Pleased With My New Renault

Blast!

I'll have to change the sales advert now.

I don't rate any 'new' car until they've had some time to evaluate their quality.

When I bought my Acura, I researched their dependency and maintenance records. Since then, they've been rated very high ever since 2006. My Acura TL only gets regular oil change and tire rotatations, and it still runs like new. My dash tells me when I need my oil change or when my tire needs more air.

It also has GPS and no hands assist.

Here's the ratings:

I intend for this car to be my last one; at 79 yo, I really don't drive much.

Nice vehicle. I think that the picture above is the 2015 Renault

I bought a new Honda car, and I love doing by myself the repairs/service of my vehicles, but since 2013 Honda is not given permission for a book release of the shop service manual, and their system is kind of ugly when you look for certain online instructions to do repairs. For example, I want to add reading lights to the back seat, and I can't find yet the page showing me the electrical and body diagrams in order to plan my wiring and installation of lights.

What about Renault in your country? I understand that everybody wants to provide online manuals only, but Nissan -as another example- offers a more easy web site research for their online manuals than Honda.

The price of the online service is not the issue, but how easy is the access to the offered information.

Is Renault still allowing the release of shop manual service books for the "do it yourself" customers if they ask to buy one?

http://www.autozone.com/autozone/myzone/profile/membershipBenefits.jsp

For repair manuals.

@ cicerone imposter

Thanks.

The shop service manuals for Honda and some other brands have not been reproduced by competitors since 2013.

Nor Chilton neither Haynes have them yet.

There is a company that reproduces most of brand cars shop repair manuals sold in the US. As far as it is known, Honda has cancelled the contract with them. And I guess other brands will do the same.

Hey congratulations !! I absolutely love this. i agree that v6 would have absolutely stunning.

The design and building of vehicles has changed a lot in the last decades.

The European cars seem for me to be as good as Japanese cars in reliability.

We can't compare the old European and Japanese vehicles exported to other countries with today's worldwide trade.

For example, while in Japan the body of old Datsun appeared to last for many years, in other countries the rust consumed very fast the metal "due to the different environment", and many Datsun showed deteriorated body fenders as the most.

In those former years, the construction of cars was simply "standard", while today, cars are built according to the place of destiny.

This won't mean that there is a great difference between a car sold in Germany with a car sold in the US, but surely there are lots of details that run from exhaust to gauges and more, according to the laws and requirements of the countries.

There is no perfect cars, and people in third world countries buy cars according to what fits better for long durability without expensive maintenance cost. In this aspect, American cars are not very welcomed in other countries.

For example, in South America, FORD is known as Fabricación Ordinaria Reparación Diaria (Ordinary Fabrication Daily Repair)

English translation of Ford name is a bit off. Here in North America it is as follows:
Fix Or Repair Daily

Renaults in North America in the past have had a bad repair record and cost too much relative to the competition to qualify as an inexpensive sporty car for which they're targeted.

Also, in the past they were not desirable here as the cost of upkeep was high as the parts cost more due to low volume and high shipping costs.

Apparently, all that may have changed. See the following:

Recently Renault here in NA changed its corporate structure and finances:
"Three years after breaking free of its merger with Chrysler, Daimler AG has inked a tie-up with the Renault-Nissan Alliance. Nissan and Renault joined forces in 1999. "

Amazing thing is that "good quality or strong machines" is not enough for making a brand auto to survive in the market.

The case of Oldsmobile with its muscle cars is a weird example. For some reason became unattractive for modern buyers. This is a company that disappeared from the face of earth while selling very good vehicles.

On the other hand, Ford trucks -specially heavy trucks- are praised around the world, but the cars are not very welcomed.

Even so, I'm so tempted to at least testing the Ford Fusion.

Well here's a bit of an update to my original post. My 2015 Renault Duster Dynamique 4x4 now has 26.000 kilometers on the clock and continues to serve me well. The one failing so far is the rear shock absorbers. On last inspection Renault said they were shot and need to be replaced. Under ordinary conditions I would consider this outrageously early but it's only fair for me to admit that I cross six kilometers of very rough unpaved road on a daily basis...so I'm only half outraged.

I have learned that these vehicles are all made at a huge Dacia factory in Romania and shipped out in a crate as "complete knock down kits" to assembly plants in six countries, one of them being Colombia. 40% are marketed as Dacia and 60% as Renault. Renault's Colombia assembly began in 1970 with the Renault 4L so it has quite a long history here. The very first to assemble vehicles in Colombia though was British Austin. They produced cargo trucks and jeeps beginning in 1962 but they didn't hold up to Colombia's mountainous terrain. Well that's my update and short history lesson.

I always look forward to seeing your posts/updates.

Thank you, that's good to know!

Me too, Pitter.

Thank you too!