Who here owns a Renaultsport?

Caporegime
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Some interior shots (but they aren't very good, sorry :p)

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Associate
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18 Oct 2002
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Swindon. =)
i'm looking to maybe go to a Mk4 RS, but this puts me off getting a new one completely, crazy depreciation.

I plan on keeping my 250 for anther 2 years and then maybe i can get a 1 year old Mk4 RS if i'm still interested, don't really want a 4 door =/

..New RS is disguise due to official showing not until September

bvoNXiO.jpg
 
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Caporegime
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Surrey
Been having a play with the RS drive button the last few days. Really transforms it from quite a smooth GT cruiser to a silly, reving hot (well, warm these days) hatch. Love it :D. Quite surprised just how much difference the RS drive button makes. Throttle response becomes instant, and the whole car feels loads quicker in every gear. Great stuff!

Its like it loads a whole new engine map (which it might do as one of the car settings you can change in the multi sense thing Is 'powertrain' which gets ramped to the max in sport mode.
 
Soldato
Joined
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Somewhere in the middle.
i'm looking to maybe go to a Mk4 RS, but this puts me off getting a new one completely, crazy depreciation.

I plan on keeping my 250 for anther 2 years and then maybe i can get a 1 year old Mk4 RS if i'm still interested, don't really want a 4 door =/

..New RS is disguise due to official showing not until September

bvoNXiO.jpg

Ill have finished paying for my RS250 loan in a few years and by then the MK4 might be affordable for me.

I totally love my 250. It actually turns heads (I know right, a renault!) and it drives like an animal . Will be interesting to see how the new RS really performs and what it offers.

They do have a steep depreciation curve but they seem to settle around £10-11k for most RS250s with Recaros and 40kish miles.
 
Caporegime
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Seats looks great, Recaro?

No I don't think so. They are a £1200 option though! Not sure who they are made by but they are very comfortable and supportive and they look great. It also means you get leather all over (ie the back seats are mostly leather with alacantra in the middle, and the door cards and elbow rests are leather etc)
 
Soldato
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Somewhere in the middle.
What colours your 250?

I absolutely love the yellow.

Mine is white with black 19' steev wheels.

Handsome car.

I wanted a yellow one initially but this one came up at a good price and was in better condition than the more expensive yellow one I saw.

I am however starting to wear a hole in the seat bolster. The Recaro seats are terrible for it. Getting that repaired will be a future job. Along with an alcantara gearstick gater and potentially a CAE shifter if I can ever justify the cost to myself.
 
Soldato
Joined
24 Jan 2007
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3,442
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Bristol
My main gripe with the 275 Cup-S is the stereo. No bose option was available as they couldn't fit the sub woofer in RHD cars and the Arkamys option is still terrible. Glad to see Bose is now available in the Mk4 RHD cars.

I'm still not sold on the MK4 rear end, although the RS does look better. I keep wondering if I'll swap the 275 in for one, but the GT I drove didn't really compare. Hopefully Renault will bring an RS to a track day later in the year so I can have a play.
 
Associate
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15 Nov 2005
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Newcastle
Guys my mx5 goes to its new owner on Saturday and a Megane r26 is on the shortlist of replacements. Budget will be a maximum of £5000 so I know I'll be near the bottom of the market, is that an issue? Any advice on what to look out for would be great.
 
Associate
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Guys my mx5 goes to its new owner on Saturday and a Megane r26 is on the shortlist of replacements. Budget will be a maximum of £5000 so I know I'll be near the bottom of the market, is that an issue? Any advice on what to look out for would be great.

Make sure the windows are okay, regulators are common. Also make sure the steering centres itself (hub issues).

And obvious stuff like when the cambelt was done, life of discs & pads.
 
Associate
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Somerset
Installed new top mounts and Grams Lowering Springs to make it sit better.

Before & After:
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The ride is much smoother and less crashy, and is a lot flatter around corners. I would thoroughly recommend the Grams Springs from KamRacing!
 
Caporegime
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The pitfalls of an automatic showed their head today as I passed a Megane R26 coming off a roundabout he saw me and I heard him shift down and floor it so I floored it as well ( well why not, it was a derestricted dual carriageway :p). Initially kept up but then as I was in neutral and auto mode it just changed up too early and I lost all momentum. Pretty sure I could have at least given the R26 a run for its money (though probably still have marginally lost out) if it was in sport manual mode as I only fell a car length or two behind even in auto/non sport mode. I guess I will just have to drive it everywhere in sport mode from now on :p

It did highlight the pitfalls of an automatic though.


Anyway one month on and I’m still pretty happy with the Megane GT. Here is a run down of some pros/cons:


I like:

-Lovely to look at inside and out. Stands out compared with other cars in this segment. Also, don’t see many about yet which is nice.

-Good interior build quality, easily up there with a Golf in my opinion (many reviews have highlighted this as well)

-The instrument tft screen is very nice. Lots of information and customisable as well: Can choose different rev/speed counter styles and colours and also shows all sorts of information like tyre pressures, next turn/sat nav direction, music/radio track, bhp and torque level(!) and more.

-Sport mode - really changes the car (much more than I thought it would). Makes it feel quite ferocious in the low gears in a way and actually feels faster than my Fiesta ST did in the lower gears (think it is because it puts the power down much better). Gear changes are impressively quick in manual/sport mode and if you pull and hold the left paddle it downshifts to the lowest gear possible at that speed so you have the maximum power possible (this is called something specific but i forget).

