Diary of a Merde Wagon aka Renault Laguna II Sports Tourer.UPDATE 25/03/16.

[Burnside]

Been thinking for a while about putting up a little piece about this little gem! As you can see we are so fond of the Renault that we have gave it a appropriate name.

 

Wasn't sure if having another thread up about another Laguna II is a good idea with Scaryoldcortinas thread already in full swing / misery?

 

Well like all good / bad stories best start back at well the start.

 

So back in August this year me and my brother had a problem. We had just over two weeks holiday booked off for the middle of September and we didn't have a big enough car as my Cavalier was and sadly is still off the road and there wasn't enough time left to get it sorted either.

 

So started looking about for something suitable and cheap but typically when you start looking you can't find one, anyway my Dad mentioned that a guy we know down his local pub had a 53 reg Renault Laguna II Diesel Estate with a Mot till next April for £600.

 

Now we know these Renaults don't have the best rep for reliability so weren't that keen so said we would keep it in mind and carry on looking in the meantime. A few weeks past and after looking at more heaps we became more desperate and my Dads mate said down the pub that he had been messed about by a few people over selling the Renault so if we were interested we could have it for £400.

 

At this point we thought a Estate Diesel Car with a Long Mot seamed worth a go even though it was a Laguna II I mean how bad can it be?

 

So a few days later we went an viewed the car an it became apparent it needed some tlc. 3 tyres were scrap due to a mixture of wear/ tears in the side wall.

Anyway I'd remenbered a local scrapyard had a set of the same alloys with tyres for sale so that wouldn't be a problem.

 

The main thing for us was that it was minging inside and out! It clearly hadn't been cleaned in ages so needed sorting asap plus it smelt of dog. But on the plus side it wasn't due a cambelt for another 20,000 and had a oil change and some front bushes changed for the last Mot. It started ok, clutch felt fine and everything we tried seamed to work fine.

 

We couldn't test drive it because it had no insurance on it so couldn't test drive it further than the driveway then the guy said as I know you dad if you want it just pay me half now and half after your holiday.

 

So this seamed like a win win situation. Holiday car sorted for little monies, get it cleaned up and buy the set of used wheel and tyres for the scrappy. An with the money saved from only paying half up front could be used towards are Holiday fund.

 

Job done. So we agreed to pick it up that weekend, I went an picked up the secondhand alloys with Tyres for £100 and my brother sorted out the insurance an Tax.

 

Went down with the alloys and swapped them over on the drive. At this point we made an interesting discovery. He'd blew up the tyres before we came and the nearside tyre which was one that was going to changed anyway was clearly hissing air as I jacked it up. Turned out the rim was bent on the inside about 4 inches across.

 

So glad we brought those secondhand wheels with us. So with the 'new' wheels fitted he then told us the tailgate realase button had stopped working and that he was just using the rear window hatch instead! But if you opened it and used a small blade you could pop the tailgate open from the latch. Great another job to add to the list.

 

1st stop was the nearest carwash to get the worse of the grime off it before we tackled the rest. The lads there found it highly amusing that I used a flat blade screwdriver to open the tailgate so they could vac it. Anyway 15 minutes later it looked alot better so we nipped off to a local supermarket before getting some diesel.

 

Locked the Laguna and came back 10 minutes later. Pressed the key to unlock it and wtf? Nothing. Tried the doors all locked except the Drivers door it opened thankfully but the Alarm went off. Oh dear.

 

If wanna here more then I can write another depressing installment in due course.

 

[purplebargeken]

Moar! Moar!

[cort16]

of course

[bigstraight6]

More! I'm enjoying theses tales of Laguna 2 horror!

[Slartibartfast]

Yes, keep it coming. I like the look of these cars so more tales of their maladies are very welcome. Keeps me from buying one.

[Cavcraft]

Want to hear more? There'll be a bloody queue a few miles long shortly, tell us more! 

[panhard65]

This needs more pictures. The Laguna 2 is a dreadful car but there is a chance it could be reliable. I took mine to the south of France a few years ago and nothing bad happened

I think it is long dead by now though

[Timewaster]

How the hell did such a once respected manufacturer of dependable cars turn out such a steaming pile of crap?

