Datsuncog's Heaps: Sept 2023 - Another Year's T-Met Exemption Certificate...

[Parky]

Yes! Love it. Always liked these and would still consider one as a WBOD although would probably rag it like Alain Menu

[The Moog]

Well done ... nice easy job in the end 

[Datsuncog]

On 11/15/2017 at 8:52 AM, The Moog said:

Well done ... nice easy job in the end 

I'm actually faintly surprised it was such an easy fix (not that I disbelieved the advice on here) - reading the experiences from other fault threads had led me to believe it would be something awkward, complex and virtually unheard of causing the misfire, or else just one of a series of interlinked problems. I had expected to be back on here this morning looking for further suggestions. But no - drove it down to the station this morning, and it's definitely running a damn sight better. So that's a result.

It's been a useful lesson in not using 'old-school diagnostics' as the last word in fault-finding on more modern cars (I can't help it, I know it's a 20 year old Renault but to me it looks and feels pretty modern compared to nearly everything else I've owned). I've been using my trusty Lucas HT tester lamp for 20 years, and up to now it's never lied to me... but then, I would normally check and adjust contact breakers, rotor arm etc to diagnose and remedy poor running.

Seems weird, but in twenty years of motoring this is my first-ever car problem where it's been solved by swapping one sealed black box for another identical black box (I've replaced coils before, but only out of convenience rather than going to the hassle of finding someone to re-wind the core), and it's slightly embarrassing to admit that I didn't know that half a coil pack could break! I'd thought it was all or nothing, and since No.1 cylinder was running happily and the tester lamp was flashing on cue at No.4, I'd dismissed the coil pack as culprit. Thankfully, you lot knew better.

I'm planning to nip over to visit my folks tonight, which is an hour-long round trip by motorway and A-roads, so I'll throw in the bottle of CatCleaner first and let it do its stuff.

[tooSavvy]

Well done ... nice easy job in the end

 

Ooof! Its the Journey, not the Destination m8

 

All $hiters have risked divorce/destitution, bleeding the rent money into the sand trying to 'fix' a mutt.

Only to discover the noise was nothing serious '.. in the end'.

 

Gold* advice on here, as ever

 

 

TS

[bramz7]

Those MK1 Laguna's are so nice. I reckon my next daily will be one of those, shame the 2.2 DT is rare now though.

[Datsuncog]

On 11/15/2017 at 10:24 AM, tooSavvy said:

Ooof! Its the Journey, not the Destination m8

All $hiters have risked divorce/destitution, bleeding the rent money into the sand trying to 'fix' a mutt.

Only to discover the noise was nothing serious '.. in the end'.

Gold* advice on here, as ever

TS

Heh, it's all true... I pulled various bits of engine apart on my other Laguna back in April trying to fix a non-starting issue - after trying various fault-finding flowcharts I'd convinced myself the starter was jammed and I needed to swap it for a recon unit.

After three days with no success, in exasperation I dragged out the (fairly new) battery - which I'd already tested at the full 12v with my multimeter and was showing green for good on the little round optical viewer window - and took it down to a local factor to get it tested. Of course, a cell had blown - but for some reason the usual telltale things like the headlights dimming right down when the key was turned didn't happen. New battery = starting absolutely fine.

I known I'm damn lucky that Mrs DC has no problem with my shite-habit, and quite likes that I don't go into a screaming meltdown over a scratched bumper. Although I think she'd like a few months without some species of non-runner dumped down the side of the house...

[Datsuncog]

On 11/15/2017 at 10:43 AM, bramz7 said:

Those MK1 Laguna's are so nice. I reckon my next daily will be one of those, shame the 2.2 DT is rare now though.

Now's definitely the time to buy.

They won't get any dearer, but I reckon that like the R21 and R18 before it, they'll simply vanish from the roads before very long. The AS Facebook page has had a few posts showing apparently sound early cars with MOT being weighed in simply because no-one seems to want them; one regular contributor was looking shot of his early estate that had provided honest reliable transport for several years - no interest, even at £100. I've never seen one for sale at more than £800, even for clearly cosseted top-spec V6 models.

Maybe it's the horror of the Laguna II that infected the whole model range, I dunno. But enjoy now while you can! DTs do seem to be rare - though I snapped a non-turbo dizzler Phase 1 the other week locally, which came as a surprise. So maybe there's one out there!

