Project Clive - 1.2 16v Dynamique tidying up

[sabian92]

Right, suppose I better post up my plans :smile:

Bought this 6 weeks ago for £1800 - 1 lady owner, 39k miles, 12 months tax and MOT but needs a good tidy up. Other half christened him Clive the Clio hence the title name!

My ideas are as follows:

• Have the entire car polished and remove the majority of the paint blemishes (by Knuckles on here) as well as a full interior clean
• Cup rear bumper (but that'll probably mean having one sprayed as I don't think they came in the colour mine is :weary
• Replace all the glass eventually (Windscreen and front side glass desperately need doing, rears can wait as it's mega £££!)
• Have the wheel refurbed by Snappy as it's a bit melted and horrid, or buy a replacement one and have him refurb that
• New alloys so I can use the current ones as spares for track days or similar (I'm aware a 1.2 Clio isn't fast :wink
• New plates which are in the post as we speak - fully legal, can't be arsed with 3/4 plates or whatever as they're not worth the hassle and my current ones are officially minging and mouldy (!) Although to be fair they are the original
• Splitter of some description - probably not the official Renault one as it's extortionately expensive compared to the Skoda one :smile:
• Replace the head unit with a new unit as the current aftermarket one is crap - no bluetooth, no SD slot, no 3.5mm input, nothing!
• Put my CS.net sticker on and remove all the other stickers in the car as it's covered in stickers from car cleaning places on the windows (?)
• Clean up the lights as they're awful
• Replace the aerial, plate light, wiper blades etc.

It also needs new pads and discs in the new year, the cambelt as I don't think it's been done and I managed to lose my service history documents in the house, new tyres as it's got ditch finders on at the moment and they don't even all match Clearly the woman who owned it before me didn't give much of a s**t about it! If it'd done 11 year's worth of miles I'd have walked away but it'd only done just under 39k miles so mechanically it's pretty solid, if a little neglected in the TLC department!

Basically trying to avoid putting my insurance up as I'm already paying nearly 800 quid for the year on it as it is :down:

Anyway, here's a few photos - been posted before but here they are again. Trust me, the photos flatter it very well, the glass is all scratched to hell, the lights are misted over to hell, the car is filthy and the paint is in quite bad shape!

 

[campusdan]

Looking forward to seeing it progress I had a 53 plate black dynamique with 53k on the clock and was in a pretty poor state compared to yours ! Also nice colour ! Why do you want to replace all the glass though ?

 

[sabian92]

Looking forward to seeing it progress I had a 53 plate black dynamique with 53k on the clock and was in a pretty poor state compared to yours ! Also nice colour ! Why do you want to replace all the glass though ?

Previous owner decided cleaning the car with a gritty sponge for 11 years was a brilliant idea.... the entire car is covered in little scratches. Paint can be buffed and polished, glass can't so it needs to be replaced. Windscreen will cost £75 via my insurer so that'll be done after Christmas but I'm going to look on eBay and in breaker's yards for the rest of the glass.

To be honest, especially with low sun, it's dangerous. I struggle to see through it so it needs doing. The bootlid glass isn't so bad and the rear windows aren't either but the front 3 definitely need doing.

 

[sabian92]

First item has arrived!

I got these from http://www.number1plates.com/ - ordered Monday, arrived today (Wednesday), cannot fault them. High quality plates too. Gone for fully legal as I'm not interested in getting a fine :tongueout:

These'll be going on at the weekend as I'm busy with college until then. Should be fun getting the old, rusted screws out of the current plates....! :down:

 

[sabian92]

Quick update:

My student loan and wages go in at midnight tonight so the following will be in the post ASAP:

New brakes from G172
Cambelt & Dephaser stuff from Adam
Pioneer DEH-X5700BT head unit as my current one is cack
Number plate light
New low profile Aerial (I never listen to it and the stock one is a bit ugly)
Some cleaning stuff - a decent shampoo, mitt, glass cleaner, that sort of thing
New wipers - rear has perished, fronts need doing too
And I'm going to get a new windscreen sorted via my insurer as it's shagged as well.

 

[Willsam]

The plates don't look legal to me, correct me if I'm wrong but I'm sure you need a space between the 3 and the C?

 

[..Jack..]

The plates don't look legal to me, correct me if I'm wrong but I'm sure you need a space between the 3 and the C?

That's what I thought

 

[sabian92]

The plates don't look legal to me, correct me if I'm wrong but I'm sure you need a space between the 3 and the C?

That's what I thought

I did put it through their proper plate creator, not their "show plates" one. I did try it with a space in there but then it removed the "G" from the end. £30 they cost me.... if they're illegal I'll be rather cheesed off! What's the best way to find out - take it to an MOT centre and ask their opinion?

Anyway, on to better things. I've managed to collate all my various bits and bobs. Bloody expensive this car thing :smile:

At the moment I've got:

New pads/discs from our very own @g172 (seriously, if you don't use him, you should! Cracking service)
New brake fluid
New cambelt/water pump/aux belt kit from Adam @ Renault Wolvo (who may not be on here much any more but still provided a cracking service - ordered Monday, arrived Tuesday afternoon)
New interior LEDs for the cabin/boot
New phone holder
New dual USB cigarette lighter-thingy
A new head unit that's just arrived 15 minutes ago:

I'd take photos of the rest of the stuff but they're in the boot and I'm in no mood to get out of bed into the rain to take a photo:smile:

Oh, and on Saturday morning I'm getting a new screen fitted. Current one is horrific so Admiral agreed to replace it.