[R9UKE]

Nothing I enjoy reading more than tales of modern Renault woe. I agree we need pictures or we'll all just start posting our own Laguna IIs

 

[D Spares & Tyres]

I bought one similar to that, a very tidy example

 

First time I used it, went shopping and filled boot up. Got home, boot refused to open, some kind of electrical fault.....

 

Next time I used it a spring broke and poked into a tyre

 

Fuck that, I took engine and box out and got more for them than I paid for the car ( DCI with 6 speed box much sort after for Trafic / Vivaro vans )

 

Shame it drove lovely

[Roverageous]

The estates really do look lovely. It's one of those cars that I really want to be good.

 

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[DVee8]

I drove into the works car park on friday morning,it is blocked by a mates 55 plate dci estate with it's bonnet up getting a jump start from a scenic.

 

The car has had no end of problems lately.Both front windows a chocked closed with wood,it locks/unlocks at will.A low wall jumped out and attacked the rear quarter and bumper. He has a 104 mile round trip to work that he does a mac speed,but will he part with it will he fook.

[Burnside]

Right then I hear the calls people. The Shite is strong with this one!

 

I haven't got any decent photos of it yet, but weather permitting I'll try and get some of it tomorrow while my brother most likely swears at it trying to fix somthing else on the problem list.

 

By all means if anyone got photo's and more stories of there Laguna II's post them up.

 

Right then I left you at a Supermaket carpark with the Alarm going off.

 

Well after 5 minutes it became apparent that,

 

A. The unlock button doesn't work on the only Card we have for the car.

 

B. Pressing the lock Button only locks 3 doors and the tailgate anyway so the Drivers door always unlocked weather you like it or not.

 

On the plus side getting in and starting it up shuts up the bloody Alarm.

 

So not only did we now have a car that has a Tailgate that doesn't open correctly making loading it a complete pita. We have a car which doesn't lock the drivers door either but sets the alarm off everytime you do lock it. Great.

 

So we reluctantly put £20 of Diesel in it and headed off home with a sinking feeling about what we just brought stopping on the way to pick up are Fiorino van.

 

We thought that the Renault had dished out it worse but no it was just warming up as in the coming days it became obvious that all was not well with with in the handling department. That being that the rear end had a mind of its own. It seamed vague and there was a knocking underneath too.

 

We thought rather naively that maybe the secondhand tyres being budgets were to blame as checking the wheel bearings for play showed they were ok and the springs and bushes looked fine.

The knocking could be down to just a lose exhaust shield or tired exhaust mount.

 

During this time more faults appeared in that now we only had the glass hatch to access the rear load space it then decided it rather stay open and not latch at all. FFS  My brother in a rage at this point repeatedly slammed it till it finally shut. Turns out that the rear wiper doesn't work either which weirdly being a Renault operates the locking mechanism for the glass hatch. Pressing the button for the hatch while shutting the thing two or three times seams to get it latched.

 

Less annoying was that the rear reverse lights didn't work and handly some idiot had tried at some point to fit a amber bulb to the offside rear indicator when it doesn't need one and the amber bulb had some how got broke off and fell inside the light too.

 

Still we pressed on trying somewhat reluctantly now to get it ready for are Holiday by doing some more cleaning because that was going to help right?

[robinmasters]

Nothing I enjoy reading more than tales of modern Renault woe. I agree we need pictures or we'll all just start posting our own Laguna IIs

Well, if you insist...

 

[hairnet]

luke - yer a special case

 

burnside - mental

[wuvvum]

I bought a Laguna II DCI Tourer.  It was a lovely car to drive - quick, economical, handled well.  For six days.  Then the camshaft seized.

[RobT]

I've been in France since Thursday and am yet to see a Laguna II in its homeland. Seen shit loads of Twingo Is though which is nice.

[D Spares & Tyres]

Thats because they dont actually sell them in France

 

They are a uk only car, they sell them to the UK to piss us off

 

Age old rivalry you see

 

Spiteful bastards

[beko1987]

Put a back seat down? Boot problems sold, and the perfect anti theft solution!

