naturally want to move out of place significantly if the lock tool isn't in. You have to fight the valve springs a fair bit to get that tool in. So this tensions up the belt to a certain degree and as soon as the tool is removed, the position can move slightly if the sprockets aren't tightened sufficiently. This is made even worse if the tensioner isn't set correct, the belt isn't quite put into place properly or the dephaser is worn with play. Also you get a bit of natural twisting through the cam too.

I wonder if some of this was made worse by a reasonably humdrum being quite a highly tuned with lary cams. Leading to a compromise on the crank+cam locking positions without making too many other modifications.

 

[SiC]

Small update. Pulled this out of storage as it needs an MOT this month.

However all is not well. Went up a steep hill coming back and it started bucking under heavy load. Felt a bit like misfire but not that severe.

Literally just been for a spirited drive and ran fine, with it appearing to rev cleanly. No noticeable bucking or misfiring. However noticed that it was lumpy at idle - more than I remember a RS Clio should do.

However these fuel trims look suspect to me.
What do we reckon, Injectors rather than Coil/plugs?

Coil+plugs have been done a couple of years ago. Injectors are (afaik) original to the car and done 150k...

 

[Gally]

Love a Monaco. Especially on those wheels or 2118s.

 

[Nose]

Small update. Pulled this out of storage as it needs an MOT this month.
View attachment 1542542

However all is not well. Went up a steep hill coming back and it started bucking under heavy load. Felt a bit like misfire but not that severe.

Literally just been for a spirited drive and ran fine, with it appearing to rev cleanly. No noticeable bucking or misfiring. However noticed that it was lumpy at idle - more than I remember a RS Clio should do.

However these fuel trims look suspect to me.
What do we reckon, Injectors rather than Coil/plugs?

Coil+plugs have been done a couple of years ago. Injectors are (afaik) original to the car and done 150k...
View attachment 1542543

Hi !
Injectors are well known to be kind of a "weak point" on those cars, especially with your mile age i dont think it would be a bad idea to change them !
At best it would solve your issue, and worst scenario well, you did some preventive maintenance !
They are not that expansive and quite easy to do.
Also check Maf sensor, also a common issue.

Btw, your blue color is called monaco? i just realize that even tho its the topic title
It look like its the same blue as mine wich is called "Methyl blue", at least here in france.

Here some of mine btw

 

[SiC]

Hi !
Injectors are well known to be kind of a "weak point" on those cars, especially with your mile age i dont think it would be a bad idea to change them !
At best it would solve your issue, and worst scenario well, you did some preventive maintenance !
They are not that expansive and quite easy to do.

Yeah I'm pretty sure it is, however I hate playing parts darts and much rather diagnose a problem properly first. Otherwise you can end up replacing parts unnecessarily.

If it wasn't such a pain in the arse to do on the Clio, I'd have pulled the plugs. Might still do that, just it's a good half hour faff to take out and put back in.

Also check Maf sensor, also a common issue.

These don't have a MAF?

Btw, your blue color is called monaco? i just realize that even tho its the topic title
It look like its the same blue as mine wich is called "Methyl blue", at least here in france.

Interesting! Yes I believe this colour here is called Monaco. At least that's what everyone tells me. 😁

 

[RustyMojo]

Check the resistance on all of the injectors. Should be over 13ohms each of I remember correctly.

 

[SiC]

Check the resistance on all of the injectors. Should be over 13ohms each of I remember correctly.

Yeah not a bad shout to check.

Just ordered a cheap mechanics stethoscope to have a listen if one injector is particularly different to the others.

 

[RustyMojo]

Yeah not a bad shout to check.

Just ordered a cheap mechanics stethoscope to have a listen if one injector is particularly different to the others.

It’s such a simple thing to do and usually point to a duff injector. Probably takes all of 10 minutes in my experience. You can also do a check on flow/spray pattern but the easier and quickest way is to check the resistance

 

[Louis]

Hi !
Injectors are well known to be kind of a "weak point" on those cars, especially with your mile age i dont think it would be a bad idea to change them !
At best it would solve your issue, and worst scenario well, you did some preventive maintenance !
They are not that expansive and quite easy to do.
Also check Maf sensor, also a common issue.

