2003 Renault Espace IV - 7/1 MOT'd again, lovely

[r.welfare]

Dunno how the Scenic's engine bay is laid out but on the Espace the battery is behind the nearside headlight. Under the front right corner (so directly behind the headlight) are two groups of wires emerging from conduit, each group numbering a dozen or so, going into two plugs mounted on the inner wing. It was in that area I found my wire where the brown insulation had turned a bright green...

[r.welfare]

Six weeks and 3000 miles after purchase, we have our first failure to proceed! Eagle-eyed readers may have noted I posted something in this regard in the Grumpy thread, which I deleted lest I caused any bother between my garage and their landlord. Happily this is not the case.

 

To recap - my wife had been using the car for the last 3 weeks due to extensive engine surgery on her modern. The air con regas was holding up well in the scorching temps but the condenser has a very slight leak.

 

My wife complained the auto handbrake did not release occasionally, together with a lack of power when pulling away from rest, which was found to be an inability to move the gear lever far enough to the left to get 1st or 2nd. A root around the cables where they meet the 'box found a broken plastic clip, which once removed restored all the gears. I'm not sure whether the clutch has suffered in the interim...

 

In the last couple of miles of her last drive on Saturday the car flashed up "Battery Charge Fault" followed shortly afterwards by "STOP" - I do love the warning messages on French dashboards, don't you? Sensibly she parked up and called me. The car started and idled fine for me so I decided to drive it home. I never made it...

 

After a mile I too got both warning messages, followed by a loss of PAS. I managed to wrestle it into a nearby community centre car park and popped the bonnet. When I opened it there was a huge amount of smoke, crackling and a "pop" as the aux belt snapped. The smoke was thick enough that I called the Fire Brigade; I couldn't see any flames but I was worried it was going to ignite. Thankfully they were very good about it.

 

A recovery man arrived (aside: have AutoAid gone to shit recently? That's twice in six weeks I've called, this time with the policy number to hand, and both times they've not found my details and have given me a "courtesy" recovery) and diagnosed a breakup of the rubber damper in the crank pulley. Briefly running the motor showed the pulley oscillating like the wheels of a clown car! I assume that this caused the belt to slip and eventually melt to snapping point.

 

So the car is currently awaiting a new pulley (I have gone genuine because apparently there have been something like seven redesigns!) and an aux belt kit, £270 inc VAT plus labour. I also managed to score a Magneti Marelli air con condenser for £25 in the great Amazon car parts sell off so have asked them to fit that too.

[RayMK]

I remain thankful that I've never owned a vehicle with a pulley damper (as far as I know!).  They seem to be troublesome things.  Let's hope that design iteration No.7 is an improvement. After a moderate kick in the wallet your faith in Frenchness should return.

[r.welfare]

The pulley and aux belt are on and sorted, however the radiator is leaking gently out of the corners and the fins have collapsed (I suppose fair enough for 13 years and 100k miles) so that's another £90 for a Nissens job. 

 

The kicker is the melting/snapped aux belt has taken out the lower timing cover which is on 10+ day back order from Renault (and £50), so I've pinged out some emails to eBay breakers.  If I can't get one the garage say they'll have a go at fashioning something up.

[r.welfare]

It gets worse. Cambelt is apparently melted as well - although, on the bright side, at least it didn't let go when the recovery bloke turned it over to check the pulley wobble. Glad I asked about it given the lower timing belt cover melted, so hopefully will not be charged extra labour for taking the newly fitted aux belt and pulley off again...

 

So that needs doing along with the dephaser pulley that controls the variable valve timing. You can get genuine kits (aftermarket only on the cambelt itself) with a water pump for £230 delivered from Poland within 2 days, so in for a penny...

 

Breakers drew a blank on the timing belt cover so that's on order now.

 

They've also told me I owe them £1670 for the engine surgery on my wife's car, so I suspect I wil owe them £2.5k with this one as well. Jesus Christ. It should drive like bloody new when it's back, but suddenly my £550 Espace has become a £1500 Espace (given it stood me at £700 before the work with service parts, a/c regas and other consumables) which begins to look like particularly poor value given the cosmetics. Still - such is life.

[Lacquer Peel]

Poor man's Mazda MPV. Enjoyable thread nonetheless, I think these Espaces look great inside and out.

[dollywobbler]

Jeepers. I'm not feeling the need to own a Renault right now.

[r.welfare]

Poor man's Mazda MPV.

Never were truer words spoken; incidentally the new owner of the Mazda appears to have got a new MOT with zero spend (apart from, I assume, the litre of oil required every couple of hundred miles).

 

The Espace engine (when it runs) doesn't drink oil, nor is it rusty, so it's these little victories I cling on to.

[Split_Pin]

Feeling your pain on this one! The dashboard makes it worthwhile though!

