renaultsport twingo 133 cup

That sounds about right, the best bank loan will be around that level, and if you buy on a PCP the starting point will be 12% minimum. Shame really, because on something like a 25 grand car you'll lose maybe 13k in 3 years through depreciation, and another 4 or 5 grand in interest charges.
 
After having owned a clio 197 for 3 years (bought it 10k miles and did a further 37k in it) I will never ever by another French car. They are so poorly designed it's ridiculous. They just cannot engineer anything! It made me laugh (in a "I can't believe I'm hearing this" kind of way) when they reported on BBC watchdog about the passenger being able to apply the brakes in a variety of French cars (both Peugeot, Citroen & Renault).

Being a mechanical engineer there is no excuse for the poor fit and function they possess, even on tight budgets. There were several things wrong with my car through the time I had it:

- Steering wheel wobble
- Pulling slightly to the left
- Slight play in the steering (this was due to an utter rubbish steering rack design, I even had to get this re-torqued up under warranty because it had come loose!)
- Interior panel fits were pants (I used to work for a car interior engineering company, so it kind of pained me every time I wanted to fiddle with the car). Glove box upper shut gap got quite large towards the centre console. This is an injection mould tooling issue which they hadn't even fixed by a 2008 car. We would never have let that go through to production!
- Replaced gearbox due to sync' mesh dying (common problem).
- Incredibly rough cold idle (although I believe this is due to the cam timing warming up or something similar as I think S2000s/Type-Rs suffer as well).
- Steering wheel perforated leather started to wear. Felt slightly rough at 9 O'clock. This, I believe (through forums) is due to heat. Why would you put a perforated leather where it's going to rub and be put under strain/stress? Utter ridiculous decision!
- The key less entry passenger door button died. Don't think they did very good winter testing.

The only other thing I can think of that was common is the Optional Recaro seats (cost something like £1200new) can wear through the cloth within something silly like 15k miles.

I have already messed about with my Z4 interior and just the general engineering implementation is leagues and leagues above Renault. Yes BMW will have likely used nicer plastics but I still don't think that's an excuse (cheap polypropylene is the satan of plastics over long lengths imo as I iirc you have to have a tolerance of something like 3-4mm per 1000mm) for producing crap.

So yeah....won't be buying Renault again lol. Don't get me wrong though, they really do know how to set up a chassis and the 197 could probably keep up quite happily with my 3.0si coupé on a twisty road, although would be absolutely destroyed on the straights. But the fun soon dies a horrible death when you have to live with it ever day. As I do about 430 miles a week it was getting very painful and I had the nagging feeling something expensive was going to die for about the last year I had it!

There's also the reason I get better fuel economy out of my coupé as well :driving: .

Cheers,

Phill :worshipbmw:
 
Cheers Phill, after signing for the vxr I wondered whether I had done the right thing without trying a clio rs. After your unfortunate experience I feel better with my decision. The fit and finish on the corsa is far nicer than expected but obviously not a patch on the z4 :) ps st33ly the 4.5% IS the Apr. It's a good deal.
 
imp75 said:
Cheers Phill, after signing for the vxr I wondered whether I had done the right thing without trying a clio rs. After your unfortunate experience I feel better with my decision. The fit and finish on the corsa is far nicer than expected but obviously not a patch on the z4 :) ps st33ly the 4.5% IS the Apr. It's a good deal.
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Don't get me wrong though...the VXR would be utterly annihilated on track :P but for day to day living with it I wouldn't buy another Renault..... :headbang:
 
Robb said:
So out of interest what mpg where you getting from the clio compared to the z4?
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I easily get around 3-5mpg more on the same run without even trying really. I would get around 31-32mpg (cruise set to 70mph) over the course of a tank in the clio on my weekly commute. I easily get 34 to 37 in the Z4 @ 70mph over the course of a tank. At 80mph in the clio (on a rather long private road :evil: :fuelfire: ) it drops to around 27-28mpg.

The clio was doing ~3400rpm at 70mph whereas the Z4 is about ~2750rpm. Considering the cars a 3.0 litre it's pretty astounding in comparison really lol.

The offset of the in the fuel saving minus the increase in insurance premium will mean it really will cost me next to no difference in terms of yearly running cost. The running costs and excessive servicing costs Renault charge which for the type of car were ridiculous just do not justify the car in the slightest. Which to be honest is a great shame as the car was very fun to drive in a spirited hoon.
 
Argh, friengineer's experience takes me back to my Clio 172: owned from new for almost 3 years and covered just shy of 30k miles. Loved driving it, hated owning it, for pretty much the same sort of reasons. My interior was actually reasonably OK (mine was the last of the 172s before they were replaced with the 182s) but f**k me, the mechanics/electrics were a joke. But the thing is I still love that car, NOTHING beats it for driving enjoyment although the Z4's rigth up there but for different reasons.

I used to get 35-36mpg average in my 172 but know a lot of people who changed to 197s and saw their mpg plummet to 23-24mpg average. Ouch. One even then changed his 197 R27 for a Mini Cooper S Works (the older s/c one, notoriously poor on fuel) and reports better mpg than his Clio.
 
a11y said:
Argh, friengineer's experience takes me back to my Clio 172: owned from new for almost 3 years and covered just shy of 30k miles. Loved driving it, hated owning it, for pretty much the same sort of reasons. My interior was actually reasonably OK (mine was the last of the 172s before they were replaced with the 182s) but f**k me, the mechanics/electrics were a joke. But the thing is I still love that car, NOTHING beats it for driving enjoyment although the Z4's rigth up there but for different reasons.

I used to get 35-36mpg average in my 172 but know a lot of people who changed to 197s and saw their mpg plummet to 23-24mpg average. Ouch. One even then changed his 197 R27 for a Mini Cooper S Works (the older s/c one, notoriously poor on fuel) and reports better mpg than his Clio.
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The interior for most people who were non-the wiser may have been OK but having working in the car interior engineer sector it did pain me lol. I think the 182s get mpg similar to your 172. I think when I was doing about 5-10miles each way to work back when I first owned the car I was getting about 22mpg. That's before I was forced to drive economically. I know I drive pretty well in eco mode considering the best my dad has ever managed from his ford focus is about 43...I managed 52mpg over the course of a whole tank lol.

The renaultsports really are brilliantly setup for very quick road driving. But so so poorly executed as an overall package!
 
Had a 172 for over 6 years and did 70k in that time - loved the car and mine was very reliable - only major cost was a gearbox rebuild at about 90k miles.

Think the twingo is a great car - tried to convince the mrs to get one but she doesn't like the styling of the rear so was a no go.
 
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