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2002 Laguna II - The Freebie Family Heirloom - No news is good news


SiC

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So yesterday night I decided to clean the throttle body. Irritatingly this resulted in having to remove most of the garage intake system to get to it. Most of this appears untouched from the factory. Thus I need to be careful of brittle plastics. Like this covering the coil pack wiring.
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Throttle body was pretty dirty. I wouldn't be surprised if I was the first to be here after it leaving the factory.
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The central locking issue appears to be that you need many presses to unlock the rear. I think it should be two presses but for some reason it took around six unlock presses before it started working properly. Now unlocks fine on two presses. Go figure.

This was found out after I had stripped the inside of the boot to get to the emergency release handle for the petrol cap.
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Sat nav screen is completely blank. I think it's unfortunately buggered from someone disconnecting a battery and not leaving time for it to shut down. Probably corrupted the flash. Looks a right faff to reprogram - not least from the lack of JTAG port on the board.
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Second hand units range from £25 to £70. £25 is the wrong model number, £70 is the same model number. Expensive almost certainly work, cheap 50:50 if it will talk together. I'll leave it for now as it has a few things on the more urgent list to be sorted. Just the blank sat nav screen is quite annoying.

Finally this is the emissions print out. Wasn't too tragic. High HC is probably from old fuel making it run rich, been sat around for a while and/or not being upto temperature when the test was initially done.
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  • 1 month later...

Pulled the beasty out this morning and put the Boxster away.
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Tyres weren't completely flat this time. However they are very badly flatspotted. Pumped the fronts up to the max motorway/towing pressure to try getting them to round off a bit. Going to have to bite the bullet and get the fronts at least replaced.

Put a second hand Sat Nav CD unit in
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Screen came alive but it wouldn't talk to the button control unit. The buttons just flashed on and off - apparently means incompatible. FFS

So pulled out the button unit. Couldn't find my radio keys, so used the next best* thing
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Got a replacement unit that apparently is a matching part code. Hope it works as this will start getting expensive.
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While I was in the glovebox I thought I should check the pollen filter.
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Almost full Northampton Renault Dealer service history on this car. FFS

Looking at the aux belt, I think it's going to need that changing soon as it's very cracked. Also I have no idea if/when the cambelt was done, so that'll have to be on the high priority list.

I'll give my local garage a call and see how much they want for all to be done. Both belts + tensioners + water pump. Probably leave the dephaser and take the risk on it (which I'll probably regret...)

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Started using the Laguna this week. This morning it struggled to start as I put a way too small battery in it. Upon starting it decided to stop reading the fuel level and the posh lady moaned there was no fuel. After a minute it decided it did want to start reading the fuel level again. 
 
Anyway went off into town as I need to go to work this morning. Afterwards I went off to get a few bits and pieces - including a new battery.
 
New battery fitted and it starts much better. Except on a drive the posh lady told me that my right brake light was faulty. Checking them and they were fine? Restarting the car cleared the warning.
 
Also found out today with this heavy rain that it has automatic wipers. However there is no way of adjusting the sensitivity of this? Usually I've known an adjuster. Did the early ones not have this? I know my wife had a 52 plate Clio II with auto wipers and that had adjustable sensitive. Maybe the factory fitted the wrong stalk on the Laguna...
 
Earlier this week I plugged in a second hand Satnav CD reader to try getting the screen alive again.
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This it did but the control button unit isn't compatible with it. Turns out you need to get an almost exact match part numbered pair. Go figure.
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Got one that some random internet post said was correct and fitted it. Now the satnav came alive fully and so I could use the radio
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Unfortunately the new CD unit wouldn't read the disc. Actually it didn't even spin the disc. Pulled the unit apart and swapped in the old units CD reader
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Now it just spits the disc out every time. Kinda given up trying to get the satnav bit working now. At least I have the radio, time and outside temperature back again.
 
While I was replacing the cd drive, I also replaced the pollen filter
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I think I'm going to have to replace the cambelt for sure. Don't like driving it with a aged belt and it's giving me anxiety when driving that it may snap suddenly. The cracked aux belt doesn't give confidence that the cambelt will be in sparkling condition.
 
No one can remember if the cambelt has ever been changed. Our best guess is no, as we think we didn't on the basis that if it snapped, it would have been a useful way to get my grandad to give up driving.
 
