Must have been lucky in my family with reno's then
i've had 2 clios now without major probs, parents have a laguna now on about 170k!!!, so does sis although a bit newer, both nothing worth mentioning gone wrong, and they all seem to like them.
a mate has had a 1.2 dynamique from new (jan 2002) and has been fine.. for around 35k.
Funny, as my sister actually had a mazda (so say reliable motor) and from the 2nd day of owning it, smoke poured out the back, ended up with an engine rebuild.. followed by prompt selling!! luckily the old man is quite handy with a spanner
.. although after all his hard work he was a bit annoyed at her selling it but i think she was a bit p**sed off with it.
Just goes to show, even cars from "reliable" manufacturers go wrong... maybe hers was a exception!