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Tempted by a Megane RS 265 Cup Premium


Grumpytroll

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1 hour ago, Grumpytroll said:

Also later year cars of the same model tend to have less issues as known issues have often been addressed by then. Not sure if that's the case with the Megs?

Mechanical wise, the Meg RS was a lot more reliable than I thought even with a lot of track use..

As long as its got a good service record, with the age of most used Meg RS timing belt service should have being done already.

What's left is just tear and wear parts like every other car ;) 

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Mechanical wise, the Meg RS was a lot more reliable than I thought even with a lot of track use..
As long as its got a good service record, with the age of most used Meg RS timing belt service should have being done already.
What's left is just tear and wear parts like every other car [emoji6] 
What about electronics? What did you have warranty issues with on yours?

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ttimbo where do you take the Trophy R for servicing? Beautiful car by the way but a little over budget and the lack of rear seats could be a problem!


Rolfe Renault were good, I found...but my first experience with National Capital Renault at Tuggeranong left me cold. Since then, I’ve made the pilgrimage north to Renotech. I recently tried to organise enough owners for the Renotech boys to visit us here for a day or so...but it became too hard!

Budget? It’s only money, and the Trophy-R will never be repeated now Ghosn has gone [emoji22]

And rear seats? Very overrated [emoji12]
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Rolfe Renault were good, I found...but my first experience with National Capital Renault at Tuggeranong left me cold. Since then, I’ve made the pilgrimage north to Renotech. I recently tried to organise enough owners for the Renotech boys to visit us here for a day or so...but it became too hard!

Budget? It’s only money, and the Trophy-R will never be repeated now Ghosn has gone [emoji22]

And rear seats? Very overrated [emoji12]


Great idea with Renotech, shame that didn't work out.

Before kids I would have agreed with you about rear seats, hardly used them for years.

Just seen the Ghosn news, sounds like he's been a very naughty boy!

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1 hour ago, Grumpytroll said:

What about electronics? What did you have warranty issues with on yours?

Never had any electronic issues on my '15 Meg RS265 CP..

I bought the car used from a private 1 owner with 8000km on the clock only so it had warranty until 2020, drove it a few days and notice the brake pedal was wobbling side to side a lot, took it to the dealership and they look at it told me its normal all Renaults are like this so get use to it :roll: yahh ok, so I learnt to live with it..

Went back for warranty once due to oil leaking from engine cover bolts which is a very common issue, can easily be spotted once you take the top plastic cover off. I even told the dealership the oil is leaking from the bolts, but they say no its coming from the upper engine cover by which they replaced the gasket on it and cleaned up the leaking oil residues. Not surprised 1 days later there were oil residue on the engine cover, so went back again telling them the oil is certainly coming from the bolts as I said the first time. They took the car for a few hours and returned it to me telling me its normal for some oil leak on the top engine over, don't worry about it all Renaults do this and it does no harm :roll: seriously wtf?!?!? took it to Renault specialist mechanic Renotech and they sealed each of the engine cover bolts with sealant, no trace of oil leak after that. Big thanks to them!

I had a slight paint flaking near the rear taillight, took it back to warranty they said they will need to paint the whole passenger side because of the liquid yellow pearl paint and it may still not look even with the rest of the car due to the pearl effect. They talked me out of it, so I lived with it and luckily the tiny flaking spot stayed the same so I guess its ok :roll:

Another common issue is the inner door handle breaking due to bad placement and not supporting the big door properly, a lot of owners has had the door handle snapped off because of this, my drive door handle become very loose after 1 year and can see the bottom starting to break apart. Took it back to dealership as its under warranty, they looked at it and said ok we'll order you a new door card and give you a call when its here. A month later I sold the car and its about 10 month since, I have never received a call from them regarding this.