-Handling - handling is excellent, courtesy of the 4 control system. If I’m honest it handles even better than my Fiesta ST (which is high praise) and can take corners confidently faster than the ST as well. It feels very planted and the 4 wheel steering really does help stop understeer. It is also great around town/when parking as it makes the turning circle better.

-All the toys: love the keyless entry as it is even more advanced than the one on the Fiesta ST. It folds out the mirrors and puts the coming home/courtesy lights on as you approach it, somehow just detects your hand on the handle (there isn’t a button) to unlock and then to lock it, you just walk away and it auto locks! Also, love adaptive cruise on long journeys and the auto high/low beam works very well indeed. The full LED lights are amazingly white/bright as well - big improvement from the halogens in the Fiesta and even better than the xenons i had in my previous car.

-The fun little intro you get when you get in: The car appears on the instrument cluster coming towards you making reving sound and a chequered flag and ‘GT’ appear on the big tablet dash screen. Silly but fun none the less :p

-Bose sound system: The more I use it the more I appreciate the quality over all the standard car stereos I have had over the years.

-Active breaking: This has actually impressed me a lot. It has always automatically started braking just before I was about to do the same thing. Very clever stuff and so far has reacted quicker than i have on a couple of occasions!

-Fuel economy: Despite being heavier and automatic, it seems to do very similar economy to my Fiesta ST which is good. Get ~40mpg on my commute which is a mix of everything really, b roads, town, village, lots of 60/70 dual a carriageway with roundabouts. Hopefully this might get even better as it has only done 3.5k miles so far. It does like to drink a bit if you keep it in sport mode and have a play though.


Don't like:

-My biggest gripe is the air con system is a bit noisy. I have only noticed it in the last week or so as the weather has been hot so the air con has been working overtime). I think this is amplified by the fact that the car and engine is so quiet otherwise. You can hear a faint "airy" sound in the vents, and there is a small whine that rises and falls with engine rpm when the air con is on (gets muffled by road noise above about 20mph, but is annoying if you have no music on when going slowly). Getting this checked out at Renault on Monday. The air con itself though is very good and probably one of the coolest in terms of temperature that I have ever had.

-That brings me on to the other negative ( sort of) which is that there isnt really much going on in the engine noise department. Sport mode sort of fakes some sort of sportier sound but it isnt great. On the flip side, it is very quiet and you can't really hear the engine or gearbox doing its thing in the cabin at all in nuetral mode when taking it easy so in terms of refinement in that area, it is quite good.

- Renault have been so cheap that they have not even swapped the gear indicator panel over to the other side for right hand drive cars! This means you sort of have to peer over the gear lever to see the gear you are on that light up panel. It isn’t a huge issue as the instrument screen tells you the gear you are in anyway but it seems silly for it not to be on the drivers side…

- Whilst the adaptive cruise is great, it sometimes goes a bit mental when it wants to get back up to speed and thinks 7th gear is too high (ie floors it and drops a cog or two). This can be a bit jarring.

- The sat nav keeps giving you alternative routes all the time even for the most inconsequential of traffic jams/hold ups - need to see if I can turn this off.

- Ride is fairly harsh, but no worse than my Fiesta ST was.

- Not the biggest fan of stop/start really. There is a button to turn it off though so can’t complain about it too much.
 
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Soldato
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Scotland
I've had my 182 for 10 years this month. Just passed its MOT with no advisories. The garage did notice some damage on the cat at the manifold joining point, so I've a new cat ready to be fitted (didn't want to go de-cat). The bodywork is holding up reasonably well for a 13 year old car, although I do seem to have been a bit unlucky and its started to rust on the bonnet edges and a small bit near the petrol filler cap. I guess I'll need to decide whether I think its worth spending the money to get looked at. I also keep meaning to find a decent PDR as other people seem to like using it as a target to open their doors into.

I do have another car, but I can't bring myself to get rid of the 182. It's almost worthless now as far as value goes. I'll probably just keep it until it breaks or falls apart. It's just such a fun car to drive, and while I'd no longer class it as a fast car, people do seem to be a bit bemused by its performance given most Clio's around the same age are 1.2's.
 
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Soldato
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10 Jan 2007
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Warwickshire
When i got my got my MK3 Megane RS, i was amazed how loud/powerful the fans were, the 182 Trophy was not quite the same. I tend to turn my climate control off and set the fan speed myself, its mental when its on full blast
 
Caporegime
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Surrey
Got the noisy air con looked at in the Megane GT and the tech reckoned it was running low on gas (hence a slight hiss behind the vents and the whining was because the compressor was working extra hard).

Now obviously first thing to do is re-gas and see if that solves it (said it could be low if it wasn't filled correctly from factory, had been sitting on a forecourt for months (as the seals go dry) without use or if there is a leak). It still blows ice cold, and has done for the 5+weeks I have owned it now so it might just be low and hopefully there is not a leak.

However, just a regas is not technically covered under warranty and guess how much a re gas from a main dealer costs with the this crazy new r1234yf gas.......£290 (!?). No that is not a typo, that is what a regas costs for very new cars with the new air con gas (they have to have it under new eu regualtions from Jan 2017 (or completely new models from 2013)). It is so high because only two companies make it and have a sort of monopoly on it at the moment. Totally crazy costs, but prices for it are projected to fall over the next few years as more and more cars use it.

Thankfully, Renault customer service have been excellent and agreed to cover the cost in full at my local dealer. Then obviously if it then gets low again, there must be a leak which would be covered under warranty.
 
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