Clio 182 Stop & Battery light, Alternator?

[Woodentop]

I changed the battery on my Clio 182 and now i have the stop and battery light illuminated. It had been running fine before i swapped it but the battery had run flat during lockdown and needed replacing.
I have checked the volts and the battery is good at 12v but when the engine is started it drops to 11v rather than climbing to 13-14v. The alternator looks in good shape and i have checked the positive cable that goes from the alternator and after removing it and putting it back on it made no difference. Is there anything else i can do before i book it in to the garage to have the rather expensive job of replacing it done? I was really hoping to not have to spend lots of money on this car

 

[Robbie Corbett]

I was really hoping to not have to spend lots of money on this car

My friend - you have bought a 15+ year old French car, the only thing more ironic than this statement would be if you had bought a 15 year old Italian car and said the same.

In all seriousness they are fairly reliable once the small jobs are out the way. It does sound very much like your alternator is dead, however you should have a good look over the cables which run to the alternator (these are not unknown to fail) together with the earth strap which you should be able to see under the front of the car, passenger side chassis leg (pretty sure is passenger side).

The alternator is fairly expensive but actually changing it should take a good garage no more than 1-2 hours, its actually a very straight forward job.

 

[cliokid95]

I had something similar happen a few months back where the alt wasn't charging the battery at all. Completely dead. If you're handy with the spanners its less than an hours work, I think you have to undo a grand total of 5 bolts from memory. There's a few 'how to' guides on here but the hardest part is taking the tension out of the accessory belt to get the alternator off, you can make a tool for this using a 100mm jubilee clip.

The alternator I found was a pattern part for 90 quid from eBay, the car is used for tracking pretty much exclusively so I'm happy to take a chance rather than the arm and leg Renault want for the OEM unit. The guy who sold it to me was really helpful in making sure it would fit, getting it to me etc, I can dry and dig out his eBay name if you want.