Renault Espace 2.2dCi Major Engine Problem

[Conniff]

Further diagnostic analysis by a local garage guessed that at least one injector became faulty and has subsequently broke the associated piston and damaged the crank - new engine required was the diagnosis. I'm currently looking for a second hand or reconditioned engine at an estimated cost of £1750 + VAT + installation

 

Dave

 

You should also look for another local garage to go with that engine.

[scaniaman]

Yea Dave, Earlier on i read of some other poor blighter who had similar probs with 2.2 fitted to a PUG--same engine i think, so it looks like it's a design fault after all.

[devilcouple69]

Time for a progress report. After recovering from the shock of the £7k + bill and Renault Customers Services (RCS) insulting initial offer of 20% contribution. I held my ground and complained with RCS. One of there representatives spoke to me after speaking to the Renault Dealer (William A Lewis - Telford).

 

They asked me a few questions about what happened, what the garage had told me and also why i chose to buy a Renault car.

 

About a week or so later they called me back and offered me 50% and said this was no negotiable and they wouldn't increase this offer under any circumstances.

 

Anyway after about 5 weeks from the engine packing up and having to Shell out over £3.5k, i finally got my car back.

 

When i collected the car, i asked what warranty i got with the repairs, they guy said the work was warrantied for 12 months but said the engine should last for a 200,000 miles or more.

 

Well that was just before Christmas. Come January i started to get a warning on the display "check injection" service light on and a loss off power (limp home mode).

 

I took this back to the same dealer. They fixed it said was a loose pipe.

 

But then a few days later it happened again, so took it back to Renault. They said they'd replace a part and it was running fine.

 

Then within a matter of hours, the problem occurred again. They had the car for nearly 2 weeks, then came back to me and said they couldn't find the cause of the fault. Tehy had tried everything they could think of and had been speaking to Renault and nothing they tried would fix the problem.

 

So they gave me the car back and said the next step would be to get a Renault Engineer out to look at the vehicle. This could take upto 2/3 weeks before they could come out and would cost me £150.

 

Why should it cost me £150 to pay for someone from Renault to look at my car for a fault that a approved Renault dealer can't fix. Are there two different Renault's.

 

So i've had a complete new engine & turbo, supplied & fitted by Renault and now since they've put it in i have a car that cost me £20k to buy from William A Lewis Renault - Shrewsbury, Oct 06, and the cost of a new engine by William A Lewis Renault - Telford. I have a car that i can only drive 95% of the time in limp mode and i can't sell coz of the fault, so its completely worthless.

 

I've seem loads of threads on Parkers & Honest John, but there doesn't seem to be a solution to the problem.

[Conniff]

There certainly is a solution, it's a man in a black cloak wearing a funny hat.

 

Can you confirm if you bought the car from William A Lewis Renault?

[devilcouple69]

Yes i did buy the car from William A Lewis Renault

[Conniff]

You should spend some time printing off as many similar cases as possible then send a copy to Lewis's and ask for a full refund in accordance with advice you have received. Tell them that 'as instructed' you require reimbursement of the full costs and unless they agree to an offer that is safisfactory to you, you will take further instruction.

[pbrimble]

I have a Renault Privilege 2.2 DCi as well. I bought the car second hand a year ago in February and decided to take out Tesco's Finest Warranty on the Car starting from the 1st of March. On the 15th of March, I was driving with my father, son and a couple of aquaintences along the A38 taking them to a football training course when all of a sudden, the car lost power and black smoke was seen billowing out the back, I looked for a place to pull over and put my foot on the clutch to change gear, when I did this the car went redline and the STOP sign popped up. I pressed the Stop button and pulled the car over to the side of the road. The car would not start. Called the RAC and he thought that it sounded like the turbo drinking the engine oil and running away.

 

As I had the Warranty, I had the car towed to the nearest Renault Garage and left the car there (as it was a Sunday).

 

On the Monday, I popped the key into the Garage and gave them the Warranty details. They were told by Tescos to strip the engine down in order to ascertain the cause of the issue. They did this and it appears that one cyclinder is all carboned up and melted with some holes around the side and the valves are also burned. The engine is kapput and Renault are quoting up to £7k to fix.

 

The Warranty says that it covers this but Tesco are trying to imply that it was an existing fault at the time that the Warranty was taken out, possibly related to the fact that they could not see the date of the breakdown on the RAC slip. I am now getting up to date information from RAC to pass to Tesco and plan to fight the suggestion that the car had a faulty cylinder and would not start prior to the Warenty being taken out. I have witnesses to the fact that the car was infact driving perfectly well with no noticable issues until the engine went kapput and I had done over 400 miles since taking out the Warranty.