Maybe I should call them up and ask them sooo how's the new door card going, its being 10 month now :lol:

 

Other than this, I enjoyed the car a lot on the track.. feel free to take a look at my Member's Ride Topic! ;) 

Edited by KeepItLow
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Honestly service like this is appalling from a 'challenger' brand like Renault. I know the dealers are franchised, but renault aust bumped Hocevar and wonder why they can't move Meganes, and yet nearly every person I know who has bought a Renault new or used the dealer network has been summarily unimpressed. 

FCA brands have exactly the same problem. 

Contrast to the Koreans and satisfaction with dealers is high - so they come back and buy more <insert whitegood vehicle> down the track. 

Even Ford, who often get a bad rap - long long capped price service program, auto club membership thrown in if you maintain dealer servicing, guaranteed loan car. Excellent. At least they're trying. 

Edited by tfdpny
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@KeepItLow - shocking service from Renault and a few issues but nothing too scary which is good to hear. Can't believe they fobbed you off about the oil leak, that's outrageous. I've only heard good things about Renotech, sounds like they are worth the drive to Sydney for us Canberrans!

Your members ride topic is a great read, you've had some interesting cars! I considered an Alfa Guiletta QV as well (very cheap, $15k for a 2012 at a dealer with only 48,000kms) and I thought Alfa had improved reliability wise but sounds like that wasn't your experience.

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2 minutes ago, Grumpytroll said:

I thought Alfa had improved reliability wise

The G is better in a lot of ways, but there still seem to be occasional horrors - @Haakon has had one of those.

As a lifelong Alfisti, and having driven a fair few - it mostly seems like just very niggly things - a noise you cant find here, an unexplained CEL there, trim coming off etc etc rather than VW style DSG implosions or any issues with engine internals. Still, this is the kind of thing which dealers suck at fixing (esp. FCA dealers!), and most people grow weary of quite quickly and can sour their willingness to ever return.

There's also some strangely poor lifespans of things in my experience. 156/147s used to eat front suspension arms like a consumable item. My MiTo gets 25000kms out of a set of front rotors (the tires last longer!). I've heard of clutches on Fiat 500s being replaced inside 2 years. My Punto needed new engine mounts at 60000kms because all three had the consistency of cottage cheese.

The GQV is a worthy car, but in my opinion not a great Alfa. It feels like they tried to make an Italian Golf, and in the process managed to miss the best parts of either. Contrast that to say an Abarth 595 Competizione, which is just Italian madness and passion in all its glory.

 

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10 minutes ago, tfdpny said:

As a lifelong Alfisti, and having driven a fair few - it mostly seems like just very niggly things

156/147s used to eat front suspension arms like a consumable item.

My Punto needed new engine mounts at 60000kms because all three had the consistency of cottage cheese.

Lol, it's not for nothing that Italian cars are known for their quirkiness then!

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39 minutes ago, Grumpytroll said:

 I've only ever owned Japanese cars myself 

i'm so sorry to hear that.

hope it gets better and the Doctors can fix it

 

😁😀😁

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58 minutes ago, Grumpytroll said:

Touché! Was thinking the same myself as I typed it! I've only ever owned Japanese cars myself so I guess that's where I was coming from :-)

I had too (excluding one) up until this year when I picked up a 265. I did have to get the belts done but it has been trouble free so far.

The only small issue I've had is a small leak from one of the rocker cover bolts that I thought was fixed. However, i've noticed a slight misfire at idol again, so i'm assuming a little oil has leaked into a sparkplug. I gave the engine a good degreasing last night so hopefully I can see the culprit over the next few days.

As a help Ive seen a lot of the models that have proximity locks go bad. Glad I stayed away from that option.

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9 hours ago, Grumpytroll said:

@KeepItLow - shocking service from Renault and a few issues but nothing too scary which is good to hear. Can't believe they fobbed you off about the oil leak, that's outrageous. I've only heard good things about Renotech, sounds like they are worth the drive to Sydney for us Canberrans!

Your members ride topic is a great read, you've had some interesting cars! I considered an Alfa Guiletta QV as well (very cheap, $15k for a 2012 at a dealer with only 48,000kms) and I thought Alfa had improved reliability wise but sounds like that wasn't your experience.

