After nearly a month of searching and getting fed up I found a FF RB Clio 182 that looked very clean and bit the bullet, saw the car on eBay and bidded on it , with out even going to look at it, I won the bid for £2,600 and travelled nearly 400 miles to pick it up. 81k miles on it, service history up to 50k, but was serviced by previous owner, receipts for de-phaser pulley and cambelt etc And seems to be well maintained..
Left the house at 7am.. got there to pick the car up around 1pm.. the weather was horrible raining and windy as hell, i checked the car over as best I could standing in a puddle and then went and checked through the service history.. all was as the advert showed and being the winning bidder I was there to buy it, but could of walked away. So £2,600 lighter I left for the drive home....
I loved it, felt a little quicker than my Fiesta and I loved the cruise control on the motorway.. 240 miles on the route home cruising down the M4, my stereo turned off, the ESP light came on and airbag light.. uhh wtf? Then it all came back on... ok cool.. then again... but this time everything started dimmimg... I had no lights! I couldn't pull onto the hardshoulder as there were road works and the hard shoulder was a live lane. So kept going best I could with the engine about to die, Luckily I managed to get through the roadworks and get onto the hardshoulder. Checked the aux belt etc was still there.. sat there stumped on who to save us, I remembered I had break down cover with my bank. As i was ringing them the highways agency guys came out, and one of there own tow trucks saved me because technically i was still in the roadworks. Recovery truck pulled up.. and my car managed to start for some reason.. after the battery being dead before. So one of the guys said drive it and the truck will follow you incase it breaks down.. So 3 miles down the road she dies again. On the truck and to the services. Greenlight guy meets me at the services checks over the car.. charging at 11vs and varying between 8 - 11.. So yeh presume f**ked alternator. He wanted £440 to get me all the way home, had 133 miles left of the journey! In the end we left the car there and headed on home getting home at 4am with no car.. After trying to work out a few options, my brothers friend has a truck and went and picked my car up for £180, which is pretty good.
Journey 'home'..
Got the car home, took the battery into work to drop test it and charge it up, and took some gear home. Stuck earth lead onto engine mount and live to standard wiring.. Was charging at 12.5 volts.. still too low.. So having a look about i notice some rusty nuts on the live on the alternator and on the chassis leg for the earth.. clean all these up. The thread going into the alternator was loose, so had to break the plastic cover to tighten the thin locking nut up.. RESULT! Charging at 14.5 volts constantly.. took it for a good drive and all is good! Easy fix didn't take me that long and could of been done at the roadside.. few spanners and some sand paper...
The culprit..
Knowing the car had a twisted backbox, reading on here seemed the mounts failed so got a mount off eBay.. and filled it up with silicone..
Turns out the other one is shagged too, so will buy another one and fit it soon, but the exhaust is alot better than it was.
Checked the car whilst it was on the ramp, need a drivers side top mount as theres quite a bit of play, and pads on rear bit low, so will be replacing them soon. Also see got uprated gearbox mount and engine mounts.
Took some photos after too, will get some with my DSLR when weathers better.
Left the house at 7am.. got there to pick the car up around 1pm.. the weather was horrible raining and windy as hell, i checked the car over as best I could standing in a puddle and then went and checked through the service history.. all was as the advert showed and being the winning bidder I was there to buy it, but could of walked away. So £2,600 lighter I left for the drive home....
I loved it, felt a little quicker than my Fiesta and I loved the cruise control on the motorway.. 240 miles on the route home cruising down the M4, my stereo turned off, the ESP light came on and airbag light.. uhh wtf? Then it all came back on... ok cool.. then again... but this time everything started dimmimg... I had no lights! I couldn't pull onto the hardshoulder as there were road works and the hard shoulder was a live lane. So kept going best I could with the engine about to die, Luckily I managed to get through the roadworks and get onto the hardshoulder. Checked the aux belt etc was still there.. sat there stumped on who to save us, I remembered I had break down cover with my bank. As i was ringing them the highways agency guys came out, and one of there own tow trucks saved me because technically i was still in the roadworks. Recovery truck pulled up.. and my car managed to start for some reason.. after the battery being dead before. So one of the guys said drive it and the truck will follow you incase it breaks down.. So 3 miles down the road she dies again. On the truck and to the services. Greenlight guy meets me at the services checks over the car.. charging at 11vs and varying between 8 - 11.. So yeh presume f**ked alternator. He wanted £440 to get me all the way home, had 133 miles left of the journey! In the end we left the car there and headed on home getting home at 4am with no car.. After trying to work out a few options, my brothers friend has a truck and went and picked my car up for £180, which is pretty good.
Journey 'home'..
Got the car home, took the battery into work to drop test it and charge it up, and took some gear home. Stuck earth lead onto engine mount and live to standard wiring.. Was charging at 12.5 volts.. still too low.. So having a look about i notice some rusty nuts on the live on the alternator and on the chassis leg for the earth.. clean all these up. The thread going into the alternator was loose, so had to break the plastic cover to tighten the thin locking nut up.. RESULT! Charging at 14.5 volts constantly.. took it for a good drive and all is good! Easy fix didn't take me that long and could of been done at the roadside.. few spanners and some sand paper...
The culprit..
Knowing the car had a twisted backbox, reading on here seemed the mounts failed so got a mount off eBay.. and filled it up with silicone..
Turns out the other one is shagged too, so will buy another one and fit it soon, but the exhaust is alot better than it was.
Checked the car whilst it was on the ramp, need a drivers side top mount as theres quite a bit of play, and pads on rear bit low, so will be replacing them soon. Also see got uprated gearbox mount and engine mounts.
Took some photos after too, will get some with my DSLR when weathers better.
