Going to have a look at one of these in a day or two (don't ask), does anyone with experience of them know if there's anything to particularly look out for (other than 'everything') with a few to assessing the mechanical quality - or lack thereof... ?
Its an old french car, check the electrics as best you can, dunno about the autobox but i wouldn't trust it, rust shouldn't be much of a problem. Wafer thin panels, so expect a few carpark dings/dents. Shocking piece of junk really :) It'll be slow as hell, and uncomfy.
Last generations -around 1989- were mecanically rather good: proven concept on the end of their production run. I worked as an engineer at Renault Belgium. The "old" R5 had better quality control figures than the newer R21.
Oh yes: R5's are from those times when a decent French car had rustholes in it after 4 years. But by the late 80's even Renault solved the rust-equation.
Correct.
No: at those speeds nothing is terribly uncomfy. In fact the R5 has a very soft suspension, best recognised in extreme body roll when cornered "sporty".
I suppose you can pick them up for 50 UKP and drive: it still beats walking. Plenty of spare parts at a few pounds.
But secretly I hope the reason is because they drop nicely from a cliff. After all that's where they were made for, I think. ;)
Can't really say, but our Vicars wife has a 90 H plate light blue 1.4 auto (think its a 1.4) but could be a 1.7? Anyways it looks very tidy, not one spec of rust on it, and she says very reliable.
we've had a couple down here, one was shit and rotten as f*ck (got it like that though) second was perfect. (garaged all its life/little old lady owner/ obsessive compulsive car cleaner owner) We left the decent R5 outside, about 20 yards away from the english channel, nine months later, it started first time and didn't disintergrate like i was expecting.
...rob
ps, was a funny little car, met. red nicely faded to met. pink :D
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