Yep, nothing major with the Meg RS, just some small niggles here and there. The car itself drove amazingly anyway you want it to :wink:

Lol.. As for the Alfa Giulietta QV, it was kind of like a love at the first site and impulse buy for me..

Sitting inside the car feels very special in a way that you don't get from other cars or maybe its just me :oops:

The 1750tbi engine is extremely smooth to drive and performance was not bad being just over 1300kg, only downside is the lack of limited slip diff when you start to push it a bit more.

As for issues I encountered on it, I have to say its the most unreliable car I've ever owned.. LOL even though I still like the car a lot every other way!

**Bought it brand new, picking up the car from dealership 2 days later my gf found out the passenger side window switch does not work. Took it back to dealership and they ordered new part from Italy, 2 month wait :roll:

**After 10,000km the clutch pedal started making a clicking sound when depressed, took it back to dealership. The clutch master cylinder was faulty, they order new part from Italy, again 2 month wait :roll:

**The interior became very rattly, instrument panel, dash and door trim. Took it back to dealership they managed to fixed a few, but cannot find out how to fix the other ones, ok learn to live with it :roll:

**Out of the blue one night driving home after dinner, the gearbox locked out on all the upper gears R 1 3 5 and I was left limping my way home using the available gears 2 4 6. Took it back to dealership, something about the shift fork fell out of place so they fixed it.

**During each service the coolant would drop to low point, the dealership cannot find out why. Obviously leaking somewhere, but their solution was "Don't worry we will top up the coolant every service or if need be". Ummm yehh ok :roll:

**Then one night driving in rain, turned on the air con to clear the windscreen to find out no cold air was coming out. Went back dealership they advise the interior and exterior temperature sensor was faulty, ordered new part from Italy 1 month wait. After replace both sensor it happened again after a month :roll:

All this happened within the first 9 month of owning the car from new, I think I had enough patience dealing with all these crap so sold the car and moved on! :-P

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Sounds like you were super unlucky and got a bad one. I can see why you'd fall for one, they look beautiful, especially from the rear (IMHO) and the interior looks pretty special as well. A lot of car for your money second hand, in a very different way to the Megane. Just saw a 2014 for $17k. What are they like $50k new, now that's depreciation!

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16 minutes ago, Grumpytroll said:

Sounds like you were super unlucky and got a bad one. I can see why you'd fall for one, they look beautiful, especially from the rear (IMHO) and the interior looks pretty special as well. A lot of car for your money second hand, in a very different way to the Megane. Just saw a 2014 for $17k. What are they like $50k new, now that's depreciation!

If I remembered correctly, I paid 43k brand new for my QV back in 2012. I would expect the later build year ones have all the problems ironed out, considering it was release end of 2011 so my one was still quite a early life model ;) 

Edited by KeepItLow
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28 minutes ago, Grumpytroll said:

And if not you only need to wait a month or two for a part from Italy 😂. You'd seriously think they'd have some stock in Oz and if not it should take max a week or two.

Hahaa.. I agree with you!

They probably wanna save some money and seafreight a part in for you with other stuff they need :lol:

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I would expect the later build year ones have all the problems ironed out, considering it was release end of 2011 so my one was still quite a early life model [emoji6] 


Definition of optimism, right there![emoji6][emoji23]
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10 hours ago, KeepItLow said:

Yep, nothing major with the Meg RS, just some small niggles here and there. The car itself drove amazingly anyway you want it to :wink:

Lol.. As for the Alfa Giulietta QV, it was kind of like a love at the first site and impulse buy for me..

Sitting inside the car feels very special in a way that you don't get from other cars or maybe its just me :oops:

The 1750tbi engine is extremely smooth to drive and performance was not bad being just over 1300kg, only downside is the lack of limited slip diff when you start to push it a bit more.

