Polo Bluemotion
Hey guys, I just thought id tell you the story of what ive been through in the last 7 days, and how not all Renault dealers are bad....
Last Wednesday evening i was on the way to the mrs's house after id finished work. As i was going around a rather large roundabout, pretty much every light on the dash of my 2005 dci100 started to flash. I lay of the throttle, but nothing, they still continued to flash. I put my hazzards on, and crawled to where it was safe to pull over. I turned the car off, left it a minute, then tried to start it......nothing, it was trying, but just wouldnt start at all. This was a car that has started perfectly in the 30k ish miles that ive had it. I ended up getting recovered, and taken home.
The next day I started the task of finding somewhere to look at my car. I know most of you wont agree, but i only use Renault garages (mainly Renault Manchester+Oldham) as id rather spend my money having something diagnosed, resolved and warrantied as fast as possible. The only garage that could see my car on Friday, was Renault Bolton, a garage i didnt even know existed.
Thursday afternoon, i got the car dropped off, and left them to it. Within 3 hours, id had a phone call advising me that all 4 injectors needed replacing. For anyone that cares, apparantly, a normal common rail holds about 400 bar, mine had about 200bar, and only one injector was doing anything. So i agreed to the £200 price, and left them to it.
Two to three hours passed, and i got another call. Apparantly the car had had its four new injectors, was driven round to the valet bay to be cleaned, when the dash lighst started flashing (again). So it was taken back in the garage, and put back on the computer. The mechanic believed that theyre was metal particles in the fuel system, and wanted my permission to cut my fuel filter up to double check.
Cutting a rather long story a little shorter, it was eventually discovered that that my fuel pump had decided to shed little metal filings that had then disagreed with my injectors. Due to the way a common rail diesel engine works (which i didnt realise at the time) in order to maintain its super high pressure, the fuel is pumped from the tank to the engine, and back again, in a continuous loop.
So this is where things start to get serious. Straight away, we knew it definately needed a new pump, which in itself is £397.71+vat. As this is a "big job" apparantly renault have recommended guidelines, for things to do+parts to replace when/if a pump does this. These guidelines recommend replacing everything to with the fuel; injectors (done already),fuel pump, fuel filters, all fuel pipes (including the ones going to the tank, then back) the fuel tank itself. Obviously, its possible to just replace the pump, but due to the nature of how the system works, theres nothing to say there wasnt any particles in the rest of the system that could cause the same fault in a few miles time, and id be back to square one.
So off they went to price everything up, before they did anything (bearing in mind the injectors where already on)......Saturday morning, they got back to me. The total quote for the full job was £3237.09 :quiet:. Just to put this into perspective, 3 weeks earlier, Renault Manchester (same group) had bid me £3900 for the car against a brand new one. Oh, and lets remember that the car hasnt had its fourth birthday yet either.
Naturally, my immediate reaction was im not spending that money, on a car worth not much more. It would of probably ended up on here for sale, as a perfect transplant donor.
I explained these thoughts to the guys at Renault Bolton, who then agreed, to knock 20% of the cost, which then brought the figure down to around £2.5k. After getting the technician to explain in great detail to my grandfather, who was a mechanic most of his life before he retired, what exactly it needed and why, my grandad reassured me they wernt b*llshitting me, it did need the parts they had said, and fuel pumps etc are big money.
After negotiating a full service (as it was pretty much having one anyway) within the price, i eventually agreed on the work to start :dapprove:
It was made very clear, that although i appreciate that the car is out of the 3 year manufacturers warranty, an owner of a 3 and a half year old renault should not be deciding whether to write the car off due to the size of a repair bill, that has ultimately been caused by a major component on the car failing.
The hugely helpful service lady, Ella, then advised that due to the cost of the bill, and whats happened, she was going to raise the matter with Renault UK. Again, trimming the story down, i got a call from a hugely helpful+very nice guy from Renault Customer services. He asked a huge amount of questions, from where i got the car, what i think of it, etc etc. he admitted he has never heard of this ever happening with a clio before, let alone one thats 3.5 years old with 53k on it. He advised he wanted to have a chat with Renault Bolton, then he would get back to me, which on Wednesday, he did. He agreed that due to the cost of the repair, the fact this is my 2nd clio from a renault dealer, how new the car is etc, Renault uk would contribute 35% (thats on top of the garages 20%) to the cost of the repair.
So basically, starting from a almost £3.5k bill and a car thats worthless, I ended up paying £1780, and i got the car back yesterday. So for anyone still reading, Renault Bolton have been superb, as in 6 days (including weekend) they diagnosed the fault, priced it up, got the parts, and did the work required.
Yes, £1780 is still alot of money, but i have been assured by all people ive discussed this with, considering the cost of the parts alone that the car has had, and not including the labour, from any garage anywhere, it is value for whats been done.
I just want to make it known that some garages, such as Renault Bolton (which is by far the best+most efficent garage ive ever dealt with) are not all bad at all. Also the efficency of Renault customer service too. I was expecting them to say they will give me a couple of hundred to help out, not 35%!!
I know the story may of dragged on abit, but i know there could be people who could find themselves in a similar position to myself with a car out of warranty.......i would certainly recommend speaking to Renault Customer services to see if they will help out, even if the garage wont.
