After a couple of years of not owning a second car and after numerous 205s in various power forms, I decided to buy another. I was shocked by how much they'd gone up in price so decided to start looking at alternatives. I decided on an R27 but then changed my mind and started looking at 182s before settling on a 172 Cup. I looked at loads, around 8 in total in various power forms and standard of body and maintenance.
Before deciding to buy this one. With a blowing exhaust gasket, I drove it home, put it in the garage and took it out a few weeks later to thrash around Bedford.
It was around the 3rd or 4th corner of the first sighting lap that I lost the back end. This was followed by 6 or 7 spins and a car that felt on every corner just wanted to slide or spin, this wasn't my first trackday and I felt like a complete tw*t, I'd never span before in 205s with the same power as the Clio. I paid for an instructor and proceeded to do a huge slide with him in the car that had him questioning the back end of the car.
Then during my last session with Chi in the car, I thought we'd end up on our roof as we exited a corner at speed and ended up deep in the infield grass.
When I got home, I decided that the first thing to do would be to check the rear suspension, what I found was that the shocks on the back are listed as for every variant of this shape Clio apart from the 172!
I spoke to Adam at Renault Wolverhampton and ordered some new rears, a single front as the previous owner replaced one last summer and a set of Cooksport springs.
The rear always looked high, 5" from rim to arch
The shocks felt knackered
And the springs were huge!
Afterwards, the car was far lower
And now looks like a Clio 172 rather than a 4x4
Next is to change the front strut and springs, and get some new tyres
Before deciding to buy this one. With a blowing exhaust gasket, I drove it home, put it in the garage and took it out a few weeks later to thrash around Bedford.
It was around the 3rd or 4th corner of the first sighting lap that I lost the back end. This was followed by 6 or 7 spins and a car that felt on every corner just wanted to slide or spin, this wasn't my first trackday and I felt like a complete tw*t, I'd never span before in 205s with the same power as the Clio. I paid for an instructor and proceeded to do a huge slide with him in the car that had him questioning the back end of the car.
Then during my last session with Chi in the car, I thought we'd end up on our roof as we exited a corner at speed and ended up deep in the infield grass.
When I got home, I decided that the first thing to do would be to check the rear suspension, what I found was that the shocks on the back are listed as for every variant of this shape Clio apart from the 172!
I spoke to Adam at Renault Wolverhampton and ordered some new rears, a single front as the previous owner replaced one last summer and a set of Cooksport springs.
The rear always looked high, 5" from rim to arch
The shocks felt knackered
And the springs were huge!
Afterwards, the car was far lower
And now looks like a Clio 172 rather than a 4x4
Next is to change the front strut and springs, and get some new tyres
