When cold, won't rev above 2800 RPM

[DrR]

Doesn't do it all the time, but i get in my car start it drive about 100 meters then up a gentle hill.

Sometimes it won't rev about 2800ish and if i press the throttle it slows down!

I know there shite when cold and no i'm no revving the nuts of it, 3k is a nice time to change gear IMO.

 

[ForceIndia]

I normally wait one minute after starting, sorts the problem out.

 

[kenny172]

^^^
exactly what a do.

My mate says he read in the manual that Renault advise not to leave the car idling for few minutes when starting from cold, dunno how they can think that tbh :S

 

[Paul.]

Doesn't do it all the time, but i get in my car start it drive about 100 meters then up a gentle hill.

Sometimes it won't rev about 2800ish and if i press the throttle it slows down!

I know there s**te when cold and no i'm no revving the nuts of it, 3k is a nice time to change gear IMO.

mine does this at times mate. usually clears after a minute or two of careful driving

 

[H182]

Mine seems to stop accelerating around that mark when its cold but only for 30secs if i keep my foot there it starts speeding up on its own. But it doesn't refuse, if I put my foot down more it will go higher.

 

[bmh.01]

Bloody hell you've broken this one too :rasp:, does it feel like a flatspot? Will it rev through it if you keep your foot in?

Has told me about a similar thing with his 182 around that rev range, my 172 never used to do it though.

 

[DrR]

Yeah feels like a flat spot, it just slows down if i press the throttle more. Doesn't do it very often.

 

[Jamesstone]

Mine does exactly the same thing, flat spot at around 3,000rpm from cold, totally gone in under 3/5 miles , to be honest it doesnt bother me at all as from years ago i have had racing 2 stroke motorbikes & seen the damge riding them hard from cold does so i feather foot until temp is up then give it another 5 mins after that before attemting any spirited driving

 

[Noodle999]

Mine does this every time from cold, just with varying severity, and I'm told they all do it something to do with the emissions? Apparently Renault just decided to use a very crude way of limiting engine power until the cat has warmed up.

I get the same thing, pull out of my road, 1st, into 2nd, try to accelerate, car just doesn't want to go anywhere, the further I push my foot down the worse it gets, once it's on the floor the car will actually be losing speed, feels like it's been coasting to the stop, then as I lift my foot back off I get a burst of acceleration, then the car goes back to slowing down... only way to actually go anywhere is to battle your way up through the gears as soon as possible. It always lasts for exactly one minute so I guess it's by design although it does seem retarded if it is When it ends, the car suddenly starts accelerating without a change in throttle position.

On a winter morning I sometimes hold it in 2nd to get some heat out of the blowers quicker, and where we used to live the one minute corresponded to the point where I needed to brake at the junction with the main road, so I'd get there doing 25mph or something and then just as I was about to come off the throttle to brake, the car would start accelerating towards the junction :S All part of the character I guess :lolup:

 

[DazG]

Just about every sport owner I have spoken to has complained about the cold starts on the clios...As Noodle said above it only lasts for a minute then its fine.

I actually took mine into Renault as I thought it was faulty! lol

 

[Noodle999]

Just about every sport owner I have spoken to has complained about the cold starts on the clios...As Noodle said above it only lasts for a minute then its fine.

I actually took mine into Renault as I thought it was faulty! lol

It is tbh! Just it's faulty by design, rather than by manufacture or failure of a part, so they can't do anything to fix it... I gather people have had this "feature" disabled by means of a remap though?

 

[theduck]

Renault Customer Service posted on renaultsport recently about the 'cold start' issue on the 197 saying you should leave the car to idle for atleast 60seconds

 

[theduck]

Renault Customer Service posted on renaultsport recently about the 'cold start' issue on the 197 saying you should leave the car to idle for atleast 60seconds

 

[Marky_]

Phew!

I was worried mine was playing up. It always seems rubbish in the morning, but picks after a few hundred meters.