Last Wednesday evening i was on the way to the mrs's house after id finished work. As i was going around a rather large roundabout, pretty much every light on the dash of my 2005 dci100 started to flash. I lay of the throttle, but nothing, they still continued to flash. I put my hazzards on, and crawled to where it was safe to pull over. I turned the car off, left it a minute, then tried to start it......nothing, it was trying, but just wouldnt start at all. This was a car that has started perfectly in the 30k ish miles that ive had it. I ended up getting recovered, and taken home.
The next day I started the task of finding somewhere to look at my car. I know most of you wont agree, but i only use Renault garages (mainly Renault Manchester+Oldham) as id rather spend my money having something diagnosed, resolved and warrantied as fast as possible. The only garage that could see my car on Friday, was Renault Bolton, a garage i didnt even know existed.
Thursday afternoon, i got the car dropped off, and left them to it. Within 3 hours, id had a phone call advising me that all 4 injectors needed replacing. For anyone that cares, apparantly, a normal common rail holds about 400 bar, mine had about 200bar, and only one injector was doing anything. So i agreed to the £200 price, and left them to it.
Two to three hours passed, and i got another call. Apparantly the car had had its four new injectors, was driven round to the valet bay to be cleaned, when the dash lighst started flashing (again). So it was taken back in the garage, and put back on the computer. The mechanic believed that theyre was metal particles in the fuel system, and wanted my permission to cut my fuel filter up to double check.
Cutting a rather long story a little shorter, it was eventually discovered that that my fuel pump had decided to shed little metal filings that had then disagreed with my injectors. Due to the way a common rail diesel engine works (which i didnt realise at the time) in order to maintain its super high pressure, the fuel is pumped from the tank to the engine, and back again, in a continuous loop.
So this is where things start to get serious. Straight away, we knew it definately needed a new pump, which in itself is £397.71+vat. As this is a "big job" apparantly renault have recommended guidelines, for things to do+parts to replace when/if a pump does this. These guidelines recommend replacing everything to with the fuel; injectors (done already),fuel pump, fuel filters, all fuel pipes (including the ones going to the tank, then back) the fuel tank itself. Obviously, its possible to just replace the pump, but due to the nature of how the system works, theres nothing to say there wasnt any particles in the rest of the system that could cause the same fault in a few miles time, and id be back to square one.
So off they went to price everything up, before they did anything (bearing in mind the injectors where already on)......Saturday morning, they got back to me. The total quote for the full job was £3237.09 :quiet:. Just to put this into perspective, 3 weeks earlier, Renault Manchester (same group) had bid me £3900 for the car against a brand new one. Oh, and lets remember that the car hasnt had its fourth birthday yet either.
Naturally, my immediate reaction was im not spending that money, on a car worth not much more. It would of probably ended up on here for sale, as a perfect transplant donor.
I explained these thoughts to the guys at Renault Bolton, who then agreed, to knock 20% of the cost, which then brought the figure down to around £2.5k. After getting the technician to explain in great detail to my grandfather, who was a mechanic most of his life before he retired, what exactly it needed and why, my grandad reassured me they wernt b*llshitting me, it did need the parts they had said, and fuel pumps etc are big money.
After negotiating a full service (as it was pretty much having one anyway) within the price, i eventually agreed on the work to start :dapprove:
It was made very clear, that although i appreciate that the car is out of the 3 year manufacturers warranty, an owner of a 3 and a half year old renault should not be deciding whether to write the car off due to the size of a repair bill, that has ultimately been caused by a major component on the car failing.
The hugely helpful service lady, Ella, then advised that due to the cost of the bill, and whats happened, she was going to raise the matter with Renault UK. Again, trimming the story down, i got a call from a hugely helpful+very nice guy from Renault Customer services. He asked a huge amount of questions, from where i got the car, what i think of it, etc etc. he admitted he has never heard of this ever happening with a clio before, let alone one thats 3.5 years old with 53k on it. He advised he wanted to have a chat with Renault Bolton, then he would get back to me, which on Wednesday, he did. He agreed that due to the cost of the repair, the fact this is my 2nd clio from a renault dealer, how new the car is etc, Renault uk would contribute 35% (thats on top of the garages 20%) to the cost of the repair.
So basically, starting from a almost £3.5k bill and a car thats worthless, I ended up paying £1780, and i got the car back yesterday. So for anyone still reading, Renault Bolton have been superb, as in 6 days (including weekend) they diagnosed the fault, priced it up, got the parts, and did the work required.
Yes, £1780 is still alot of money, but i have been assured by all people ive discussed this with, considering the cost of the parts alone that the car has had, and not including the labour, from any garage anywhere, it is value for whats been done.
I just want to make it known that some garages, such as Renault Bolton (which is by far the best+most efficent garage ive ever dealt with) are not all bad at all. Also the efficency of Renault customer service too. I was expecting them to say they will give me a couple of hundred to help out, not 35%!!
I know the story may of dragged on abit, but i know there could be people who could find themselves in a similar position to myself with a car out of warranty.......i would certainly recommend speaking to Renault Customer services to see if they will help out, even if the garage wont.
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