[Vince70]

Here's our old one.. Note that it's stuck on my drive as it was doing the typical Renault thing of not being a form of transport for about 11months out of a year and then if it did run it would go into safe mode once it warmed up.

 

Ours was high mileage though as it nearly made it to 40000 miles miles..

I did manage to get it running again though for nearly 30 minutes without something breaking on it once but I don't know if that's a world record in Laguna II reliability but when I went to pull away the front springs snapped and one of them went through the tyre.

 

But be careful and don't drive into any potholes if your can help it as the alloys are also known to be made of Brie.

 

I don't think Renault really got it wrong though as the marketing men didn't do their homework and asked the wrong people what they wanted in a car.

 

It's a shame that everyone they asked was either a clown at the Moscow state circus or Billy smarts and all them asked for an exploding car with lots of bright coloured lights and the safe mode had been built in so the car couldn't go over 30mph while doing its circuit of the ring.

 

Ours was a 2 litre petrol which supposedly is more reliable than a diesel version but I can't see how any car could ever be more unreliable.

 

It was traded in for a scrap 15 year old fiesta at 5 years old and I saw the same car on a dealer forecourt priced at £2400 for 2/3 years and it never moved till the dealership went under when it was most probably crushed with any luck.

[Burnside]

luke - yer a special case

 

burnside - mental

 

Thanks recognition at last!

 

I bought a Laguna II DCI Tourer.  It was a lovely car to drive - quick, economical, handled well.  For six days.  Then the camshaft seized.

 

I think we prefered the Alfa 156 V6 he had for barely a hour before it overheated, least everything else worked and to be honest in hindsight would likely to have been less trouble. An reading about yours I really hope none of that happens after the money we spent but there again. It is a Laguna II so should I expect anything less?

 

 

Put a back seat down? Boot problems sold, and the perfect anti theft solution!

 

Yep that method works well beko1987 I write up later about more on the tailgate wow and the other joys as got some tlc to perform on are Fiorino hopefully 1st.

 

There somebody locally who has a identical Laguna to ours and he fitted a big padlock throught the tailgate and bumper! I haven't seen it myself but if I do I'll get a photo up.  

[HH-R]

Some cars have an undeserved bad rep, seems these don't have a bad enough rep!

[R9UKE]

Keep this thread coming, I love hearing all of this.

 

My love affair with the Laguna II started in 2010 when at 19 years old, I bought this beautiful Bottle Green 1.8 Privilège on a 51 plate.

 

 

I had just delivered a Vel Satis to my aunt in Birmingham and needed wheels to get home. Visited a local independent dealer and this was sat on the forecourt. He promised and MOT and we did the deal at £900.

 

He gave me a call and said it had failed the MOT miserable but give him two days and it will be sorted. Looking at the failure list and stuff he put right, I got my money's worth.

 

A few days of blasting around Birmingham on that super soft velour/leather and I had every confidence in the 5 hour drive up to Cairnryan to get back to Belfast.

 

Pulled out of the services in Cumbria and the voice tells me than the ABS is faulty but normal braking system is in operation. That, thankfully, was all, and it got me home and sold for a profit. Saw it in a scrap yard a few years back, so it's sadly dead.

 

I have bought and sold a few over the years for profit and never had anyone come back to complain. Saying that, they are difficult buggers to shift in the first place.

 

The 1.6 16v is dead beyond belief. And with being so underpowered, I found the fuel consumption worse than the V6. There were three 2.0 petrols available, the 16v, the turbo and the infamous IDE - this was probably the worst petrol engine Renault have put into a car in recent history.

 

In 2011 I picked up my first V6 wagon.

 

 

This car spectacularly cracked it's exhaust at the manifold and is long dead. Bloody gorgeous looking thing though.

 

In 2013, I needed another car to get home from the mainland and saw this 52 plate V6 Dynamique on eBay.

 

 

I offered £500 and headed to Manchester expecting nothing more than a tired old Laguna. It turned out to be showroom fresh. The tyre pressure sensors worked, the electric windows worked, both key cards were fully functional. It blasted up north, absolutely loved the Scottish roads at 120mph and averaged 38mpg over 300 miles. What followed was a year of completely uneventful Laguna II Ownership. It blasted around embarrassing everyone after blending into the background thanks to its lowly trim level and n/a silver paintwork. Only clue as to what an animal it was....

