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Renault Vel Satis £500 Cirencester


Sam Glover

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I give you the Renault Vel Satis. For £500 – or less! – you can enjoy all the time-consuming hardship of classic car ownership but none of the driving pleasure.

 
I bought this for £875 before Christmas, suffering the delusion that I was the one soul on earth who wanted a right-hand drive Vel Satis. I realised I was wrong on the way home from Newport to Cirencester. It seems I’m just like everybody else, after all.
 
I had no idea how appallingly over-assisted and under-engaging modern cars have become. I can barely drive it.
 
It’s festered for the past four months with two small but debilitating issues that, due to a lack of motivation, have taken ages to track down and remedy. The first was a ruptured intercooler hose, repaired to beyond factory specification using Volga M21 radiator hose. The second was a furry throttle position sensor, revived by vigorously titillating its carbon tracks with contact cleaner. As far as I can tell from thrashing it repeatedly up and down the lane outside my workshop, it’s now functional. I have absolutely no inclination to splash out on road tax and take it further afield.
 
It clearly needs a better owner.
 
It’s a 2.0-litre turbo petrol manual.
 
It currently appears capable of functioning in a car-like way. Being a Vel Satis, though, it’s only a matter of time before something pitiful fails and renders it undriveable while you spend weeks enjoying internet forums, probing sensors and waking up in the middle of the night thinking of little black plastic boxes with mysterious tendrils.
 
It’s MoT’d until August.
 
It’s done 157,000 miles, but it’s been maintained to an impeccable standard by a skilled Renault enthusiast for the last 130,000. This is all documented.
 
It’s in fine condition. The interior’s very good – and the exterior has nothing worse than a few tiny scuffs and aluminium warts.
 
It’s benefitted from many recent new parts, including a timing belt and tensioner, tyres, battery, ABS pump, water pump, alternator, turbo, brake discs and pads.
 
It comes with various spares and a terrifyingly heavy manual.
 
Current problems:
- Radio and sat nav aren’t working.
- The tyre pressure sensors were removed rather than replaced at the last tyre change and it bitches on about this constantly.
- It intermittently reports an EPS error, which the previous owner was 95% sure he’d tracked to a rear wheel sensor.
- Renault Vel Satis
 
It’s near Cirencester. There’s no obvious reason you couldn’t tax it and drive it home… other than it being a Renault Vel Satis.
 
Don’t all rush at once.
 
Sam
 
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Ohhhh my. I love a good 2000s Renault, especially the Vel Shatit. This also is really not far from me either. HOWEVER my wife has strictly told me no cars. She also hates red cars. Also said before that she thinks these are super ugly and not to get one.

 

I think I'll be hung, drawn and quartered if I bought this. :(

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This is actually probably one of the better bets as Vel Satises go.  4-pot pez engine, manual 'box and a relatively basic interior means far less to go wrong than a 3.0 V6 DCi Initiale.

 

I'd actually be quite tempted were I not on a self-imposed car buying ban until I can sort my f***ing life out.

 

One could argue there's no better way of sorting your f***ing life out than buying a Vel Satis.

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