Renault Problems

This situation raises a few questions. The first of which is how a car with just 9000km showing needs new front tyres. I know the Megane is a powerful front-wheel-drive car and will, therefore, be potentially very hard on front tyres, but 9000km? Surely it must have been driven hard in its previous life to chew through a set of tyres in such a short distance. I’m smelling a car that has been used for track days and, therefore, driven hard.

The other thing is that a performance car like this will absolutely live or die on the quality of the tyres under it. Putting cheap tyres on it will seriously compromise its performance and even potentially its safety in an emergency.

But it’s not too late to make things right. Tell the dealer that you’re prepared to pay the difference between the cheap tyres and the Potenzas the car should have and see if they’ll play ball. I know it would have been nice if this had all been explained to you before you signed on the dotted line, but some dealers (like some business people in any industry) will do everything they can to save themselves a few bucks. In this case, though, the result is a potentially compromised car in your driveway.

If the dealer won’t play, and you still want to buy the car, take it straight to a tyre shop and have a performance tyre fitted. But don’t forget that some of the Chinese tyres on the market now are far from as bad as people think. While you’re at the tyre shop, ask for a professional opinion on the tyres the car was supplied with.

It somewhat depends on which model Koleos we’re talking about. For some strange reason, both the two-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive versions of the Koleos have the same towing capacity. Even stranger is the fact that the much torquier turbo-diesel version of the 2018 Renault has a lower towing limit than the petrol-engined version with its peakier powerplant.

So, on that basis, the turbo-diesel Koleos has a 1650kg braked trailer towing limit. Which neatly rules it out. The petrol version meanwhile, can legally tow 2000kg so theoretically, you could use it to tow an 1800kg caravan. In reality, though, the petrol Koleos won’t do so effortlessly or (as you’ve described it) easily. In fact, it’ll be just about at the limit in terms of its performance and braking and the CVT transmission will really be earning its keep on hills. To be honest, there are better choices for this type of use.

This is a more common problem than you might imagine. Because air has to escape the fuel tank to allow the fuel in, you can sometimes achieve what is pretty much an air lock when the nozzle prevents the air getting out fast enough. Either that, or the fuel filler neck is shaped so that it splashes the fuel back against the pump nozzle, making the sensor in the nozzle think the tank is full.

Some cars will be fine on some pumps and not others, while some cars are just generally a pain to fill. Yet other cars will be fine on a flat surface, but won’t fill properly on any sort of an angle or slope.

The best trick to try is to insert the nozzle into the filler neck and then turn it 90 degrees. This has the effect of directing the fuel spray somewhere other than straight back up the nozzle’s spout and triggering the pump’s shut-off mechanism. The other thing to try is to pull the trigger on the nozzle, but not all the way. That can sometimes slow the flow enough to prevent the shut-off. If that doesn’t work, you’re stuck with trickling the fuel in very slowly to avoid the pump shutting off.

A lot of owners of cars such as Peugeot, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Renault and even Porsche tend to steer away from the higher costs of dealership servicing once the vehicle is out of warranty. That has led to the establishment of a raft of specialists in particular brands who are not factory dealerships. So, the trick is to find such a specialist independent workshop and take the car there.

Such a workshop should have all the test gear and service equipment, not to mention model-specific know-how, to tackle any job (including this one) without the hourly rate of a factory dealership with its higher overheads.

Rain water is very good at getting past rubber seals. So pretty much anywhere where you have a piece of glass (windscreen or side windows) sealed against the rest of the car, you have a potential leak point. But water can also get past other types of rubber seals, including the ones that are supposed to seal the door and hatchback/boot openings. Even a small twig that gets caught on these seals can allow water in during a rain-storm.

The other possibility is that the air-conditioning drain hose is blocked or dislodged. This hose is designed to drain the moisture from the air (which separates when the air-con is used) from the air-con unit in the car to somewhere outside the car. If the drain is blocked or missing, wet carpets are another very real possibility.

But the fact that you had overnight rain before noticing the problem suggests a rubber seal is either dirty, torn or missing or has simply gone hard with age and allowing the rain in. Start with the windscreen and work your way back. A good way to find the leak is to sit in the car while somebody sprays it with a garden hose. From inside, you might see the drips of water as they make their way in.