[bramz7]

There's a mint (and low mileage) M reg Laguna RT in a part of London I know well, I'm there in a few weeks, I'll leave a note.

The 90s Renault's I've had have always impressed me. Slightly questionable interior plastics aside, they've both run well.

[Datsuncog]

On 11/15/2017 at 11:50 AM, bramz7 said:

There's a mint (and low mileage) M reg Laguna RT in a part of London I know well, I'm there in a few weeks, I'll leave a note.

The 90s Renault's I've had have always impressed me. Slightly questionable interior plastics aside, they've both run well.

Definitely do that. The old lad who sold me the green one was all set to scrap it, but thought he'd give it a last chance on AutoTrader first as he felt a sentimental attachment to it. One of the admins on the Shite Cars For Sale FB page flagged it to me as it was only down the road, and I damn near bit his arm off for £325. If he'd figured it wasn't worth the hassle, or was less handy with a digital camera, I've no doubt it'd be on the slow boat to China about now, in a million little bits.

The interior on mine has worn fairly well, other than the driver's seat stitching, and I reckon the plastics generally feel good quality on the Laguna - miles better than the preceding generation of Renaults. A friend had a few R19s and they were nowhere near as nice inside, while the R5 - just no. Compared to the contemporary Vectra and Mondeo, the Lag dash's and seats still look pretty fresh. I love the drop-down flap over the stereo and DIN cubby, too.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Great stuff!!!! Nice work man.

[Vince70]

I had an early mint 2 litre RTi in the same colour which was an absolutely fantastic car (Volvo 4 pot I was told) which I bought off my father and it never put a foot wrong in the 4 years we owned it.

 

We only ever had one problem in that time and that was a dodgy wiring connector to the fuel pump which Renault made an adaptation kit for and it only cost about a couple of quid for the part and about 10 minutes to fix.

 

The shame of it was my father liked the car so much that he splashed out a few grand and bought a 4 year old IDE Laguna 2 thinking it would be as good but that was a completely different story.

 

The old mk1 was still going long after the Laguna 2 had ended up bridged and I should never of sold it was just that I fancied a change and wanted a ford cougar.

[Datsuncog]

On 11/15/2017 at 12:19 PM, Vince70 said:

I had an early mint 2 litre RTi in the same colour which was an absolutely fantastic car (Volvo 4 pot I was told) which I bought off my father and it never put a foot wrong in the 4 years we owned it.

We only ever had one problem in that time and that was a dodgy wiring connector to the fuel pump which Renault made an adaptation kit for and it only cost about a couple of quid for the part and about 10 minutes to fix.

The shame of it was my father liked the car so much that he splashed out a few grand and bought a 4 year old IDE Laguna 2 thinking it would be as good but that was a completely different story.

The old mk1 was still going long after the Laguna 2 had ended up bridged and I should never of sold it was just that I fancied a change and wanted a ford cougar.

Nice! That's good to hear... and there's no shame in changing a car after four years for a bit of variety, though these old buses do just seem to keep going.

I happened to have a green 2.0 RT until recently, though it was far from mint! Still running perfectly though (and started first time with a charged battery, after 18 months lying idle), only the bodywork was absolutely hanging. That bombproof engine may yet live on in a friend's R11 project car, though... didn't know it was a Volvo unit, that's interesting!

The fact that there seemed to be more Laguna 1s than Laguna 2s kicking about until fairly recently tells its own story... our work was flooded with tales from angry customers back in the early 2000s - I understand Renaults were Northern Ireland's top-selling marque in the late 90s, which rapidly went downhill when Laguna 2 and Megane 2 problems became widely known.

I'm going to put my fake psychic hat on here regarding your father's IDE and say... the spirits are giving me the words "fuel pressure regulator"..?

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I love reading about these Laguna IDE's, they really seem to a full-on post-millennium motor industry low point. Somehow its reassuring to know that car companies continue to employ humans who do still make a spectacular balls of things occasionally.

[Lacquer Peel]

I like the psuedo Germanic brands they give these cheap parts. Good work fixing it.

[Datsuncog]

On 11/15/2017 at 1:07 PM, Lacquer Peel said:

I like the psuedo Germanic brands they give these cheap parts. Good work fixing it.