Btw, your blue color is called monaco? i just realize that even tho its the topic title
It look like its the same blue as mine wich is called "Methyl blue", at least here in france.

Here some of mine btw

Same colour but theres also about 5 different shades outlined by Renault!

 

[Krarl]

Check the resistance on all of the injectors. Should be over 13ohms each of I remember correctly.

14.2 ohms is bang on

Anything other than 14.2 will be a bit s**t as mine had 1 13 ohm injector and it kangarood like a right bag of shitq🤣

 

[RustyMojo]

14.2 ohms is bang on

Anything other than 14.2 will be a bit s**t as mine had 1 13 ohm injector and it kangarood like a right bag of shitq🤣

Apologies you are right mate. I replaced mine at 13.6… I think. I can’t remember now!

 

[SiC]

Did some fiddling tonight to see if I could pin down this slightly rough idle and the low long term fuel trim. Low long term fuel trim means the ECU is injecting less fuel as it thinks it's running too rich. In this case it is reducing the injection amount by 23.5%.

First off was checking the injector resistance. This requires removing the injector crash guard.

Now spec is 14.3 Ohms but I believe that's at 20C. However this engine is up to temperature and so the actual values will be different. But I'll get onto that in a bit.

The measured resistance from cylinder one to four was 16.5 Ohms, 16.5 Ohms, 16.7 Ohms and 16.8 Ohms.

Now you might be saying "That's far higher than 14.3 Ohms!"
Well that's correct. The electrical side of an injector is basically a coil of wire. I don't know for sure but I'm pretty sure it'll be copper.

Now for every 1 degree Celsius increase in temperature, copper increases its resistance by 0.393%. What does that mean in practice?

Difference between 16.7 and 14.3 Ohms is 15.5%. 15.5/0.393 = 39.5c increase. I.e. 20c + 39.5c = 59.5c injector temp if correct. Measuring the injectors with an IR guns gets around 60c on them! So that increase is in the right ballpark. (Feel free someone to critique my maths)

However I will still check them from stone cold tomorrow morning before saying for sure. I also listened with a mechanics stethoscope. First time I've listened to injectors on one but they all sounded the same with a regular and consistent clicking to them. I then disconnected each injector in turn. The exhaust note from a injector disconnected between cylinders was the same.

Right now I'm not 100% sure the injectors are at fault here. Even though the resistance values were when hot, they were all pretty consistent.

 

[SiC]

What next? There really isn't many sensors on the Clio and hilariously you can disconnect the MAP, intake temperature sensor, O2 sensor and it will still run. No warning lights either. I sprayed some carb cleaner about the manifold to check for leaks but there wasn't anywhere that caused a rev change.

Anyway I thought I would check the MAP sensor. This sensor is measuring the pressure drop from ambient. Ambient is about 100kpa. Remember this fact.

Removing the sensor required careful wiggling. I didn't want to snap the end off, so gently does it.

Reading the OBD values with it disconnected gave 101kpa. The weather is nice here today, which explains that extra 1kpa.

Now I hooked up my cheapy Red Box Chinese hand vacuum pump. This measures in mmHG - millimeters of mercury. You don't need to worry too much about that apart from that you can convert it to kpa.
I pumped the handle to suck the air out to -300mmHG

What is 300mmHG? It's pretty much 40kpa

Now remember that ambient is 100kpa. As we are pulling a vacuum of 40kpa you simply do: 100kpa - 40kpa = 60kpa we should read on the sensor.

What do we get?

Bingo!

Let's try a bit more vacuum.

450mmHG gives 60kpa. 100kpa-60kpa=40kpa

What does that give us?

Excellent!

Finally let's go down a bit more. I don't want to go too low as I don't want to damage the diaphragm inside this delicate sensor.
600mmHG is 80kpa.

100kpa-80kpa=20kpa

Even though I'm using a cheap no brand name vacuum gauge and so could question the accuracy of the gauge, I'm pretty happy that it's correct. The values match up with what the MAP sensor is reporting and it would be very coincidental if both were inaccurate by the same amount.