 

 

One of the best cars I ever owned. Sadly I sold it for a profit (being greedy) and regretted it the day after. You can imagine then what happened when it appeared on Gumtree a few months back.

 

 

Yup, back in the clan. The two more owners in between have been just as good to it, it's even had a belt change.

 

Now I'm after a V6 Initiale in Bottle Green with that hideous tan interior to sit with the Dynamique.

 

 

I'm probably really pushing it with his statement, but in owning at least ten of them over the past few years, my biggest failure has been an ABS sensor.

 

HV52 AOG is going to explode tomorrow, isn't it!?

[jonathan_dyane]

Fuck that tan interior is Caramactastic!

 

My Laguna want is running high...

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Whats the deal with the IDE, how come its so shit??

[Lord Sterling]

Bah, try again -:

 

Lol, bit if a dark horse aren't ya Burnz, shite-ing on the quiet. More pics and updates please!

 

I think the newest car I've ever owned is a 1997 R-reg Sterling.

 

This needs more pictures. The Laguna 2 is a dreadful car but there is a chance it could be reliable. I took mine to the south of France a few years ago and nothing bad happened

I think it is long dead by now though

Yep, not taxed since 2014.

 

Here's our old one..

Not taxed or MOTd since 2012.

[R9UKE]

There's a mad blue as well!

 

 

The IDE was designed to give high performance with brilliant efficiency. The fuel injection rails and pressure regulator operated at very high pressure and the components and materials weren't up to the job. They failed on almost a monthly basis and the parts became impossible to get from Renault even before the warranty was out. They'd cut out, run lumpy or completely fail to proceed. Very closely related to the equal disaster that was the Citroen HPi and Mitsubishi GDi. Same principle, same points of failure.

 

Very few still exist and it's a miracle if you do see one that's made it to this age.

[jonathan_dyane]

Oof, those blue seats are bloody lovely!

[Burnside]

Thanks everyone for sharing their stories, agree with R9UKE keep posting then it makes for interesting reading for sure!

 

Well to get back to our Laguna we tackled the interior with various cleaners as the cloth on the centre of all the seats and doorcards were stained with what I hope was just dirt. The cheap interior foam did a nice job. The part leather on the seats got the same treatment too and we added two magic trees to help mask the doggy smell.  

 

After a few hours it finally looked and smelt less doggy and was quite nice to be in. We cleaned up the alloys so they looked alot better with whatever wheel acid we had left and a wheel brush. All the Alloys including the secondhand wheels have kerb rash an some yellowing in a few corners but are fine for now.

 

Actually some of the secondhand wheels have the tyre pressure monitors which are car thankfully doesn't.

 

During the interior cleaning a few pieces of trim made a bid for freedom. 1st off the Drivers side of dashboard has a cover for the Fusebox. It fell off as someone had previously broke it and had reattached it with some Blu Tak. Nice. Second was another access cover for the rear brake light that had been glued at least twice before as someone has managed to break the tabs off the tailgate iteslf being plastic so thats likely it staying off forever.

 

We also discovered the CD player well doesn't all. It says eject error but least the radio works.

 

So we moved on to the bodywork and discovered the drivers mirror had some electrical tape to hide a chunk missing from it and the rear bumper had some nice modding with a big split down one side which we already knew about. Turns out that was there due to my Dads mate spinning it out and putting it in a ditch! Oh great. The sparewheel well also bares a scar to match too.  

 

We finshed it off with a quick polish and a double check of the fluids and tyre pressures and with that, all thats left to do was to get ourselves ready for holiday. Would it make it? Or for that matter get us back?

 

Find out next time.

[oldcars]

This needs more pictures. The Laguna 2 is a dreadful car but there is a chance it could be reliable. I took mine to the south of France a few years ago and nothing bad happened

france 2010 566.jpg

I think it is long dead by now though

Test expired on it August 14 and the miles were 160000