 

[Schweppy]

Mine did this too.

RSTuner remap sorts it out!

 

[T-Bag]

Just for an opposite view... mine doesn't do this. Sure it's lumpy when cold and tends to jerk about when changing gears but on the very odd occasion I do push it when cold it seems to be fine and certainly no flat spot below 3k. I once, admittedly rather stupidly, hit the lowered rev limit as the engine was cold but didn't notice anything other than the lowered limit.

 

[Tucker]

it's called limp mode, it is to prevent silly unneccesary damage to the engine. You will damage your engine if you rev it from cold start, especially so on a high performance engine

can i just say

derrr

 

[DrR]

but changing up from second to 3rd at 2.8k aint abusing it in my opinion, any lower and the car would struggle like hell to get up the hill.

 

[sideways danny]

get it on a fault code reader, could be a faulty temp sensor or similar, or might just need an old code clearing

 

[Tucker]

not abusing, but will still damage an engine from cold.

due to things like insufficient oil coverage on valves,

increased crankshaft vibration, due to lack of oil,

decreased compression,

lack of backpressure/ heat, and therefore valve timing overlap could cause detonation.

come on guys renault wouldn't do this for no reason

 

[T-Bag]

But the rev limit is reduced to like 6.8k not 2.8k If it is struggling to 2.8k then something isn't right imo... you can't possibly call that abusing it. What would happen if you lived near a motorway and needed to go on it straight away, you would be stuffed if it wouldn't go above 2.8k

 

[Noodle999]

it's called limp mode, it is to prevent silly unneccesary damage to the engine. You will damage your engine if you rev it from cold start, especially so on a high performance engine

can i just say

derrr

Sorry but you are completely and utterly wrong. We're not stupid and we're aware of the care needed with a cold engine, and we're not complaining that we can't "rag" the thing, we're complaining that it runs so badly that it'll hardly go anywhere when cold...

Until you've actually driven one when it's doing it and experienced exactly what it's like you can't really comment. It's literally an all-out battle to achieve any sort of forward speed in my experience, pull out onto a busy-ish 30mph road in the morning and after 100yds you've often not got past 20mph and there's people behind you going "WTF?!"

come on guys renault wouldn't do this for no reason

As I've already said I'm told by quite a lot of people (including those who work for Renault) that it's to do with emissions, they are deliberately cutting the engine power for 1 minute to allow the catalytic converter to warm up before allowing full power, because it doesn't clean the gases properly until it's hot. The problem is literally that they've done it in a very crude way which makes the car almost undrivable, I can't see any problem with having the behaviour remapped out of it, as long as it's not because you want to rag it when cold... most of us just want the car to work f**king properly to be quite honest!

 

[DrR]

Sod the emissions, so it's possible to have it remapped out? Come MOT time car is alway warm when being tested anyway so high emissions on first start would not bother me.

Really is god awful somtimes like said above when having to pull out onto a main road and struggling to go above 35ish, and if you try accelerating it just slows down!!

 

[Noodle999]

Sod the emissions, so it's possible to have it remapped out? Come MOT time car is alway warm when being tested anyway so high emissions on first start would not bother me.

Yeah by all accounts it can be removed with a remap. And yes it shouldn't effect emissions at an MOT test unless you've done something else drastic to the car!

Really is god awful somtimes like said above when having to pull out onto a main road and struggling to go above 35ish, and if you try accelerating it just slows down!!

That's my main complaint with it, the car accelerator is fly by wire, if you put your foot down you're telling the ECU you want to go faster... that's why I describe it as being faulty by design in terms of whatever crude method Renault have used, because you're pushing you foot down further in a fairly natural response to the fact the car's going nowhere, and it makes it worse, which isn't logical and even if you're used to it, can be confusing for a brief moment.

The ECU is simply failing to comply (potentially dangerously on occasion imo) with a simple request to increase the vehicle's speed :S