As for issues I encountered on it, I have to say its the most unreliable car I've ever owned.. LOL even though I still like the car a lot every other way!

**Bought it brand new, picking up the car from dealership 2 days later my gf found out the passenger side window switch does not work. Took it back to dealership and they ordered new part from Italy, 2 month wait :roll:

**After 10,000km the clutch pedal started making a clicking sound when depressed, took it back to dealership. The clutch master cylinder was faulty, they order new part from Italy, again 2 month wait :roll:

**The interior became very rattly, instrument panel, dash and door trim. Took it back to dealership they managed to fixed a few, but cannot find out how to fix the other ones, ok learn to live with it :roll:

**Out of the blue one night driving home after dinner, the gearbox locked out on all the upper gears R 1 3 5 and I was left limping my way home using the available gears 2 4 6. Took it back to dealership, something about the shift fork fell out of place so they fixed it.

**During each service the coolant would drop to low point, the dealership cannot find out why. Obviously leaking somewhere, but their solution was "Don't worry we will top up the coolant every service or if need be". Ummm yehh ok :roll:

**Then one night driving in rain, turned on the air con to clear the windscreen to find out no cold air was coming out. Went back dealership they advise the interior and exterior temperature sensor was faulty, ordered new part from Italy 1 month wait. After replace both sensor it happened again after a month :roll:

All this happened within the first 9 month of owning the car from new, I think I had enough patience dealing with all these crap so sold the car and moved on! :-P

Some irritating problems there for sure, but nothing that would actually put me off buying another Alfa. I don’t consider it ‘character’, I guess being over 50, I just remember all the shit cars I put up with in my automotive formative years - Beetles, the first Passats, Escorts galore and a Hillman Hunter 660 GT I owned for eight years (still a record for me!) and don’t let it bother me.

All of these cars had issues which I’d either put up with or fix along the way. And none of them had one iota of the sexiness of your Alfa or the GTV V6 I later owned. So as long as it’s not a massively expensive issue preventing me from driving at all, I’d still buy a car others consider suspect. I still lust after a 159 Ti - the sexiest sedan ever made. How good are those proportions?? I love them!

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2 hours ago, speedfiend41 said:

All of these cars had issues which I’d either put up with or fix along the way. And none of them had one iota of the sexiness of your Alfa or the GTV V6 I later owned. So as long as it’s not a massively expensive issue preventing me from driving at all, I’d still buy a car others consider suspect. I still lust after a 159 Ti - the sexiest sedan ever made. How good are those proportions?? I love them!

You sir are a lot more patient than I am :lol:

But have to say I was tempted in buying a 159 at the time too, totally loved the shape of it and design was extraordinary from head to toe. Also the fact it comes in manual, a variety of engine choices from diesel, 1750tbi or na 3.2 V6. I remember there were a period of time they brought in a small batch left over stock from other countries and slashed the price to under 50k brand new driveaway :shock:

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33 minutes ago, KeepItLow said:

left over stock

Yeah, the last batch of the 159 TBi were a canceled South African order by all accounts. 

The problem with both the 159 and brera were that the body was writing cheques none of the drive lines could cash. 

2.2 jts was an unreliable dog of a vauxhall engine

1.9 jtd was just a standard derv

2.4 jtd was powerful and 400nm torque but not a very 'alfa' powerplant, rattly as the day is long and used a lot of fuel for a diesel

3.2 jts was a recycled Holden block with alfa heads, not terrible but not a patch on the old busso and combined with the q4 AWD was uber thirsty

1.75 tbi was at least an Italian engine, bit lacking in character though and only available for the last two years by which time everyone had moved on. 

The platform was very heavy, which dulled performance and handling and economy. It did contribute to a lovely solid feel on the road though. A 'nice' car. 

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Luis at Alpine worked in Diepe as far as I believe. Sadly he has since retired and sold the business to a new owner, not one of his mechanics. 

Yes, the new owners wouldn’t know a car from Dieppe if it was written in neon, unfortunately.
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