One final thing I've noticed is that the climate control has two modes. Fully minimum temperature on it gives cold. Any temperature above that gives full heat. I can hear the flaps moving and you can hear them going to the full extent on both sides. Pretty sure it's the cabin temperature sensor that is on the blink.
 
Tried cleaning it and removing any dust but it made no difference.
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Got to love early 2000 Reno...
 
 
#LagunaLife
 
 

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I imagine if I ever did try selling this, it would have the appeal of a Rover 45 CVT. :D

But it won't be sold, too much sentimental value! From the dents to the smell as you get in, I can't get rid of it. I do think I should get something more exciting like a 9-5 Aero, MX5 or a 172/182 but I can't ever bring myself to getting rid of this just yet. Not least, because it is slow and boring, it does calm me down driving.

I have to say that you really can tell when a car has been garaged all its life. The paint is still crisp and the plastic headlights don't have any yellowing at all on them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

On Monday this is booked in for some major fettling. Cambelt, aux belt, tensioners, water pump and thermostat. Part of my investment into this to make sure it lasts a long time. Always risky giving a Laguna too much attention though.

In the meantime, I decided to change the plugs today. Cheap enough and I have no idea when they were last done. Idle is a tad unstable too.

Bonnet up
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Tiny little engine cover off
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Coil plugs off. Plastic tube covering the wires is very brittle at this age
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Coils out
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Plugs out
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Look a decent colour. Gotta love fuel injection to keep things running sweet. We really do take it for granted nowadays
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Electrode is pretty worn though. Main dealer service history on this
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Coils are a known weak point around this age. They are original too (Week 26, 2002)
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Denso though
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Obviously being of Japanese manufacturer, they are of good quality. Sagem were the troublesome ones according to Renault
https://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5da2547c20c6f/4242A.pdf

Next up is the climate control. It seems to have two modes. Minimum temperature (16c indicated) gives full cold. One notch above (16.5c) it gives full hot. The engine coolant thermostat is broken at the moment so that's bareable. However once Mondays work is done, it's going to get very unpleasant. So I decided to have a look.

A common issue with these is either the exterior temperature sensor or the interior sensor. Exterior is fine as it's reading a realistic 11 celicus on the big screen. Interior I did some diagnosis.

It lives up behind the rear view mirror
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The blue bead is the temperature sensor and the white cylindrical object is a humidity sensor. There is a little fan behind which forces air over this


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Getting it apart required judicial force to prise the middle
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Which after some delicate bending, got it split
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Quite a simple circuit. Solder joints look good. Material coating is conformance coating, this prevents corrosion
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Checking the temperature sensor with a Multimeter gave sensible values. A common type is 10k ohms at 25c. Breathing over it brings the resistance down to around 7k. This corresponds to roughly 35c. Quite acceptable
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So I had a check of the climate control panel. Like most Renaults of this era, it's mostly held together with plastic tabs. Pulling the card reader out required no screws removed. Climate panel had two plastic to be gently bent and the panel pivoted out.

Top side looked good
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Bottom panel looked all good too
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Hmmmm


Some more Googling found that there is three temperature sensors in this system. Exterior, interior and a evaporator temperature sensor. Interesting!

Now I wouldn't have immediately thought the evaporator sensor would be a problem as it goes to these extremes with the Aircon off. Either way I thought I'd have a look.

The sensor lives in the passenger footwell behind a plastic kick panel. A twist and a pull was all it took to remove. Then the connector gently pulled back to disconnect.
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So did it do anything? You bet it did! With it disconnected, I can hear the mixer flaps progressively move now as I turn the temperature up. Running around the block seems to show it works properly now!

Only on a Renault can you properly fix electrical problems by disconnecting and removing things... :D

I'll probably get another one as when I've got the Aircon regassed, the system will need it to properly regulate the temperature. I believe the evaporator must never go below freezing point otherwise things don't work properly. So in cold weather especially, this sensor should stop that happening.

Probably be a dealer part if they still do it. They're getting of the age now that Renault is stopping parts support. eBay doesn't bring up much either, apart from a few international sellers or some manky and expensive UK breakers.

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I've a screen that displays the time, temperature and radio now. Need to find a working cd drive though. Now I've got a combo that lights up, I probably could try another cheap cd drive off eBay and fit it in. They all seem compatible electrically, just most seem to have kicked the bucket by now. Or maybe they need a good old fashioned lens cleaner cd put in. Can you still get those things?!