[SiC]

Bottom cam cover is not the same part as on other Renault 2l? (Silly question, it's a Renault, they rare have part sharing between models...)

 

Very lucky you didn't take out the cambelt completely. Usually a aux belt failure on these is game over for the engine!

[r.welfare]

Dunno, I assume the lower cam cover is the same but it's on back order at Renault so I guess they are building up enough demand to get their supplier to tool up.

 

I agree it was lucky not to completely rinse the engine. I am an idiot and like the car, so the belt kit, dephaser and water pump have been ordered from Poland. Hopefully the cost per mile will come down to a sensible level after a bit of use, I think we will be up around the 40p/mile level (not including purchase price) when all the work is done.

[Kiltox]

This is a stark reminder that I need to get the cambelt and aux belt done on my Trafic 

[r.welfare]

I've now been driving it for three weeks and 1000 miles or so since the repairs and so I can reflect a little more on it.

• I still like the way it looks, inside and out
• The massive plastic dashboard creaks and rattles a lot, despite lots of evidence of attempts to stop it happening by Renault (rubber and foam in the joins etc)
• I now have more faith in it after taking 4.5 hours to get to that there London (a 50 mile journey) the weekend before last, as I was caught up in the jam due to closure of the M4 between J4A and J4 in which (I think) a Crystal Palace footballer was airlifted.  I was waiting for overheating/imminent explosion but it never came.  The a/c kept us all cool as well
• Despite seemingly being happy with it before, I'm now struggling to find a comfortable driving position - the articulation of my left leg on the clutch being the main problem, but also getting enough lumbar support in my lower back.  I think I was spoiled by the BMW (which is almost as a good as a Peugeot 405)
• The space utilisation isn't as a good as I expected really.  The front row sit quite far back due to the windscreen rake, and the legroom in rows 2 and 3 is hampered by the lack of footroom under the 'modular' seats.  Basically if you want to carry anything other than a handful of shopping bags you need to take the rear seats out - folding them up doesn't really give you any more space, as they are almost as deep folded up as the length of the squab
• Now on-song, the engine is very smooth but slow; you can only make 'spirited' progress if you wring it's neck.  Not sure if this is just how it is, whether the 10W40 oil I am using (which the manual says is OK but 5W30 preferred) makes a difference to the dephaser, or something else
• As such the economy isn't all that great either - the last two fillups have given 26/27mpg
• The brakes are a bit rubbish - they work, all right, but there's very little feel in the pedal and you need to push it quite a way to get significant retardation.  Pads look OK but I have new front calipers and a master cylinder (Amazon cheapies).  Wonder if a fluid change is the best start

So the conclusion is you can't beat the system.  Let's see, now I have sunk a few quid into it, how long/far I can go before the next FTP.

 

Oh, and I've found my first electrical fault.  The locking button on the keycard doesn't work (the microswitch has fallen off the PCB and you can hear it rattling around inside, so I have sent it off for repair), so the procedure for locking is to open a front door, hold down the lock button on the overhead console for 5 seconds, then exit and close the door when you hear the solenoids operate.  The other day I went out to the (supposedly) locked car and inadvertently pulled the passenger door handle.  Stone me, the car opened (and unlocked all the other doors too)!  I can't see anything obviously wrong with the wiring inside the door, and the key won't lock that door either (the key doesn't seem to twist around enough).  Therefore I'm waiting to see if the keycard repair makes a difference...

[SiC]

You sure you don't have handsfree door unlocking?

I.e. You only need to be in proximity to lock & unlock.

 

2 main systems with this age Renault. Megane you put hand on handle to unlock, and then press the button on the handle to lock. Laguna you put hand on handle to unlock, and walk away to lock (once the card is out of range). Iirc the espace shares most of its electrics with the Laguna, so could be the same as that.

 

Another way to test is to see if it starts without the key card in the ignition.

 

If you have got it, then it means a lot less wear on that key card! (I.e. no buttons to push)

[r.welfare]

Definitely not hands free. This is the base model. What I find frustrating is there is no provision to lock each door manually inside.

 

I'm reminded of when Renault used the slogan "Renault Build A Better Car", someone wrote into Autocar asking when they might sell it to the public...

[Spottedlaurel]

Blimey, only just caught up with happenings on this thing. Your patience is admirable.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Interesting what you say about the seats R_Wolfhair. I have now done about 9000 miles in my Gooner and when I jump in it I am still impressed with the general comfiness and driving position. However, I have been getting a lot of back pain lately (I was fuggin crippled last weekend) and I have a suspicion it’s something to do with its seats. I think the seats feel superficially comfortable, but even with the lumbar support cranked up to the max, do not give enough lower back support… It’s a problem which you do not tend to notice during an hours driving or whatever but has a cumulative effect longer-term. I noticed after half an hour driving that Rover 623 that my back felt much better supported then usual and I was able to leap in and out of it like the fit-as-a-fiddle athletic wonder boy I continue to misguidedly believe myself to be.

