Advice on the PH2 1.6 enigne?

[LB197]

Hi guys, so I've had my 1.2 PH1 for nearly 18 months now, I've been through good and bad times with it e.g head gasket going and many other things. But all in all my experience with the whole clio "thing" has been great and at 120k its expected that I'm going to have problems.

So the time has come to decide on my next car, now as I'm 21 my insurance is roughly £550 on my 1.2 and having quotes for about the same on a 2001 Fiesta Zetec S 1.6 is swaying me but every single one I've seen is caked in rust, so I've been looking into the 1.6 dynamique clio ph2 (£650 to insure). All I want is a bit more umph to get me up the hills and a bit more grunt when pulling off.

So it all comes down to, are these 1.6 engines any good? Is there a noticeable power increase from the 1.2 or are they all a bit slow on the Clio's, I've seen there about 110bhp.

Any help, advice, common problems with them would be much appreciated.

P.S .... Don't want to change insurance companies and they wont insure me on a 172 or anything over a 1.8

 

[Jakey92]

Hi guys, so I've had my 1.2 PH1 for nearly 18 months now, I've been through good and bad times with it e.g head gasket going and many other things. But all in all my experience with the whole clio "thing" has been great and at 120k its expected that I'm going to have problems.

So the time has come to decide on my next car, now as I'm 21 my insurance is roughly £550 on my 1.2 and having quotes for about the same on a 2001 Fiesta Zetec S 1.6 is swaying me but every single one I've seen is caked in rust, so I've been looking into the 1.6 dynamique clio ph2 (£650 to insure). All I want is a bit more umph to get me up the hills and a bit more grunt when pulling off.

So it all comes down to, are these 1.6 engines any good? Is there a noticeable power increase from the 1.2 or are they all a bit slow on the Clio's, I've seen there about 110bhp.

Any help, advice, common problems with them would be much appreciated.

P.S .... Don't want to change insurance companies and they wont insure me on a 172 or anything over a 1.8

Definite noticeable increase in power. I went from 1.2 to 1.6 too. A problem I had was the thermostat housing started to leak a little, took it to the garage and it was all sorted Got it up for sale now actually: http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/renault/clio/renault-clio-1-6-16v-dynamique/1658939

 

[Goodj]

The drop in economy doesn't warrant the marginal increase in real-world performance....

IIRC

 

[Grier]

i have one at the moment, soon to be gone. mpg isn't fantastic considering performance, i see roughly 32.5 mpg over the last 20,000 miles but in relation to a noticeable improvement to a 1.2 yes i came from a 1.2 ph1 and simply it's fine for the motorway (bar the high gearing) and for overtaking it's far superior also most have auto lights/wipers and a better interior. Another good point it doesn't look any different to a 1.2 dynamique so it surprises alot of people i.e cnuts in old corsas

 

[LB197]

Thanks just the stuff i wanted to hear, im getting about 30mpg in mine anyway for some reason, thanks guys

 

[Jakey92]

i have one at the moment, soon to be gone. mpg isn't fantastic considering performance, i see roughly 32.5 mpg over the last 20,000 miles but in relation to a noticeable improvement to a 1.2 yes i came from a 1.2 ph1 and simply it's fine for the motorway (bar the high gearing) and for overtaking it's far superior also most have auto lights/wipers and a better interior. Another good point it doesn't look any different to a 1.2 dynamique so it surprises alot of people i.e cnuts in old corsas

All so true! And I used to get 32 aswell, that was with town driving. Nice little upgrade!

 

[Grier]

as it turns out im keeping mine for another year so it seems, times are hard and all that but means i can actually get it running top notch, few niggles with it just now but it's french it happens. id say go for the 1.6 it's very chuckable plus your used to usual clio characteristics anyway

 

[ben lee]

Got the ph1 1 6 16v rsi great cars for the money. Round town get 35-38mpg with mods cams ect.

 

[Knuckles]

1.5 dci 100

 

[Goodj]

1.5 dci 100

We have a winner