The wife's got an auto Clio - and the gearbox /still works!/
But what actually fails on them? I notice from perusing eBay that the world seems full of Clios with dead autoboxes. I know the standard cure is to replace the entire box - or bin the whole car, but what is it that actually dies?
Apart from that and the persistently leaky sunroof it's a nice little car - one of the few small autos around.
Keep it, the rarity value will increase.
What sort of auto is it? Older Renault conventional autos often died through faulty seals, and it is possible to replace them - I did a 25 box once.
The message from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:
Hers is the earlier "simple" autobox. The year after the electronic boxes arrived and they seem more prone to failure. No one seems able to say what it is that actually dies.
I was starting to wonder if there's some French specialist garage near the channel ports that'd do them cheaply. There's so many quite new otherwise reasonably valued cars just being slung because of a dead box. A trailer with two or three on once a month would provide a nice little income.
So a conventional epicyclic gears auto with torque convertor? These ain't
*that* difficult to fix with care, if spares are available.Rubber band types, I'm told, can be near impossible.
The message from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:
Quite so, but they do seem to fail very often but I've never heard what it is that they actually die of.
Did you mean hers is before the electrically selected mechanism? We had a J 1600 clio with the electric 4 speed box. One of the solenoids cracked its casing and was replaced by the earlier owner. I suspect they botched the job. It then failed on us at
The message from AJH contains these words:
Yeah, it's a 1400 3-speed manually operated automatic - if you see what I mean.
Few auto specialists just *repair* autos. Because of the labour involved, it's best for them to do a complete overhaul. And then no problems with something else going wrong shortly afterwards, and the hassle that causes. Garages usually just buy in an exchange unit.
But I think Guy is pondering a DIY fix, where the labour is free. In which case the parts will be a fraction of the pro cost for the job. The last auto I did cost about 200 quid for all the wearing parts, seals and gaskets.
They're a bit intimidating, but not really that difficult to strip and rebuild provided you keep a careful note of where things go etc. And use operating theatre standards of cleanliness.
I'm talking about pure hydraulic boxes though. Not had a go at a 5 speed electronic one yet. ;-)
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