Kitestyle2

Came for this, left disappointed PS Hi and welcome

Done any good handbrakeys lately? LOL. welcome back.

^^^ That would be very cool. Last time I bought a car I peeled off the dealer's sticker and snapped off the number plate surrounds and handed them back to the previous owner before driving away. Pointless free advertising irritates me beyond all rational measures!

I wish the advertising defaulted to off not on. No-one wants to know it's 'sent from tapatalk'.

2003 Ph2 172 cost me 10k 2+ yrs ago, My average service/repair cost has been 1 - 1.5k per year this includes timing belt, harmonic balancer and rear bearing one year, PAS pump and acc belt/tensioner recently. For me this has been fine as I bargained 1200 off purchase price for upcoming major service, and rest is within expected margin to keep a car that age in tip top condition. My friend spent 5.5k total for a Ph2 172 with a year's rego. In the following year he has spent nothing on it. Has some interior trim damage and paint fading, otherwise perfect. So it can be hit or miss. Be aware major service is very expensive and minor is expensive. Big factors, watch out for 100k mark. Also stock disks/pads seem to go at a certain point so make sure they have been changed. There's a big list of what to look out for floating around, search this forum. Get a well loved car off here and you can't go wrong.

http://www.cliosport.net/forum/showthre ... ce!/page24 145 pounds plus postage for a whole wheel retrim in leather plus carbon inserts. Not too bad!

The gator is only cable tied on (mine anyway) with some effort you can work it down the shaft a little. Then superglue round the contact points and weigh it down for half an hour. Worked for me. Those thumb grips are super pricey but they look really nice in the pics. There is also a homebrew method on cliosport using some kind of polymer putty stuff. Oh and not sure about a 172 being 'more mature'

This is 2 years old from another forum, but ties in to what I learnt working at a refinery. I would disagree with this statement >the octane rating at the pump is only ever an average. lots of the 98 octane you buy is probably closer to 96 octane I know that fuel was carefully blended and tested where I worked. There were full time chemical engineers whose job was to continually test fuel to ensure that is was to spec - ie amongst many other things, 98 RON was min 98. Unless there's a hold up or problem in the supply chain, your fuel will be on spec. You're always better using a busy garage than a quiet one. ---------------------------------------- Fuel suppliers in Australia have very strict batch testing requirements, and at no time does a batch of fuel leave the refinery (in Caltex & BP's case) or out of the Tank storage (in Shell's case - as they have been importing all of their fuels into Australia for quite some time now) under spec. If we were blatently breaking the rules and selling off spec fuels, this could endanger lives - especially in the case where we provide Jet fuels. If these were off spec, it could be enough to bring down a passenger plane... Last year (particularily from 12th Dec 2008 till late Jan 09), Caltex refinery had an unplanned shutdown, which cut off 98 RON and some diesel supplies across QLD. There was no rationing at all, there was simply no way to keep up with supply vs demand - especially because it was the Xmas holidays.... For those that don't know, Caltex supplies BP with most of its 98 RON and some Diesel as well (usually to make up short falls in supply). So essentially when you buy BP, you're buying Caltex. The only difference between Caltex & BP is the fuel additives (cleaners) and BP uses a pretty harsh cleaner, which is why you get better econ & performance over a long period. When people make comments on X fuel is better than Y, you have to look more deeply into this. BP and Caltex refine their spec fuels locally, and as a result, these have a higher density which provides a more efficient burn. Shell hasn't been making fuels for quite some time (their refinery has been shutdown and out of operation since early last year). As a result, Shell import all of their spec fuels into Australia, and store in a tank farm. These fuels are at least 4-6 weeks old by the time they get to our shores, and density is considerably lower (infact most 98 RON fuels imported end up around 93-95 RON by the time they have been received in Australia. As a result the density is quite low, Shell have to suppliment these fuels with octane boosters to bring up the octane level again, but the density remains the same. Mobil are in the same situation, however they buy fuels locally - not from overseas. You could be getting either BP or Caltex of a blend of the 2 when you buy Mobil. Therefore if someone asked me what fuel I would use for my 09 STi, my recommended list would be as follows: 1. BP Ultimate 2. Caltex Vortex (98) 3. Mobil (8000) 4. Shell Ultra 5. forget the independants - if they offer 98, its probably from India and shyte IMO. Rather than throwing up eronious statements of grandure, if anyone wants any info on fuels in Australia just PM me. I work for a Fuel refiner in QLD, so if theres something I can't answer, I can easily find out for you.

