Renault 5 Buying Advice
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Contents |
Introduction
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Bodywork
Basically everywhere!!! Check around the battery tray, inner wings, sills, floor panels particularly front foot wells, rear arches, door hinge panel, bottom of the doors shell and skin, and around window rubbers. Check areas of underseal and seam sealant.
Suspension
The Renault 5's Achilees' Heel is the rear trailing arm suspension bushes. Interestingly enough, it's not age that seems to kill them, with many low mileage cars still having intact original bushes. Mileage seems to be the problem. You can reckon on a set of bushes lasting 90-100,000 miles before the outer bushes detach from the outboard mountings. The end result is a car that handles strangely, as the rear wheels "steer" the car as the trailing arms move around relative to the rest of the car. A knocking sound is also often apparent from the rear when going over bumps.
Cures to this problem, along with efforts to remanufacture or source replacement bushes can be found on the Rear Suspension Bushes page.
Interestingly enough, MOT testers do not seem to be able to spot when the rear bushes have failed, except in extreme cases, where the mounting to the car body (and sometimes the car body itself around that point) rusts away.
You can check for this problem on any potential purchase by jacking up the rear of the car and attempting to wobble the rear wheels from side-to-side, or up and down while looking end-on at the bushes. The bushes need replacing if the wheels are moved easily up and down, and you can see the rubber rotating in the end of the bush mounting, or you can move the wheel and trailing arm from side to side.
Bushes are not easily available, so tread carefully before parting with cash for a car with worn-out rear suspension!
Engine
Gearbox
The gearbox on the Renault 5 (Mk I 1972-84) is quite robust. However, the gearbox fitted to the Gordini/Alpine variants can cause trouble. Whilst the gearboxes on these models are more than capable of handling the increased power of the engines, synchromesh on 2nd and 5th gears can wear.
It's quite easy to spot synchromesh troubles on 2nd gear - just change down into 2nd while slowing down or when just about to take a corner. You'll hear a definite "crunch" if there's an issue.
As with all gearboxes, make sure it doesn't jump out of gear or whine excessively.
Electrics
The electrics on the Renault 5 are pretty simple, but there are a few areas to be aware of:
- Engine cooling fan: This is not fused. If the fan siezes during the winter season, it is likely to burn out the first time it tries to work in the summer. The result can be as bad as an engine compartment fire. Scary stuff. A recommended safety fix is to fit an inline fuse of 10A
- Starter motor: The starter motor can fail. It's a pain to change as the inlet/exhaust manifold (depending on version) must be removed. Even then it's often not straightforward to extract the motor
- Tailgate electrics: The wiring passes from the main car body, through a rubber tube and into the tailgate (left-hand side). The constant flexing of the wiring as the tailgate is opened and closed causes the wiring to fracture over time. So check that the heated rear window, rear wiper, reversing lights and number plate lights all work. The only long-term fix is to extract the wiring from the tailgate, to slide the wiring tube out of the way and then patch in new pieces of wire (soldered if possible). It's a long-winded task, but worth it. Ugly wiring there is not nice!