It's like when Currys and Dixons started calling their own-brand hi-fi equipment Saisho and the like, to capture that aura of Japanese quality... mind you, they're still at it, but with Skandi overtones now. My kitchen DAB radio (from Currys) touts itself as a 'Sandstrøm'. But yeah... HAAS. Like Krupps. But not Sheng Dung. Definitely not Sheng Dung.

[Datsuncog]

On 11/15/2017 at 1:07 PM, Mr_Bo11ox said:

I love reading about these Laguna IDE's, they really seem to a full-on post-millennium motor industry low point. Somehow its reassuring to know that car companies continue to employ humans who do still make a spectacular balls of things occasionally.

Ah, I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in Renault board room meetings c.2003 when the terrible truth was coming to light... though I suspect it would have gone something along the lines of:

- M'sieur le Directeur, our customers are furious! All the Lagunas are coming back with terrible, terrible engine problems! We have no parts! We do not know how to fix them! Our reputation is in tatters! And we still have an airfield full of unsold Avantimes! What are we to do?

- **Gallic shrug**

- **pours glass of pastis**

- **disappears off for weekend in Biarritz with mistress**

 

[^^ other national sterotypes are available]

[dave j]

Glad it's fixed!

I just looked on eBay and can't find a single mk1 Laguna! My brother had one a few years ago and it drove brilliantly, it was a 2.0 rxe I think? Had some 3 spoke wheel trims!

[Datsuncog]

On 11/15/2017 at 1:46 PM, dave j said:

Glad it's fixed!

I just looked on eBay and can't find a single mk1 Laguna! My brother had one a few years ago and it drove brilliantly, it was a 2.0 rxe I think? Had some 3 spoke wheel trims!

Ooh... RXE were the premium spec'd models - did your brother's come with the voice synthesizer? Never seen 3-spoke trims on them, though! They really are lovely cars to drive; I took my first one on just as a cheap car to get me out of a hole, but I've still got it. Very underrated vehicles, and while I'm kinda shocked that there's none at all for sale on the Bay, it's consistent with their almost total disappearance from the roads over the past few years.

[r.welfare]

Didn't Citroen do a high pressure injection 2-litre petrol that was similarly shit? Anyway, kudos for fixing it, good lookers these - are the Phase 1s immune from the broken heater matrix issue? And is your RN a non-airbag model?

[Datsuncog]

Actually, hold off chaps - looks like the Phase 1 Laguna has now officially hit classic status.

KGF have one for sale.

And they're looking the thick end of two grand for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL_KDvU3tfc

Well, that's that then...

[Datsuncog]

On 11/15/2017 at 2:50 PM, r.welfare said:

Didn't Citroen do a high pressure injection 2-litre petrol that was similarly shit? Anyway, kudos for fixing it, good lookers these - are the Phase 1s immune from the broken heater matrix issue? And is your RN a non-airbag model?

Yeah, I really do like the styling and they're capable, comfortable vehicles - other than the coil pack going squiffy on the final leg home, I covered 1000 miles in her last weekend on everything from motorway to rutted mountain cart track.

Never had any bother with the heaters on any of mine - so possibly immune? Didn't know this was A Thing! Heh, that's something to start worrying about!

My silver RN is almost completely bASe - no airbag, no ABS (available as options, though). I've checked through the 1996 options list, and I think the only cost options on it from the factory are metallic paint and a green sunstrip along the top of the windscreen. It does have a tachometer and digital clock - but don't know if these were standard on UK spec RN models, though the handbook shows some as having no tach and an analogue clock in its place on the instrument cluster (as per this Dutch example). Never seen it on a UK example!

[Vince70]

Nice! That's good to hear... and there's no shame in changing a car after four years for a bit of variety, though these old buses do just seem to keep going.

 

I happened to have a green 2.0 RT until recently, though it was far from mint! Still running perfectly though (and started first time with a charged battery, after 18 months lying idle), only the bodywork was absolutely hanging. That bombproof engine may yet live on in a friend's R11 project car, though... didn't know it was a Volvo unit, that's interesting!

 

Double Laguna.jpg

 

The fact that there seemed to be more Laguna 1s than Laguna 2s kicking about until fairly recently tells its own story... our work was flooded with tales from angry customers back in the early 2000s - I understand Renaults were Northern Ireland's top-selling marque in the late 90s, which rapidly went downhill when Laguna 2 and Megane 2 problems became widely known.

 

I'm going to put my fake psychic hat on here regarding your father's IDE and say... the spirits are giving me the words "fuel pressure regulator"..?