So that begs the question what is wrong. I'll check those injector resistance again in the morning. I could check their spray pattern but given they have been undisturbed for 18+ years, I don't really want to remove them. There is a good chance if I do that the o-rings will be damaged. I don't have any spare fuel resistant o-rings to hand.

I want to check the O2 sensor values. However my laptop battery was flat, so I couldn't plug in my better scan tool. I could drag the oscilloscope out but that's a lot of faff. Especially as the signal lines aren't the easiest to get to on this engine (the sensor is down the back of the engine by the firewall). My suspicion is that it might have gone a bit on the slow side. I don't see any history of it ever being changed either.

There is also the possibility that everything is ok too! It might have done the stutter from something moist from being sat. I.e. condensation around the plugs. Now it's up to temperature that could have evaporated off.

But the fuel trims are on the low side still. Maybe just worn injectors or the O2 sensor. Fuel is about 4 months old, so not super fresh but not that old. I'd thought it would be running with positive fuel trims if it was fuel. I.e. it's having to pump more fuel in to make it richer as it won't burning as well.

I probably shouldn't discount the coil pack or leads either. It's not that old but I don't think either is genuine and so there is very much a chance it's failed again. Plugs are the right ones and were replaced the same time as the coil.

 

[SiC]

Injectors came back as 14.7, 14.6, 14.8 and 14.8 Ohms when stone cold after sitting for a day. Spec I think is between 14 and 15 Ohms. Doesn't tell me much about the spray pattern though. However they are ticking evenly when listened to, so unlikely to be gummed up.

 

[SiC]

My chief suspicion right now is the Lambda sensor.
£85 for a genuine Bosch from ECP. Problem is, it's right down the back of the engine and you know it'll be a right arse to remove. Especially as I don't think it ever has been and original to the car. Its got an MOT on the 24th, so I might ask the garage then to change it. Also curious to see what the emissions come back like without changing it.

 

[SiC]

I was pondering about the fuel trims when driving this earlier and when I did the usual scan of the gauges, I remembered that the thermostat needs changing as it's gone on the lazy side and must be opening too soon. Checking with the scan tool, for the gauge to be in the middle, it needs to be around 88c+. One little notch below middle seems to be around 70-88c. I forgot that it did but this has been sitting often one notch below middle.

My current thinking is that it's running cool and these are mapped to run rich when not up to temperature. I'm thinking possibly the base map at the temperatures its currently running at might be really rich. Then the closed loop lambda control causes the fuel trims to lean out the resulting mix from that really rich base map.

Hence it all could be ok, except that it's just running too much on the cool side and the ECU is counteracting that. I'll speak to the garage when the MOT is done and get them to do the thermostat too. Easy enough for them to do and won't cost me a lot either. I've been ignoring this problem for long enough that I've forgotten about it! Heaters blew toasty warm in all but the coldest days (which would cause it to drop back further), so wasn't high up on the agenda to fix.

 

[Louis]

My chief suspicion right now is the Lambda sensor.
£85 for a genuine Bosch from ECP. Problem is, it's right down the back of the engine and you know it'll be a right arse to remove. Especially as I don't think it ever has been and original to the car. Its got an MOT on the 24th, so I might ask the garage then to change it. Also curious to see what the emissions come back like without changing it.

Dont be paying that for a lambda.

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[Krarl]

Check and clean your CTS whilst you're doing the thermostat they get gummed up too

 

[SiC]

Since my last post I've been driving it around. Fuel trims are still quite low but it seems to be running fine after that brief blip out of storage.

It's in for an MOT today so the emissions output should let me know if something is amiss. They're also going to do the coolant+thermostat as it doesn't quite get up to temperature at times - especially in the winter with the heater on full.

I'll be selling it after I get an MOT though unfortunately. In Bristol we are getting a Clean Air Zone. Out of my 3 modern cars (A4, Boxster, Clio), none of them are exempt from the charge. Given a choice of those three cars, the A4 is too useful to get rid of and I prefer the Boxster over the Clio. Also Mrs SiC doesn't like driving the Clio much as she finds the steering heavy. So Clio will be the one that will be going.

What will I replace it with? Currently thinking maybe a late (because CAZ) Bini R53 Cooper S. All depends if I can find one that's not a turd. Especially at this age now.