 

As my car has done 56k miles it sounds very much like the other vehicles in this forum post.

 

I'll let you know how it goes.

[devilcouple69]

PROGRESS REPORT 05.05.09

 

Time for a final update (hopefully). Since I had the car returned to me by the dealer un-repaired. I had a call from Renault Customer Services Independent market research company on the phone asking me about my experience with my dealer.

 

The long and short of it was i told them how incredibly dissatisfied i was, they asked me if i wanted my concerns passing on the Renault Customer Services, so i said yes.

 

A couple of weeks later i had a call from Renault Customer Services about my customer satisfaction survey. I rand through why i had responded the way I did. He said he would look into the problem and try and find a solution with the dealer in question.

 

I got a call back after about a week and he'd agreed with the dealer to have my car for a further week to carry out investigations and try and fix the problem.

 

So i took the car in last Monday. Come Friday morning I hadn't heard a thing so I called the dealer and they said they'd found the problem and fixed it. So with a certain amount of skepticism and trepidation i went to collect my vehicle.

 

So when i arrived they instructed me that the problem was a fault with the actuator on the turbo. They replaced it and it was running fine. They intimated the unit was faulty when they replaced the engine & turbo just before Christmas.

 

I've been running the car over the Bank holiday weekend and (touch wood) it running as it should be (no service light & injection fault warnings)

 

All i can say is that I'm happy that my car is up & running again and for once I actually found a helpful member of Renault Customer Service

[nareik]

Hi,

I have just returned from a disastrous trip to France were i was planning to spend Christmas with the family.

I spent four days stranded in a small town in Normandy after the the Engine in my 2.2dci Espace-year 04 ground to a halt on the motorway. After recovery to a local garage and two days of investigation i was quoted 10,000 euro for a new engine. I know little about cars-one of the four cylinders had broken according to the French speaking mechanic.

I arrived home by plane last night and await the return of the car by the recovery company (thank god for breakdown insurance).

 

I note that the price of a new engine is £7k.

Is there any point to this?

Any advise would be useful.

[the winkler 72]

Your first loss is your best loss, scrap it, learn a lesson and dont buy french again.

You could try to find a second hand engine, but they will be hard to find because they all blow up eventually and if you do find one the scrap guys no they are like hens teeth so they want a premium for them, also we did an engine swop for a guy with one of these about 12 months ago andit was a very time consuming job, and one that I said I would never take on again.

 

Best wishes

Winkler

[traffer]

There have been many problems with the Renault Diesel engines and it is believed that more regluar oil changes using fully syntheitc oil prolongs the life of the turbo. The ownership problem forum on the Parkers website seems to be where the world complains about Renault.

[fluky]

Hi Guys,

I just had the same failure - conrod through the sump. I have a Grand Espace (Epression with dynamique package - 2005), only just done 60k (60550 miles precisely)

 

I was travelling along the A48 westbound toward carmarth (southwest wales) at night around 10pm (Saturday,20-3-2010), then i heard the rattling noise from the front, and the noise getting more loudly, could even feel some vibration, then i had red warning ligh STOP i managed to pull in a layby, just before i stopped, i heard a small Bang! it is pitch dark outside, i called AA. With the help of AA's illuminating touch, i could also see, there is a hole at the bottom of the engine - "conrod had punched through the sump"

 

I had the car tolled to my home in tenby on that Saturday night. And on the Following Monday, I had the car tolled into a Renault deal garage (Gravell Renault dealer at Kidwelly of Carmarthenshire). They have qouted me new engine + labour of £5k. I also talked to Renault customer service, and this guy (Called Steve) so far has not suggested any compensation or contribution toward the repairment yet, although agreed to investigate, i have instructed the garage to investigate (if that means to strip off the engine) having given to me the promise that investigation cost will be within £150. I am still awaiting for the investigation result at moment.

 

After reading all the articles so far, i am hoping eventually Renault will turn around to offer me at least 50% of the overall cost.

Also, i have counted so far, just within this board alone, including my case, there are already 6 espace with same fairlure (3 of them happens to be Espace espression), perhaps, we should collecting all those cases, and take it to the next level of action ?

[Conniff]

Do as suggested to others fluky and gather as much evidence as possible. Before you start on your quest however, make sure you have evidence that 'all' servicing has been carried out in accordance with the manufacturers instructions, especially oil changes, or your immediately heading to the inevitable brick wall.