Yes we went through two of those and bought the revised version in the end from Renault after a 6 month wait for the part but that went pop after about a couple of months, I found the only way to keep it running was by wrapping it in a cloth and pouring water over it to keep it cool but you couldn't do that when it was going along lol.

 

But it wasn't just that as every component wasn't nowhere near as well made as on the MK1 on the the Laguna 2 the suspension collapsed on the front the window regulators packed up and so did the heater also the rear suspension needed renewing and the wheels would buckle going over a cigarette packet I could go on and on.

 

The irony of it after the Laguna 2 had been scraped I saw my old Laguna RTi on a dealer forecourt for £600 and it still looked as good as new and had done well north of 100000 miles by then.

[oldcars]

Glad it's fixed!

I just looked on eBay and can't find a single mk1 Laguna! My brother had one a few years ago and it drove brilliantly, it was a 2.0 rxe I think? Had some 3 spoke wheel trims!

https://www.kgfclassiccars.co.uk/details.php?cid=771

 

Even these guys are selling them now!

[sierraman]

There was a buyers guide a few years back in Car Mechanics. I like them, much more reliable than people give them credit for due to the minefield that’s the Laguna 2.

[Datsuncog]

On 11/15/2017 at 3:43 PM, Vince70 said:

Yes we went through two of those and bought the revised version in the end from Renault after a 6 month wait for the part but that went pop after about a couple of months, I found the only way to keep it running was by wrapping it in a cloth and pouring water over it to keep it cool but you couldn't do that when it was going along lol.

But it wasn't just that as every component wasn't nowhere near as well made as on the MK1 on the the Laguna 2 the suspension collapsed on the front the window regulators packed up and so did the heater also the rear suspension needed renewing and the wheels would buckle going over a cigarette packet I could go on and on.

The irony of it after the Laguna 2 had been scraped I saw my old Laguna RTi on a dealer forecourt for £600 and it still looked as good as new and had done well north of 100000 miles by then.

Ah, the number of lifelong Renault owners I spoke to over the Halfords parts desk, faces red with anger and spittle flecking the corner of their mouths, waxing lyrical about how they'd never ever buy another car with a diamond badge after this shitshow with their new Laguna 2... the window regulators were a particular favourite, going down but not up again. Great fun in rainy old N.Ireland! Sounds like your dad's was sadly typical of the breed... but yeah, maybe if KGF and the like are now selling Laguna 1s, we could see a resurgence of appreciation for these beasts? Do you know whether your old RTi has survived?

[Vince70]

My Laguna was exactly the same as the KGF car down to the hubcaps.

I can’t remember the registration offhand and I’m not sure I’ve got any pictures of the old girl but my dad was the second owner when he bought it and it came from Russell’s in Eastbourne when it was new.

Also there was an one the same colour but 1 digit out that I would see out and about but without the spoiler.

[dave j]

Ooh... RXE were the premium spec'd models - did your brother's come with the voice synthesizer? Never seen 3-spoke trims, though! They really are lovely cars to drive; I took my first one on just as a cheap car to get me out of a hole, but I've still got it. Very underrated vehicles, and while I'm kinda shocked that there's none at all for sale on the Bay, it's consistent with their almost total disappearance from the roads over the past few years.

Yeah I used to love pushing the button to make it speak! They weren't standard trims but I haven't seen another set since!

[Patent]

As a youth my parents owned a 1996 RT Estate in 2.2 NA Diesel flavour. It came complete with rear facing seats in the boot á la Renault 21.

It wouldn't pull you out of bed but it did soldier on for 260k miles. Would love another with the same powerhouse

[bramz7]

Here is 'that Laguna' I mentioned earlier:

 

1995 Renault Laguna RT. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

Only 27k!!!!

 

Seems like this has now turned into an appreciation thread too. I'd like one to pair the 406, get the late 90s BTCC vibe going. 

[alcyonecorporation]

I had a part spesh DTi diesel estate Laguna I phase 2, which wasn't the full yellow bentines DCi. Partridge still has it. 
Both were common rail (I think). 

It was deathly slow but never gave less than 50 mpg, handled pretty well and could carry a fair bit. 
I dread to think how sluggish a 2.2 IDE must have been. 

Will always have a soft spot for Laguna Is. That I bought another after the world's most appalling V6 Monaco is a measure of how much I like them.