Hey Dish, I found this restriction a bit awkward to be honest, and easy to circumvent anyway. I couldn't sign up (gmail accounts) so I went to an instant mail site (think 10 minute mail, etc) and used that, which is potentially far more dodgy than hotmail etc. So you might want to consider closing that door. I would have thought gmail was a class above the other two as well?

Depends what you mean by thrashed. Mine's carefully serviced, always warmed up fully at under 3000 rpm, and I don't think I've ever hit the limiter. But it goes damn close on a daily basis and there's one corner on the way to work that makes the back jump out a foot or so

So I worked out why my car was flooding, and also why I couldn't see the drain hole. That plastic part mounted in the base was actually this: sitting up out of where the hole should be (hook in hole, round bit visible) with a nice plug of mud surrounding it and perfectly flush with the metal, making it look like it belonged there. After some head scratching I found it's one of the clips from the small top plastic cover (left one) which has snapped off - obviously a fair while ago to be bedded in like it was. So... no more flooding for this Clio! PS keep sharing info guys, without this site I would probably have been in a very different and unhappy position with this car right now. As it is I'm 2 for 2 on the fixes and pretty happy.

Well the story continues... I fixed the air con using the 2 cable tie method last weekend. Lots of swearing involved - too hot to be spending hours kneeling beside the car with your head at a funny angle. Got it done though and working beautifully, the photos and descriptions from guys here really made it easy for a semi-competent tinkerer like me. The speedo seems to work 90% of the time so I can live with that. Think I've located the sender and I'll have a little play with it later today, clean the contacts and reseat. [edit.. done, seems ok for the moment..] The next big thing is the car flooded during the week with lots of water in mainly the front left footwell. Seems like the front drain hole issue as it's wet under the foam up the front behind the centre console. Carpets are mostly dry now but there's plenty of small drops and moisture in the foam sound deadening stuff. Hoping this will dry over time so I don't have to strip everything out - a long and painful job by the looks of it. So now I have the wiper with 2 bolts off but the single one is proving to be a b.... PITA. Went to Supacrap to look for a cheap 2 leg puller (as per advice in the flooding thread) but the cheapest was $30 and I wasn't happy to pay that. So now I'm taking a break and going back to rip up my hands some more. At the moment I have one end of the cover off and I can't see the drain hole at all, so I'm hoping it will become clear with a better angle. I'm starting to wonder whether I should be angry with the seller. I asked specifically if there were any faults, small or large. He said "No, it's perfect." In a week and a half I've had the air con and speedo fail and now the flooding. I can't really see any reason to contact him and complain, but part of me wants to.

Cheers Griffyn. We've just got back from OS and need a car each. She had a small 4x4 in mind (Vitara etc) so we could do beach missions, but now she's saying 'Why don't you get the 4x4 and I'll keep the Clio". Maybe I can can work this right, she can keep the Sport and I'll get myself a 172.

Hi All, Just got a 2002 Clio Sport this week. Loving the wee beastie and I'm having trouble keeping the keys off my wife too For a car that test drove perfectly I've already got 2 issues - intermittent speedo and hot air only from the climate control. Thanks to the guys here I know more or less how to fix both and already have the A/C blowing cold air. The car has it's 100k service coming up and I guess I'll get both belts done. I need to find a good Renault mechanic in Brisbane (City or Northside). Any recommendations for someone who does good work and charges a reasonable rate? I got $1200 off the listed purchase price and I'm hoping this will mostly cover it! Anyway thanks again for all the invaluable info, great work guys. Cheers, Dave.