EVM valve replaced

Done!  Car dropped off in the morning, and ready at the end of the day.  No hassles.

Picked it up... they thoughtfully left the locking wheel nut box on the passenger seat (but I thought they were seized?).  Just to let me know they had taken the wheels off.  So I went in and asked them - how come you managed to get the wheels off?  Easy answer - "we did it as a goodwill gesture".

Straight off thought the car felt smoother.  Plus no clunks or warnings.

Had the car a couple of weeks now since they changed the valve and have noticed heavier fuel consumption.  Seems to be much heavier, needing filled up all the time  :(

Window fixed

Great!  

Took the car down to the dealer for the window, slightly apprehensive that they'd call and say "it's not covered and that'll be £70 plus whatever it costs to get it fixed"... When I took it down asked if they could do an oil change too as the service light had come on.  She talked me into a mini service for £10 more than an oil change so they do the air and fuel filters too.

Phonecall at lunchtime.  "Wheel nuts are seized, it's normally £70 to get them off but we'll do it for £40".  I said on yer bike (as we say up here) - wheels were off a month ago for the MOT so they cant be that badly seized already.  So she said "But what if you have a flat tyre at night and you have the children in the car" (ooh the guilt).  I just said I'd keep my £40.  Must check and see if they are.

Anyway, heard nothing so called them at 5pm.  All done.

Window fixed by Renault for free.  Top marks to them.

Even got a text from Renault customer service to confirm I was happy.  

Renault steps up

Called the garage today about the window.  "Might be the motor, might be the wiring.  If it's not in the motor it's not in the warranty, then you'll have to pay a diagnostic fee, thats £70".

So I phoned Renault.  They were incredibly helpful (thanks, Nicki, the Customer Support Manager).  Renault are aware of this fault, and will cover the regulator and motor and the wiring loom for 4 years.  Our car is 3 years and 360 days old.  Really!  So book it in now.  (and if that's not the problem, will have to pay the garage's diagnostic fee...!)

Booked in.

Another go at the fuses, and creating a new fault

I didn't want to give up on the fuses so had another go today.  I got it open, and contorted myself into an entirely unnatural position, which involved dislocating several limbs.  In actual fact I tried to take photographs of the little diagram but failed.  I did manage to just about make out some of it though, and worked out which fuses were for the windows. 

The top middle fuse, a 40W, has a window picture.  The 2 middle fuses in the 2nd row, each 25W also had windows.  They turned out to be for the front windows.  It was great fun getting them out and in.  Then tried removing the 40W.  Yip, back windows disabled.  Put it back in.  Still not working.

Then we noticed that none of the windows wanted to run properly.  Uh oh!  The remaining 3 windows would go down an inch then stop.  So I tried the reset trick I'd heard about.  I held the window switches all in the up position for a count of 10, switched off the engine whilst still holding them, switched on, and carried holding on the switches for another 10 seconds.  Hey presto!  The 3 windows were back to normal and working again!  Sadly, the one dead one was still dead.

Electric window... WORST DESIGN part 2: the fusebox

The back drivers side electric window stopped working a while ago, but I didnt think too much of it. Then I accidentally pressed the switch and it went down a bit. Great! So I pressed to wind it up, and it went down some more. Huh? I pressed it again, and it went down more. What??? It got to the bottom and refused to come up.

In fact, it's been down ever since. And it's been snowing. Great. I cut a piece of wood to fit and fitted a black bag over it to keep it all dry (and my kids dry in the back too).

I had a look on the net and discovered that this is a very very common fault on Scenics. It can happen repeatedly after replacement parts. It can be expensive to fix. For some people, the window just randomly winds down at any old moment.

Some suggestions included holding down buttons to reset the system. Tried all sorts of combinations - no joy.

Another said change the fuse. HAHAHAHA!!! I'm manically laughing as I write this bit. Change a fuse?

First I looked in the handbook for the fusebox. And guess what - it wasnt there! There's no fuse box where it's supposed to be! No cover, nothing. Good joke, Renault!

So I thought I'd try the secondary gearbox in the engine bay. Again, I removed the cover (with it's funny screws). Totally inaccessible. Can't get at it without removing the battery and possibly other parts. Who on earth would design a car with inaccessible fuses?

Then a small victory dance felt deserved when I found a secret hidden panel in the glovebox. What could be in there? Thinking about it, it’s location is just at the back of the engine compartment fusebox, so it could be one too! But what’s this? The cover is unusually stiff and refuses to open (quelle surprise). A quick search on the internet reveals a raft of posts saying “Please help, I can’t get the glovebox fusebox cover open”. But I managed. Another victory.

Until I discover that it only opens a couple of inches, meaning it is completely impossible to see either any of the fuses or the little diagram saying which one is which. The handbook doesn’t say which one is which. It does helpfully say that the one that has the little picture of an electric window beside it will be for the electric windows (although it says this will be in the driver’s footwell fusebox which doesn’t exist). And by really stretching it is possible only to see the edge of a picture of an electric window with the number 40 in it. Success – a 40 watt fuse, and there’s only 2 of them. I remove them both. The other electric windows still work. Pah, foiled again.