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  • 1 month later...

Oh dear oh dear oh no...

First an update.

The aux belt looked decidedly tired, so I took the decision to splash out on a cambelt, water pump and aux belt change. Four hundred squiggles at the local garage for that work. The garage showed me the belts after and the aux belt was nearly about to snap. Cambelt was noticeably aged too. Most likely original. I think my uncle deliberately never got it done for my grandad in the hope it would break and get him off the road. Dementia has got to him before that happened.
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The vibrations through the steering wheel were fixed by fitting new tyres. Old ones were cheap Chinese deathrings that were starting to crack up.
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Next up was going to the Renault dealer and buy an evaporator temperature sensor.
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This fixes the heating being stuck on full and also gets the Aircon working again. Unfortunately that's low on gas, so sounds quite horrible. Might just disconnect the pressure sensor for now and disable it completely from the climate control.

In case anyone comes across this thread from elsewhere, the evaporator sensor lives in the passenger footwell. Behind this panel
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Up here
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Now this brings us to today.

One problem this car had when it was under my Grandads ownership was it occasionally not starting. I cleaned up the crank sensor and also bent the pins out slightly. This fixed the problem. There is a known fault on this age Renault where the crank sensor appears to fail. Now they do fail but more often it actually is the connector. Renault released a new design connector repair kit to solve this. You can tell it as it's a blue connector rather than black.

I went to GSF car parts and ordered a new one. Unfortunately the crank sensor they supply is the wrong one for this model. The manual gearbox cars is what they supplied, while the automatic gearbox cars is the same sensor but has captive nuts welded on it. This allows the sensor to be installed the otherside. I guess the difference between a clutch flywheel and a torque converter flywheel setup.

Because of this, I decided to just bite the bullet by going to Renault and buying genuine. Off I trotted and £84 later I've got one on order to arrive on Saturday.

At this point traffic was getting heavy, so I made my way home. Not far, probably about 10-15 mins away.

Got to one of several roundabouts on the way back, accelerated over ... First gear ... secon... REVVVVV shit shit shit ... No where to pull over here .... THUMP ... We have a gear again phew.

Meh possibly just me rushing it a bit and being a bit hard on it. Set off again.

Quarter of mile later... Same thing. Drove it back in manual mode and it seems to behave itself for the rest.

BALLS

I'm just over £700 into this car now. Of course that crank sensor I've ordered is a non refundable special order too.

BALLS AGAIN

:(

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Oh arse indeed. Trouble with cars that were fragile when new is, they don't get any less fragile. 

If it helps ease the pain, dad's just had his Discovery's box rebuilt to the tune of £3700.

Actually that probably doesn't help ease the pain at all... 

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Retrieved the cap by kicking the tray until it came back out...

Had a good look under the bonnet and couldn't see any obvious oil leaks. I have noticed previously that it has deposited oil on the ground. Noticeable when it had been raining. Engine oil is spot on and had never moved, so definitely not that. However it was on the offside and the gearbox is on the nearside. I put the oil on the ground down to a previous oil change where a dealer probably sucked out the dipstick tube and the filter oil spilling on the undertray when the filter was removed. As the car lived in a level floored garage and barely used since the oil change, there would have been no rain to wash it out.

There has been a ongoing gearbox fault that no garage or gearbox specialist could diagnose. However that's likely just because most places in the UK have zero idea on auto gearboxes. The fault used to be that the gearbox would throw up the warning light and go into limp home mode (3rd gear and reverse only). My suspicion it was one of two common faults - line oil pressure or shifter position switch.

Took it out for a drive again a minute and of course it was as good as gold...

I put it down to:
- Low oil level and driving it hard sucks all the oil up from the bottom and starving it.
- Shifter position switch. Manual mode may help allowing to tell this. When drive was lost, while scanning the dash I didn't notice it out of drive though. Maybe I was resting my arm on the shifter without realising and put pressure on it?
- Just being French. Seems a bit unlikely if it happened twice shortly after each other though.

It has spooked me though. These sort of sudden FTP failures is what originally caused the MGB to fall out of fashion with me...

