Hi all, been a while since I've been on the forum and thought I should probably stick a build thread up of my current car.

Bought this to replace my BMW that was written off (still bitter about that ) I don't even know why I bought it to be honest, I'd had a few drinks one night and was egged on by some friends to put a lucrative bid in on it on ebay and see what happens. Well unfortunately, the next morning I awoke to an email saying I'd won the auction, and would have to collect it from South London the next weekend.

Sod it I thought, why not? Full Renault service history, Belts done in the last 10k, 12 Months MOT, 6 months Tax and 84k on the clock, what could go wrong? A one way train ticket later I was on the way to pick it up, after checking that my breakdown cover was still valid. Drove it home with no dramas!

So after 9 months of ownership and still nothing gone wrong on it (bar a snapped handbrake cable), I'm wondering where the French car stigma comes from! Don't get me wrong, the build quality is terrible; the interior is quite frankly disgusting and it hasn't been painted that well, but bloody hell it's good fun!

So far it's had new tyres, all fluids and filters replaced, bucket seat, powerflex goodies, PMS shifter, OMP wheel an boss, Coilovers and a skoda splitter. Future plans include wheel refurb (the car looks to have spent most of it's life living in London under women's ownership... so you can only imagine how bad they are), another set of new tyres, pads and discs, passenger bucket, rollcage/ harnesses, remap, bla bla bla.

To top it off, it's in Flame Red which I'm led to believe is probably one of about 15 left (I'd certainly never seen one before).

Nice colour that bud, never seen it before.

when you say build quality is poor, how do you mean? looking at one of these for my next car, cheers :)

Got a bit of a soft spot for Renaults, my mate worships them and after working on a few of his, it changed my view on them a bit. They're not as awful as people like to make out, at least not in the same way Peugeots are. They have worked closely with Nissan and Volvo which has paid off, the reliability seems to be getting better.

And some of the RenaultSports, like the Megane and Clio V6.. Just wow.

Just loads of little things to be honest, the panel gaps are all terrible, the fixings are cheap and weak (for example the rear lights are held on by a single screw with a plastic wing nut on it), the grommets in the boot are plastic and not watertight (should be rubber), the scissor jack broke the first time I used it, the paint is thin in places; overall it just doesn't feel that 'solid', but then again I came to this from being used to a BMW, so it's night and day between the two to be honest.

You'll soon forget about that when you drive it though! My brother and two of my friends have bought them after I've taken them out in this, you won't find anything more capable for even double the price that these go for. The chassis is absolutely brilliant and the engine is lovely (you'll be pleasantly surprised what you can dick on! ) There's so many off the shelf upgrade parts too which is nice :-)

when you say build quality is poor, how do you mean? looking at one of these for my next car, cheers :)

Have a look on the howtomendit.com site and search for Renault, then you'll see why it's best to avoid them