According to the official test, the Arkana has a combined (city and highway) consumption figure of 6.0 litres per 100km which is pretty decent for this type and size of vehicle. CarsGuide’s road test, however, showed that, like the vast majority of cars out there, the Renault will use a bit more than that in the real world. A mix of country, city and suburban work as well as a helping of highway and motorway driving netted a figure of 7.5 litres per 100km. Still pretty good, to be honest.

The other factor when considering running costs is the type of fuel required. Here, again, the Arkana scores well as it will happily run on the cheaper 91-octane fuel rather than the premium stuff.

The best place to start for some professional advice is a transmission specialist. They’ll probably inspect the transmission in your car and will be able to work out whether it can be fixed or if it needs to be replaced.

If you do need a replacement CVT, there are three main ways to go. You could buy a brand new replacement CVT which is likely to be the most expensive course of action. The second alternative is to have the transmission shop recondition the one you already have. This will also be quite expensive.

The third option is to find a good, tested second-hand CVT from a wrecked Koleos and have that fitted. This will be by far the cheapest way to go. But the gamble with option three is that the same problems might happen again, and you’d be back to square one.

I agree that a 2016 model-year car is too new to be thrown away, but failures of CVT transmissions are more common than they should be. It’s something car makers need to look at when they consider future designs and engineering.

You won’t void your warranty by having a qualified person look at the car, but since this is Renault’s problem, why would you spend your own money fixing something that should not be occurring in such a new vehicle? If you’re not getting anywhere at dealership level, I would suggest you try Renault Australia’s customer service department. If people went elsewhere every time a dealership mechanic expressed frustration, those same dealerships would be deserted.

Meantime, I’d have to question whether the original problem was incorrectly diagnosed given that new door cards have not stopped the rattle. The fact that the noise starts and stops according to the position of the window makes me wonder if the cause is not a part of the window actuator or its mechanism. If part of the window regulator is rattling against the door card, it might sound as though the door card itself is the problem when it’s actually something else.

The bottom line is this: The car is under a factory warranty designed to protect the owner against problems like this one. Legally, Renault Australia is obliged to fix it. Don’t be put off by surly dealership staff; chances are once they understand you know your rights, they probably won’t be quite so eager to dismiss you.

From the sounds of things, you need a vehicle that can accommodate the wheelchair as an actual seat in the car rather than having the chair folded and stored for the journey. With that in mind, a van or people-mover is by far the best best bet and the news is good, because there are plenty of choices. For a while there, people were converting Ford Falcon station-wagons for this task, but since the Falcon is no longer made, vans have become the new default vehicle to convert. Which makes plenty of sense.

There are specialist firms around that will carry out whatever conversion you require and tailor-make the ramps, lock-down points and grab-rails you need to make it work for you. Switched on companies will sit down with you and discuss your precise requirements and engineer something bespoke if necessary.

At the moment, the list of car choices is pretty long and includes the new Hyundai Staria, VW Caddy, LDV G10, VW Caravelle, Renault Kangoo, Renault Trafic, Hyundai iLoad, Mercedes-Benz V-Class, Toyota HiAce and, in case you need something really big, even the Toyota Coaster. Some of these companies are also registered as NDIS suppliers.

But don’t rule out a second-hand vehicle, either. There are websites around listing used wheelchair-accessible cars for sale. Some will be ex-taxis, but others can be relatively low-kilometre cars that might just have the exact layout you were looking for.

Conventional wisdom is that your should increase tyre pressures with increases in load and travelling speed. But in the Arkana’s case, the factory tyre pressure recommendation for either urban or freeway speeds remains at the 33 front and 31 rear psi you’ve noted on your tyre placard. Which suggests that the type of tyre Renault is using is happiest at those pressure regardless of average speed. Which, in turn, suggests that a load that varies only by a couple of passengers and a few pieces of luggage is likewise not going to affect the tyre’s performance.

A much better thing to concern yourself with is to keep a weekly eye on the tyre pressures. Tyres lose about one psi a month just sitting around, so keeping on top of that is very important in a safety sense. A tyre can be as low as about 12 psi before it will even look strange to the naked eye, so buy yourself a good quality tyre gauge and get into the habit of checking those pressures every weekend.