[r.welfare]

I'm going to sit and read the manual (360 page PDF!) to work out all the seat controls, then play with it some more. Failing that I might get a big bit of foam to shove behind me when driving.

 

SL: I should have spotted the wobbly crank pulley early on then the outlay would have only been about £250 for a new aux belt kit, fitted. I ultimately paid the money for fixing it because I am a bit bloody minded but also want to keep it for at least two or three years. I think the car suffers from being too clever by half (it can't have been cheap to make, the monocoque, rear wings and roof are steel but the doors and bonnet are aluminium and the front wings GRP) which means it needs to be scrupulously maintained, which most MPVs are not when no longer in the first flush of youth. If you see an underbonnet photo of one of these on eBay or Autotrader, 9 times out of 10 you'll see a filthy black pollen filter on display - and it takes all of 60 seconds and less than £10 to change.

 

I might be making excuses for it so it will be interesting to see how it responds to 6k oil changes etc. The Mazda I had before really spoiled me with its reliability but the damage (oil burning) had been done. I could have spent less than the Espace repair getting the engine rebuilt but then there was the unobtainable exhaust downpipe blow, rust taking hold etc. The Renault is better rust proofed and supported by the aftermarket at least.

[SiC]

Not noticed a problem with my Gooner seats, apart from they don't have much lateral holding. So you end up sliding about on the seat in corners - which is most annoying for my wife, as she then tells me off for cornering too hard! Or maybe we're just not fat enough for them?!

 

Those seats are full electrical (well the lumbar support is manual), maybe they're slightly different? I don't have the lumbar on max either, as I found that too uncomfortable.

[r.welfare]

Rolled over 100k earlier tonight which got me thinking it was time for an update.  Since the expensive unpleasantness a couple of months ago the 2,500 miles that have followed have been trouble-free, save for struggling to get my left leg comfortable (moving the seat back further than I would normally do has sorted that one) and also finding it difficult to work out the width of the car. 

 

Bit worried I'm sounding like my mum on the latter point but because the dashboard is about 4ft deep and the nose is tapered like Concorde's I've ended up bashing a couple of those 6'6" width restrictors that look like big bells.  This had the effect of putting the tracking out and feathering the outer edges of the front tyres so I've had it reset today.  I think the tyres are salvageable which is a good job given the size (225 60 16) seems to be disproportionately expensive compared to the 215 65 16's on my wife's car.

 

The only other thing of note was after four months of ownership I suddenly realised I didn't see any airbag or ABS lights flash on and off when the ignition is turned on.  Top tip here - always look at your handbook!  A quick squint at the instrument panel showed the horrible truth:

 

 

Yep, not one but two pieces of electrical tape.  The upper one covering the "SERVICE" light and the lower one covering the airbag, ABS and traction control lights.  Whoever did it thought carefully about the parallax effect from the driver's seat - in the photo it looks like half the right-hand indicator tell-tale is covered, but it wasn't.  In retrospect, however, I realise the upper piece of tape was obscuring the bottom quarter of the sidelight and dipped-beam telltales.

 

The upper dashboard is fairly easy to take apart (missing screws from Billy Bodger's tape escapade helping me) and, once the tape was removed, it turns out that all warning lights operate as intended.  I can only assume that at some point in the car's past, an issue caused certain lights to come on that a previous owner decided to 'solve' temporarily, then the issue was solved properly but the tape was not removed...

 

Fingers crossed that when the MOT comes round in February I don't need to put the tape back.

[r.welfare]

As you may have seen in the GOM thread I had some fun with this today. Reversing into a space at a central Reading multi-storey, I heard a loud 'clunk' from the front and suddenly found that the car would not go where it was pointed. Pulling forwards and then trying to go backwards again, it felt like the car was trying (and failing) to mount a high kerb.

 

Getting out, here's what the offside front wheel looked like:

 

 

But the nearside looked like this:

 

 

Oh dear. Only the offside responded to steering input.

 

I called AutoAid, who amazingly recognised my membership number this time, and a nice man from Ravenscroft in Fleet appeared quickly. He diagnosed the inner tie rod had pulled out of the rack, and it looked like it was cross-threaded. He fished out a skateboard so the car could be pulled out on a rope:

 

 

Thankfully there was enough headroom for the Transit. Once it was through the exit barrier it was winched onto a flatbed and I did the 'trip of shame' to my local garage. That's the third time in the last five months one of our cars has arrived there on a flatbed (the second time for this one).

 

Thankfully they were able to get it up on a ramp straight away, replace both tie rods and track rod ends, repair the rack thread, and then sort the tracking again so I was able to pick it up this evening.