In the meantime I'm waiting with baited breath on the MOT. I know the CV boot on the offside has a very small tear at the base. It's holding on with a tiny bit of rubber but it'll need changing. I've asked the garage to do it either way.

 

[SiC]

Got the Clio back. Spring, top mount, CV boot and then did the thermostat that I supplied. Apparently was a bit of a ball ache of a job and took quite a lot of phoning around to source parts for.

Running like a champ now though. I'll go out for a drive in it a bit and give a good blast around the back lanes.

Emissions were great too and looking at the test time, it probably wasn't at full operating temperature as it was a few hours since I took it in. All which points to everything working properly. I'm putting the funny running to it being sat for 4 months with the power disconnected. I always disconnect the battery when I put it in storage, as the place I put them has many other peoples £100k's worth of car in there too. So I take zero risk as I don't want to be the person with the Clio II that burns that lot down because French electric! Do wonder if it needed just for the adaptations to sort itself out again and maybe everything to exercise through their paces.

Now just need to write an advert up. I don't really want to sell it but needs must. 😑

 

[imprezaworks]

Project and a half this. Now your selling?

 

[Jason473]

Gutted that the CAZ is making you sell, had a mild panic and checked my 182 but luckily for me seems to be exempt. Just offloaded my old 1.9TDi Ibiza daily because of the CAZ.

This blog has been a great read and I certainly found your posts helpful with my recent cambelt change! Thanks for taking the time to write such detailed and informative posts.

 

[SiC]

Project and a half this. Now your selling?

I enjoy the fixing as well as driving of cars! I didn't intend to buy this needing work and certainly not a belt change, but I won't deny I enjoyed learning how to do it.

I've been toiling on whether I want to sell this or stash it. I get in this and enjoy driving it. I then go in my Boxster and decide that is far nicer to drive, better sounding and a nicer place to be. Then I go in my MGB and decide that is way more fun than either of them. So the Clio gets put back into storage. Also Mrs SiC doesn't like driving it much as she finds the PAS heavy and get the same moan on the Boxster. My argument of nicely weighted steering falls on deaf ears...

She's also pretty set on getting a Bini and she hasn't been so enthusiastic about buying a car in a long time. With me having several toys, its only fair that she buys one of her own. That'll also satisfy the criteria of something that meets CAZ. A Mini R53 Cooper S is exempt from the facelift (54 plate) and the standard Mini Cooper is exempt earlier.

However when winter comes I'll need something to run to the train station/park+ride, but I'll figure it out then. I'll probably be daily driving the Morris Minor I'm buying at the moment! So yes, I'm replacing the Clio with a Morris Minor 🤣

(Yes I'm probably a bit nuts in the head... 😛)

Gutted that the CAZ is making you sell, had a mild panic and checked my 182 but luckily for me seems to be exempt. Just offloaded my old 1.9TDi Ibiza daily because of the CAZ.

Yeah a diesel is a no go in the zone for sure. My wifes 2010 A4 TDI is a definite no too but its far too useful to get rid of. Plus its done 204k miles, so not many buyers will be wanting it.

In regards to Clios 1*2, it seems 2003 on are ok. So definitely all 182s. I have pondered about getting a 182, but I try to never buy the same car type again. The 182 is too close to the 172.

This blog has been a great read and I certainly found your posts helpful with my recent cambelt change! Thanks for taking the time to write such detailed and informative posts.

Glad it helps! Anytime I get stuck, I always have a quick google first and usually gets me out of bother. So think of this as my way of paying back to everyone else who has posted advice, information and guides. Even if some of it is repetitive, often its different in subtle ways - enough to make reading several accounts worth it. I'm no expert, just someone who loves learning. So I try to write from the point of view on not only how I did something, but how I got to that outcome - warts and all.

 

[SiC]

Sold!

Really friendly guy and his girlfriend bought it. Directed him to this forum for any help or guidance on it in the future. His first hot hatch, so I told him to go easy and not be like so many of us that stack it on the way back from buying it. 🤣

I will probably be back at some point as my mate wants me to help him extract his PB 182 from his garage where it's been for the last few years and get it back on the road....

Also maybe back with another project if I ever drunkingly bid on a project, knowing me 😆