 

[Willsam]

I did put it through their proper plate creator, not their "show plates" one. I did try it with a space in there but then it removed the "G" from the end. £30 they cost me.... if they're illegal I'll be rather cheesed off! What's the best way to find out - take it to an MOT centre and ask their opinion?

Yeah I'd say take it somewhere like that and see what they say, if they say they are illegal just demand a refund from where you bought them from, best place to get clean plates would be fancyplates, you should give there a try

 

[Austin-182]

You can get a set of standard plates from ebay for £10 posted! I would be sending those back as they are not legal, they are missing the space.

 

[sabian92]

Yeah I'd say take it somewhere like that and see what they say, if they say they are illegal just demand a refund from where you bought them from, best place to get clean plates would be fancyplates, you should give there a try

You can get a set of standard plates from ebay for £10 posted! I would be sending those back as they are not legal, they are missing the space.

There's a MOT centre less than a mile from me so I'll take them down there and see what they say. I ordered them a fair while ago now so I hope I can get a refund on them. Bit cheesed off now.

Moving on anyway, more bits arrived!

I now have:
Number plate light
Water pump/aux belt kit
A Nilfisk C110!
And concentrated patio cleaner, but that's not really for the car. :tongueout:

 

[sabian92]

Went to an MOT testing station.... plates are illegal. Spacing between the 2 groups must be 33mm, mine are 11mm.

Will be complaining about that to the people who made them!

 

[dann2707]

Love how you waited for the loan to come in JUST before you purchased them haha that's brilliant and I remember that feeling so well. Wait till your earning you'll be spending nonestop lol

Car looks like a decent base for fun mate.

 

[sabian92]

Love how you waited for the loan to come in JUST before you purchased them haha that's brilliant and I remember that feeling so well. Wait till your earning you'll be spending nonestop lol

Car looks like a decent base for fun mate.

I was 1k in the hole before my loan went in :smile: Overdrafts are nice... until you have to pay them off! I got 2800 quid and 1000 of it went straight away on paying my debt off... whoops!

I'm earning now, just waiting for my first wage packet! I'm in the process of saving up for spends for NYC, flights and hotel are paid for just need some money to spend now.

 

[sabian92]

Actually just to add... while it will eventually (!) look decent, it'l never be fast. It's only a 1.2 so any power upgrades are mega £££ for not many gains. Plus I'm not entirely sure how long I'll end up keeping it - probably a few years, but I'd rather save the money on silly power upgrades until I can get a car that's actually properly quick when I'm old enough to be insured on something without having to sacrifice my first born as well as my left arm!

 

[sabian92]

Apologies for triple posting, I'm not normally this annoying :smile:

Tomorrow it's off to the garage for a service - new discs/pads, new brake fluid cambelt/auxbelt/waterpump change and possibly a head unit change if I can convince my uncle to do it or at least show me how!

 

[sabian92]

Update time!

So, I got the car back from the garage, all done and dusted. Stops far better than it did.

I also upgraded the lights - the boot light is now an LED and much brighter/whiter. Here's the difference:

Well worth the few quid it cost, although it was a fiddly little sod to do.

Also did the courtesy light as well, although I fitted a new LED bulb and an LED SMD panel, only the bulb works so I'll have to remove the lights again and fit the other LED bulb I got in the package. Both cracking, throw a lot more light.

Switch fell out as well, may have put it in backwards!:smile:

Also did the number plate light but no photos of that, I forgot to take a photo while I was outside before.

 

[sabian92]

Right, time for a wee update.

I got my door bashed in in a Manchester Airport car park, which is annoying. :rage: Bad news aside, the Clio has had some upgrades.

I managed to spring quite a bad leaky sunroof prior to going away at the start of March, and I didn't fancy leaving it in an open car park with a leaky sunroof, so I had a guy my garage-owning uncle knows remove the whole lot, clean it all, and replace it with proper sealant as apparently it was stuck down with double sided tape...! No wonder it leaked. It also ruined my interior lights so I had to replace that as well. Still, least it doesn't rattle now... :smile:

I've also managed to finally after the debacle of ordering the wrong sized tyres (which was well documented on here and made me look a total arse :tongueclosed to get them fitted and get rid of the 4 mismatched Chinese tyres I had. They were bad, I had no idea how bad they were though. Car's on rails now! It's also much, much quieter in the cabin, even at 70-80mph - according to a decibel measuring app I downloaded, at 60mph it was 75Db, these new ones are 69Db! Pinch of salt and all that, but they're definitely quieter. Continental Eco Contact 5 - highly recommended.

I also ordered some new mats after I sacrificed my old ones trying to get out of a muddy bog at work I accidentally drove into. I stuck them under the front wheels to give some grip and they ended up caked in mud so they were abandoned at the scene. I've now got some very nice looking rubber mats, they even say Clio on them! £35 for 4 they were which I'm happy with. :up: Just excuse the unmade bed...:innocent:

 

[sabian92]

I've managed to procure some new (legal!) plates for the Clio. Old ones are grim - rear is cracked, both are mouldy (?) and generally look like crap.

Joined the Fancy Plates bandwagon - worth it.

Have also got a full correction with Knuckles next weekend which will be nice - car needs it doing so just in time for summer!