Check Gearbox

When out driving one Sunday there was a clunk from the gearbox which you could feel though the drivetrain. And the little display said "CHECK GEARBOX". I just coasted to the side and switched off. When I restarted the message was gone and the car ran fine until it said "ELECTRONIC FAULT" 10 minutes later. I restarted again, and the messages stayed away for a week.

The following Saturday felt the clunk again and it said "CHECK GEARBOX". Restarted and finished the journey, but booked the car in to have it looked at.

The dealership called me back. It's the EVM sensor within the gearbox. And (guess what) it's NOT COVERED IN THE WARRANTY. And it will be very expensive to fix.

This is where I threatened legal action. And asked for the sales manager to call me back. (Being a solicitor helps when you threaten legal action).

Next day he did: they will cover this work after all. But they don't have the part. Now we're just waiting for it to come in....

Track rods

The steering has always been a bit woolly, but I just thought that was how it was supposed to be. We had a recall letter – something to do with the steering, and whilst it was in, they advised us that the track rods were worn. We'd had the car for maybe 4 or 5 months. We were told that track rod ends are covered, but track rods are not. Surely they can't have worn in that time from being fine when sold to "excessively worn" a few months and 3,000 miles later?

Door locking

Not long after we got it the sensors on the rear doors to unlock the car started to work intermittently, then stopped working. I complained about it at the time but didn’t take it in to the dealership which is miles and miles away. Over winter one of the covers fell off one of the sensors. When I took it in they told me that it had failed because the cover was missing. I told them it failed before that. No matter, they said, the prism that makes the sensor isn’t covered anyway.

Here come the faults

OK. Not only is it the world's worst designed car ever, it also turns out to be rubbish. It's been fine for a while, and all of a sudden a bunch of faults have appeared one after another. These have coincided with my discovery that the "very comprehensive" and VERY expensive warranty I took out when I bought the car is almost a complete waste of money. It somehow excludes everything that can possibly break. It only seems to cover things that would be manufacturing defects and not anything which might actually fail. Which (I though) was supposed to be the point of a warranty. The service manager even said to me "if it was a new car the warranty would cover everything, but this is a 4 year old car, so you can't expect the warranty to cover as much". Really?

WORLDS WORST DESIGNED CAR (1)

Is it bad design, or is it intentional? Why do I ask that? Have you ever tried to replace the headlamp bulb in a 2006 Renault Scenic?

Both headlamp bulbs went. I bought new ones and set about changing them. What does the handbook say? It says take it to the dealer, so they can charge you £70 an hour labour for changing a lightbulb. Halfords, which normally will change a bulb for a fiver, wont do a Scenic. Why? Because you're supposed to take half of the car apart to get at the bulbs! Now that's poor.

Actually, it turned out to be perfectly possible, and I have a scar on the back of my hand to prove it.

For the offside (drivers side), if you have flexible hands, you can just move the washer filler out of the way by unclipping it, and (by feel only, not sight) reach round to unclip, twist, remove, replace, twist, and clip, and hey presto, you've saved yourself a trip to the garage.

The nearside is much less fun. There is no access to that bulb without removing the fusebox cover. It's still very difficult to do but it is possible. I did it! It was a combination of a feeling of victory with immense irritation at the impossibly bad french design.

Not user friendly.

Not a happy owner.

But at least I have 2 working headlamps again. And a scar. (Really).

The first 6 months

I'd been loving the car for the 1st 6 months or so. I love the keyless entry, the automatic handbrake, the auto wipers (ok, I never use them on auto), the auto lights (brilliant). The auto gearbox is a bit sluggish but its an MPV. It runs fine, is not too thirsty, and does a brilliant job of being a family car.

My wife hates all of the automatic features though, as they take away from actually being in control of the car. Fair enough.

Car being delivered

The day came for them to drop off the car. The salesman appeared near the office (not at the office, he'd got lost!) and handed me the key. What a surprise - the door handles hadn't been replaced. He promised to look into it.

When I heard nothing about that, I called them. Surprise surprise, he didn't know anything about it. After much fuss, he discovered they don't do those parts and you can't get paint in that colour any more. Instead he agreed to have the handles sprayed silver. Great! Then there was a problem, he cancelled. In the end, I gave up trying to arrange it. They're still worn now.

Checking the car out

The first time I saw the car I wasn't allowed inside (I mean, the keys were unavailable). It looked OK. Advantages were it had recently been MOT'd and was being sold freshly serviced. (Read later posts on THAT one!). But I got to peer round the outside and it mostly looked fine apart from one or two minor things that needed fixing.

Before the car was ready, I insisted on taking it for a test drive. The salesman I'd been dealing with was off so his colleague took me out. I finally got to see inside! I wonder why the hadn't been keen to let me inside before. (1) Broken headlamp height adjustment switch. (2) Very worn door handles, paint all off. (3) Very worn drivers seat. (4) Rusty seat runners. They agreed to replace the broken switch and get replacements for the door handles.

Buying our new Scenic

We had a trusty old Scenic, a 2001 model. A comfortable, reliable, sensible sort of car. Half way through the HP you get the chance to hand it back so it seemed a good idea to do that and get a newer car for the same monthly payments.

We looked around, but there wasn't much about in our budget. I went to a local dealer, having found a well priced 2006 Scenic at one of their branches down south. A deal was struck and our new car shipped up just like that!