Clio Cup Suspension

[RAY 187]

Hi People

To cut a very long story short, i have asked many people on the forum for advice which has been excellent. All of you know alot about cars which is more helpful than Renault themselves.

When snowing months ago i hit the front end of the car at 15mph, the subframe got changed, a new steering rack, rotary switch, and lower left trail arm front left side of the car, no body damage at all. Since then the car does not feel the same, i have spent £200 on tracking from different companies because no one on this earth can get it right, even the renault dealer.

I get to much play on the steering, took it to a garage over the weekend, they done some measurements to see if anything was out of place. According to them the front left strut is an inch higher than the right hand side. Could this cause the car to be all over the place. When driving the front left feels so much more sensitive, in a silly kind of way it feel quite loose.

The smallest pot hole could cause me to make some heavy adjustments, i feel like a bloody formula 1 driver, i can never keep the car in a straight line on a smooth motorway, and can never drive chilled out. The car pulls in every direction, its not that bad but you can notice the difference. Because the front left strut is an inch higher can it cause the car to behave like this.

Also everytime i track the car its o.k for a couple of days, but some how everything slips back in the horrible driving mode again. The car is booked in for the 8th time regarding this problem.

I love the car, but the dealers have even told me to sell the car because i am being paranoid (service manager) i told him well if your guys know how to fix things the first time round we would not need to come back 50 times.

Please please have any of you expereinced anything like this before.

 

[rob172]

Are either of the front tyres wearing on the edges or accross the width of the tyre? Adjusting the tracking may temporarily fix the problem until the shape/profile of the tyre wears again. Where did they measure the strut height difference from? Need to exclude variations such as tyre/suspension/spring height and check by referencing the measurement on the cars chassis/structure.

 

[RAY 187]

Rob

The front left tyre is wearing out slightly from the edge only, the front right is ok, when measuring the car they measured from the very top of the tyre to the wheel arch, they reckon that renault must have missed it out when fixing all the other stuff. They said that the wheel and suspension has been put back together correctly. They did not go into such details as i was in a rush to get back to work. The place i took the car was to a renault service point, if they are over booked they send there cars to the place.

The problem is that renault would not be that helpful, i have taken the car back loads of times, they always tell me nothing is wrong, when there is something seriously wrong with it.

 

[MAC30L]

Where are you about Ray?

 

[RAY 187]

I work in and live in west london, renault london west is based right next door to us, they are meant to be the flagship, the biggest dealer in the country.

 

[Chris_H]

The car is bent. Simple as that.

 

[rob172]

Measuring the height that way does not tell you much. The car might have been on a slight gradient or the suspension might have compressed slightly on one side.

Why not try measuring the height again yourself? But this time measure it from the centre of the wheel to the top of the wheelarch - its more accurate . Make sure its on dead flat and level ground, and give it a bounce on each corner just to make sure the suspension is settled properly first.

I think you really need to get a chassis alignment test done to reassure yourself that the chassis is not bent (would personally doubt this given your account of incident).

 

[RAY 187]

cheers rob, i will ring renault london west and try to sort it out

 

[Chris_H]

the shells bent, it doesnt take much force to actually bend a car. Crumple zones collapse very easily. If you hit a dog they will bend.

Get it on a jig and a fiver sayys its bent.

My 19 is after I crashed it properly, 80mph mangled subframe, twisted front end btu I straightened it as best I could by hand. Its not right, never will be, this is due to the shell being bent. Its only about 5mm out but thats enough to make it awkward.