 

They'd never seen anything like it and thought I was a very lucky boy indeed. It's not possible to prove, but they did wonder if the previous tracking adjustment a month ago (see above entry) may have caused or accelerated the issue. On the drive back the car does seem to drive a lot better with much less corrective steering input required; before it felt like the front dampers were past their best, and I did wonder if the rear beam was bent (there's nowhere to jack the car except the jacking points which leaves you nowhere to put axle stands - the workshop manual states dire warnings) so I wonder if this has been building up for a while and causing 'bump steer' issues. Time will tell. The front tyres, especially the nearside, are badly feathered on the outside edges (less than 20% of the tread width thankfully) so will also be interesting to see if that doesn't get any worse. At least I am getting better at judging the width and no longer clouting width restrictors.

 

Anyway, I've now had the car 5 months and covered 5,500 miles, so thought it worth a Statto session. I have spent:

 

- £1,814 on servicing and repair (£75 on various cosmetics, £60 on two lots of tracking, £42 on service parts, £360 on the tie rods/track rods etc, and £1,250 on the monster cambelt/alt belt/dephaser/tensioners/radiator/air con condenser job)

- £260 on insurance (1 year, fully comp - sounds overkill but not much more than TPFT and that massive windscreen is covered...)

- £295 road fund licence

 

Add in fuel at an average of 28.7mpg and that's a total of 61.1p per mile, ignoring depreciation.

 

That's daft really, but my plan is to persevere with it as mechanically I'd hope there's not much left to go wrong* and therefore I'd expect the maintenance element of the cost per mile to only go downwards. Hopeless optimism? Probably.

 

I've booked it in for its MOT on 7 January. I do hope it will not fail to proceed before then.

 

Verdict: when it's working well it is very nice. But would not buy another.

[Anthony]

Crikey, they're some scary numbers considering the mileage covered and time owned

 

I take it that the bulk of those repair bills are labour rather than parts?

 

I can't help but admire your masochism continuing with this despite the apparent madness spending those sorts of figures keeping running a car that you bought for £550 odd.

[r.welfare]

Yes, labour is a significant proportion. £50 per hour plus VAT here in the Beautiful South. I've also used genuine parts where possible, on the assumption that the cheapest aftermarket stuff would be a false economy.

 

I'd like to think I would experience negative depreciation if I sold it tomorrow, but the underlying rules are:

 

- with Renaults the odds are stacked against you at beating the house;

- the car was evidently cheap for a reason - and cheap MPVs should be viewed with particular suspicion;

- always best to buy the best example you can afford, rather than being swayed by the purchase price.

[michael1703]

I thought I knew where that post was going when it felt odd in the parking space.

 

I had one that decided that it would activate its electric steering lock and I sold the bloody thing with it stuck on full lock to a trader.

 

Googling the steering lock malfunction brought up lots of posts on the internet about steering locks suddenly coming on, some of which happened at speed !

[r.welfare]

I don't much fancy the sound of that. They do seem very sensitive to battery voltage, plus the wiring is biodegradable shite.

[r.welfare]

In the words of the great philosopher Ice Cube, "Today was a good day".

 

 

The first MOT took place a week ago; all was going fairly swimmingly (my usual tester - stern but fair - commenting positively on the condition underneath) until the n/s front was jacked up and waggled.  The balljoint was absolutely knackered - that would explain the wandering steering then.  Extremely embarrassed about not investigating it myself, really.

 

So another £272.10 (for the MOT at full price, a complete nearside lower arm and labour) brings us to a repair and maintenance cost of just over 30p/mile - still harrowing.  I'm hopeful the next few months will be relatively cheap - but fate has a funny way of pissing on your chips, doesn't it?

[Cavcraft]

Don't want to sound patronising, but if people like yourself didn't spend money keeping cars like this on the road, we'd all lose out one way or the other. Fingers crossed it doesn't let you down again now, you deserve a lot of trouble free motoring for the efforts you've gone to with it. 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

splendid work and writings L_Werf, a great thread. Where else in the world can you read a blog about life with an elderly Espace? great stuff.

[Lacquer Peel]

You should take it on needless trips to get the cost per mile down.

 

Enjoyable thread.

[SiC]

Don't want to sound patronising, but if people like yourself didn't spend money keeping cars like this on the road, we'd all lose out one way or the other. Fingers crossed it doesn't let you down again now, you deserve a lot of trouble free motoring for the efforts you've gone to with it.

^^ this. If it wasn't for people like yourself, the AutoShite of 20yrs in the future would have no daring collection of elderly cars.

 

You're doing the preservation of early 2000 Renault's, with their daring designs proud!

 

Hope that makes you feel a bit better for the expediture so far.