Clio 197 2006
Does anyone know a good garage that will do the timing belt and water pump on clio 197
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Timeing belt
- Thread starter Iceman1974
- Start date
Yes. But it Will help you find one near you if you say your location 
Clio 197 2006
Hertfordshire
Civic FN2 Track Car
From my personal experience i wouldn't recommend him
1.6 Astra Sporthatch
Can I ask why? Was just gonna get a quote as hes 9 mins from my training centre next week!
Civic FN2 Track Car
He did my cam belt change in march this year and forgot to tighten one of the pulleys up and started her up, the belt slipped and he bent loads of valves. He said he would rebuilt it all and fix it, I was like ok but how am I gonna get home, I live in Brentwood. He dropped me off at the local train station and I had to pay £30 to get home. He dropped the car back to me on the Sunday which was fast. I asked for a receipt/invoice for all the work that he had to do and pay for so that I would have a warranty for it, to which he refused, I asked him what he replaced when he rebuilt the head to which he said, 8 valves, valve stem seals and head gaskets and re seated the valves, I did ask why he didn't replace the head bolts (Renault tell you to when removing the head) he just said ah they don't need to be done. When doing the head rebuild he would have to change the oil, filter and coolant, I was going to pay to get this done anyway but he would have had to do it with the head rebuild, but no he still charged me for this, he also forgot to bring my bottle of super blue racing fluid back,(to this day still haven't received it back after numerous emails)
Fast forward to May and my engine dropped a valve and has blown up most probably due to the head rebuild not being done properly but can't guarantee that as I do t know exactly what he replaced, I've sent him 5-6 email in as many weeks and just don't get any reply.
Fast forward to May and my engine dropped a valve and has blown up most probably due to the head rebuild not being done properly but can't guarantee that as I do t know exactly what he replaced, I've sent him 5-6 email in as many weeks and just don't get any reply.
Clio 197 2006
I hope this guy replies to that statement i would bd very pissed if he done that to my car
Dan@519 seems to have some happy customers on here who would recomend him so cant be all, but I must confess that personally I seem to hear about more going wrong than going right with stuff he does, but everyone makes mistakes I guess and maybe its not representative.
You could always travel a bit further and go to Mike @ MWM in staines, I'll openly admit that I am biased as Mike is a friend of mine but that just means I get to know far more of his customers and yet even still despite knowing so many of them I dont know even one who has ever had a problem, so seems like if he does also make mistakes they are far far rarer.
Two techs in essex I keep hearing good things about on here as well although I dont know anyone personally who has used them.
Crazy as it sounds avoid your local renault garage, the technicians actually working on your car there are all nothing to do with the people who actually make the car in the first place and the harsh reality is that most of them dont seem to have people employed who are particularly used to the renaultsport stuff and it is a bit different timing wise on the belts to the more mundane clios they see a lot more of.
Other options are Dan@SJM all the way down in somerset or Mick@Diamond up in notts or Fred@BTM in birmingham, all top guys and reguarly recomended on here without issues, long way to travel of course for all of those, but in each case you still wouldnt be their furthest customer as people with these cars do generally seem to realise the importance of the belts and are prepared to travel!
You could always travel a bit further and go to Mike @ MWM in staines, I'll openly admit that I am biased as Mike is a friend of mine but that just means I get to know far more of his customers and yet even still despite knowing so many of them I dont know even one who has ever had a problem, so seems like if he does also make mistakes they are far far rarer.
Two techs in essex I keep hearing good things about on here as well although I dont know anyone personally who has used them.
Crazy as it sounds avoid your local renault garage, the technicians actually working on your car there are all nothing to do with the people who actually make the car in the first place and the harsh reality is that most of them dont seem to have people employed who are particularly used to the renaultsport stuff and it is a bit different timing wise on the belts to the more mundane clios they see a lot more of.
Other options are Dan@SJM all the way down in somerset or Mick@Diamond up in notts or Fred@BTM in birmingham, all top guys and reguarly recomended on here without issues, long way to travel of course for all of those, but in each case you still wouldnt be their furthest customer as people with these cars do generally seem to realise the importance of the belts and are prepared to travel!
Civic FN2 Track Car
JAMason yep got copies store on my laptop of all the emails and an original copy of the cambelt receipt, but as said I have nothing to say that he rebuilt the head as he refused to put anything in writing. I've contacted him so many times and got no response so I've just given up tbh don't really know what to do.
The valves can fail anyway, so that might not be related to the work he actually did itself, might just be that the secondhand ones he lobbed in when he did it were very old and fatigued.
Most common cause of failed valves is poor mapping, but even on standard cars they do sometimes fail.
Horrible bodge re-using the head bolts IMHO, but I know plenty of examples of people doing it and getting away with it and nasty though I think it is it wont be the reason your valves failed, I promise you that (not defending him, I have little respect for him at all from the lack of basic knowledge about engines he has shown on here in the past), so I dont want you to think that just cause he re-used the bolts that made the valves fail when it wouldnt have.
Most common cause of failed valves is poor mapping, but even on standard cars they do sometimes fail.
Horrible bodge re-using the head bolts IMHO, but I know plenty of examples of people doing it and getting away with it and nasty though I think it is it wont be the reason your valves failed, I promise you that (not defending him, I have little respect for him at all from the lack of basic knowledge about engines he has shown on here in the past), so I dont want you to think that just cause he re-used the bolts that made the valves fail when it wouldnt have.
Clio 172
...im not sure what you can do either. He could just deny all knowledge of it happening. Have you tried taking legal action at all though? It was only 2 months after you had the work done that it dropped a valve and you have records of your car going in and all the emails to him... surly he can't just bury his head in the sand and hope this goes away? its a pretty big mess that he has made.
Also his point about head bolts not getting replaced is a load of rubbish... ALL head bolts should be replaced when doing a Head Gasket or taking the head off in my experience. My understanding is that they stretch (they are a form of stretch bolt after all!) when torqued up and once they are removed they are only fit for the bin! For the sake of around £20 for some pattern bolts (even these would be better than reused genuine!), the guy sounds like he cuts corners! :/
Is he still a regular users/poster on here?!
davo172
ClioSport Club Member
TCR'd 172
That's shocking if true ! Get on the phone or better still get yourself down there !