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Oh arse indeed. Trouble with cars that were fragile when new is, they don't get any less fragile. 
If it helps ease the pain, dad's just had his Discovery's box rebuilt to the tune of £3700.
Actually that probably doesn't help ease the pain at all... 
This one is on a very short leash. I'd much rather be spending any money repairing this, on getting the Boxster repaired sooner and using that as the weekend driver instead.

Part of the problem with this car with me is that it does not serve a purpose. My wife uses the A4 as her daily. I daily using the bus or cycling. Weekends we tend to go quite far and the A4 is better for that sort of thing. Quicker, more economical and nicer place to be.

It would make much more sense for me to get rid of this and get something fun. Like a Clio 182. However emotional attachment...
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Your Laguna sounds a lot like my Rover, grandfather owned, garage mollycoddled etc. I'm not exactly rolling in cash, and, fortunately, my 800 is one of the few that seems to want to live. But when it does need a bit of special help, I'll definitely throw the necessary spondoolies at it. 

I'm also extremely lucky that it doesn't have to serve as my sole conveyance.  Ironically, if it did, I probably wouldn't be able to keep it. I commute to work by train and my A4 is generally a more capable car.

However emotional attachment...

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18 hours ago, SiC said:

However that's likely just because most places in the UK have zero idea on auto gearboxes

Stephens Engineering in Ware (where?) just did the Disco's box. Seem like a knowledgeable bunch, maybe worth a look. Not cheap, but that goes with the territory on slush boxes, because they seem to run on a dangerous combination of magic and good luck.

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Fluid change or top up is about the limit I'm prepared to chuck at this car now, for now. I think I need to keep it on a tight leash with expenditure. At least until I've moved. When I've (finally) moved I can do a lot more work myself, easily.

I'm just going to drive it a bit more carefully and mechanically sensitively in the meantime.

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Went out to pick up some cat food tonight. Yup it was perfect.

Plugged into read any codes. No codes on the automatic transmission. Live readings looked all sensible. Picked up shifter position perfectly too. Tried leaving it mid shift position and that as expected threw up a code for multifunction switch fault.

However it did throw up a light
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Didn't actually talk to me to alert of it. It did warn me that the brake light is faulty though.

Code stored was this:
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?‍♂️

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've put another couple hundred miles of mixed city and motorway driving on this since the funny gearbox instance and it's been fine. I have given it a bit more mechanical sympathy and resisted planting my foot everywhere. You kind of have to off roundabouts and the like still, as it really is not very fast.

I bought a crank sensor and new wiring loom for this the other week. I appear to have forgotten to taken a picture of it though. £85 of genuine parts later though I decided to hold out first and put a few more miles on the car to make sure it deserves it. I went genuine as I've heard bad things especially about many aftermarket crank sensors. Did cost me around twice as much though.

These are notorious for crank sensor failure. When they do go, it is usually a sudden FTP. Cooling down or cleaning up the sensor gets them going again. I know the one on this was suspect as my Grandad had issue with it starting. After cleaning up the sensor and bending out the pins slightly, it ran right as rain again.

However I knew it would only be a matter of time it would play up again. Faults you can drive around I am fine with. Faults that cause or potentially cause sudden stoppages I can't bare. So it had to be done.

Apart from the crank sensor, Renault issued a new wiring loom and connector for these. Turned out it was the connector just as much as the sensor. You can tell the difference as the new connector is blue and not compatible with the older black. This had the original black sensor on it.
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Fitted the new crank sensor and loom fix. Lives up above the bell housing and a tad fiddly to get to.
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Crimping the wires on was a right pain in the butt. Right at an arm's reach to get to and I had no hope of getting a decent solder joint down there. I used the crimp pieces that have heatshrink and glue in them. Heat them and the glue melts, sealing up the join.
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Still runs which is always a bonus. Need to fix the dodgy contact in the rear right brake light next. Getting fed up of Renault computer lady yapping at me that it's faulty.

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  • 1 month later...

No change of topic because today, just after I pull into the drive and put it in park, it revved to 2k rpm and stuck there. Then Mrs Renault blurted out that I need to take it to my local Renault dealer

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These are the stored errors:

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Clearing the codes bought it back to normal. I believe it's a connector under the battery box that can get dirty/fail.

 

Arses. Could do without this just right now.

 

At least the gearbox hasn't done the thing again where it forgets it is a gearbox and looses all its heads. What's the commonality between those two events? Completely unrelated but both times the climate control backlight started working again...

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