[heliosuk]

See the pycroft thread and many others on this engine in other forums. Renault I would alledge have serious issues here and just bury their head in the sand ( which is probably what the bearings are made of given the failures )

 

I know he'd be interested in all these failures as would his legal team.

[Conniff]

Dunno if I would say alledged, there are just too many for it to be any sort of coincidence.

[fluky]

further update on my case, today Renault has offered to pay 50% of the cost to replace the engine, that leaves me to pay 2500 pound, i guess that is as far as i could push now.

[heliosuk]

In reality fluky this is a very good offer indeed. Take it given the attitude they display towards this known fault.

 

It's a message to all that unless you try to complain to the manufacturer they won't fully understand the extent of the problem.

 

Interestingly, a chance conversation with a Ford mechanic a few weeks ago indicated that they were changing engines left right and centre because of piston failure on No. 3 cylinder which is probably the root cause of the issue of throwing rods and it seems it's the same base engine that Renault purchase from the Ford PSA alliance.

[ribena88]

sorry to hear about the engine problems you have had, until now i thought what had happened to our car at the weekend was very unusual but it seems a common problem.

the conrod has gone through the engine and we are facing an engine replacement with a huge bill but am wondering if its worth contacting renault? our 2.2dci is a 53 plate but only done just over 62k, been serviced all the way through but not by renault and was purchased from another dealer and is out of the 6m warrenty they supplied.

any comments or suggestions welcome. have people had success with compensation from renault only with newer cars?

many thanks

[fluky]

hi there,

Yes, definitely give the renault service a call 08006340509 - and select the option for complaint. And also do mention this website too. Also mention that recent failure in toyota car caused toyota to recall their cars globally...... toyota had reputation for reliable, but now the name is almost in parallel with dangerous unreliable..... do mentioned that from this site, there are already 7 or 8 same failures, and the statistic of this is in fact higher than of the actuall failure in toyota.... do remain calm and firm.

Good luck

[EndOfTetherEspaceOwner]

Dunno if I would say alledged, there are just too many for it to be any sort of coincidence.

 

We too had this problem on Good Friday, travelling north to Perth from Devon. We have a 53 plate 2.2 dci Espace, had from new, 50K miles. Lost a touch of power just going over the border, no warning lights, no smoke that we could see, nothing to warn us of a major incidence. Anyway, after calling AA and being towed into Perth, seemed we too had blown the turbo and needed whole new engine. New engine fitted and 2 weeks later, car was driven back south - all fine until a month later (we're low mileage users of this one) and a warning light came on the dash to cut power immediately. I was on main A38 dual carriageway at the time, very scary as power just went. Managed to get onto the verge and called AA. He said there was a hose/pipe that had become disconnected and needed to be replaced. He tightened it enough and followed me back to local Renault dealer (where car was bought from and been maintained from new). AA man told them that as it had been a new engine and the hose/pipe was very high pressure, once it had come loose, it should be replaced, not just tightened. Next day, phone call to say hose had been tightened and was fine. I said I wanted a new one fitted as it's a new engine - they eventually agreed and new hose fitted. Dealers were initially looking to charge me for the work - I said def no, the new engine was less than a month old!

 

This week, the sunroof has ceased to work - guess what, each mstep they take incurs a new fault and now, having fitted a new sunroof motor, they are saying it's a mechanical problem and we need new rollers - £1200 altogether - this is just a total joke. What on earth do we do? (this is without informing you all of the twice failing boot lock - once on a busy road and second time (having been repaired 2 months earlier) on a country park road with my dog in the back - had I been going faster than 15mph she would have shot out the back.

 

Apart from binning the car, has anyone any advice on what we can do with these multitude of problems - main issue at the moment is the sunroof.

[tko187]

I still have my car in the drive, still looking for an engine can anyone help??

[tko187]

This is an absolute nightmare, i bought the vehicle from Volkswagen only done 32,000 mile and still paying finance on the car can someone show me the road to take. Last service was from VW also.

[tko187]

Bump

[tko187]

bump

[4_D]

I've just bought a 2.2DCi Dynamique Espace.

 

I was told it had a new engine and turbo fitted by Renault at 52K miles (20K miles ago), and that the issue was fixed on these new engines.

 

It's been running ok for us all weekend.

 

Can anyone confirm that the issue is actually fixed, as I'm now concerned we might have the same problem again in 30K miles or so?