Freaking French Renault Rubbish

Hmmm, so yet another weekend flies by...yet another F1 race also flies by with the winner being Ren "O" again! Well done Fernando! Good race. Anyway to duck away from that glory I really wanted to voice my opinion on the Renault product itself. I had this encounter nearly 2 years ago when I bought a car, well that’s what they called it when the salesman showed me my test vehicle. Now, don't get me wrong, this little baby looked and felt absolutely awesome, the power was there and so was the styling, so of course being a hot blooded, racy little shite, I decided, this is the one. So of I went signed the papers and a few months later got the call to tell me that my car was ready. Ohh yeah, lumps and jumps in my tummy and heart....now I can really drive in style. So I thought....hmmmm lotsa thoughts for Saffa.

Walked into the garage, only to find that my car wasn't on the floor, upon asking where it was I was told that it was being filled up with fuel! Awesome I thought, this is gonna be a real blaster of day. So of I toddled, stood in the warm morning sun outside waiting for my beauty to arrive back. So in comes this Renault, at a speed might I say. The guy stops, jumps out and starts walking to the showroom with the Key Card (one of Renault's most terrible inventions), he see's me, not knowing I was the new owner and proudly tell's me that this car is, and I quote, "flipping zippy". Now, as a new buyer you don't really want to hear this..but being all excited I let is slide. Salesman comes to me and tells me that my car is ready....then he says that I just have to bring it back in about 3 weeks to get y door fixed. They dented the door on the ship....small dent, but dented nonetheless. I forced them to fix it that day and they did, not 100% but being the moron I am, well sometimes, only in certain situations, not all the time, well some would argue, anyway, back to the story. I let it slide, again. sheesh with all that sliding I should of opened a damn water, coulda made millions in "slides"...

So the car went fine for a while, then after about 3000km, I have a look at the floor on my garage floor, lo and behold someone must be using my garage during the day.....because there is no way my new Renault could be leaking oil, could it? Sure enough, it was my new Renault! My new Renault. My new Renault Megane. Your getting the idea right, the keyword here, being new, and yes that’s brand new. Of course I go into a flat spin, and head of to the dealer....they say the will take a look and of course I go in with them. So the guy checks it out and tells me, the gearbox is sweating. I think about this and even though it was a pretty hot I don't believe that a new cars gearbox needs to sweat. So he cleaned it all off and assured me that it wouldn't happen again. And yes, before you ask, the sliding affect took place again!

I left this and kept checking the car for leaks after that, and at around 6000km I noticed the oil was still sweating it's way outta the gearbox....so off it went back to the dealer, but this time I tried a different one, in case there other dealer wasn't "as well informed" as this one. They checked the car over a two day period and assured me that there wasn't anything wrong and they had tightened everything up. YES I LET IT SLIDE

I didn't bother checking for a while, until the car had some problems with the electronics failing, yes that’s right the electronics failed at around 7000km. This happened to happen at a crowded shopping centre, with me and my lady sitting in the hot car in the sweltering South African heat...oh, forgot to mention that since the electronics had failed, I was stuck in the car, couldn't open the lovely leather coated Renault doors. In South Africa, people have this ability to see people sitting in their cars in a crowded parking lot...now I had called Renault Assist and asked them to help out. They assured me they would call me back and that I should sit tight! So whilst sitting tight, literally tight, all the Saffa's are waiting for me to reverse out so they can take my parking. Since I wasn't moving, I was getting hooted at and trying to tell them that I wasn't leaving, you can just imagine....I wanted to get out the car and scream at these people, because by now the inside of the car was around 35 degrees, with me lady beginning to stress. Eventually the doors popped open and the car was drivable again.

So by 7000km I wanted to throw this car back at Renault! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that all this while I was fighting with Renault in Sandton's head office and telling them that I wanted my money back, or at least a new car. Of course they chuckled and didn't even entertain that idea. Instead, they simply quoted me the statement that "They reserve the right to repair the vehicle under warranty". Then when I heard that, I wanted to tell them that "I reserve the right to shove my foot up your......" But I kept my cool!

So I decided that I would book it in for them to check the electronics and also the gears, since they were sticking now and I was battling to get the car into gear sometimes! It went in and they assured me that they couldn't find anything wrong with the electronics and that they had tightened some loose gear linkages. So off I drove beleiving these swine’s once more! Guess I can be classed a moron for buying this hunk of junk!?

Next Day at the traffic light, in the rush hour traffic, my Renault decides to lose gears, I felt like a certain Red Bull driver on Sunday in Monaco! Hahaha. Not so funny though in rush hour traffic! So I had to slide the clutch in order to get the car to take, thanks heavens it was a 2 liter....the clutch started to stink, trying to pull off in the third gear is not easy, especially on a slight incline! So I ended up at the side of the road with a huge Renault Tow Truck, trying to put my piece of metal on the back! They ended up keeping my car for 3 days, trying to fix the problem...I got given a panel van to drive....not so good, I looked like an oversized postman pat!

Got the car back managed to drive it until the speedo cruise failed...yes, that’s right that failed and they had to have the car back for another 5 days while they waited for a part, which cost around R7000, lucky they were exercising their "reservation of the right to repair it under warranty" and I didn't have to foot the bill. All the time I had been sending email to their customer service and even there useless CEO--- he didn't even respond. Guess he had my money and had already bought his new Mercedes. ha-ha, can't quote me on that but I am pretty sure he wouldn't drive a shoddy Renault! The customer care kept responding with automated mails, I reckon they categorize their auto responses to the following structure:

The customer is a first time complainant - send friendly "we will look into your shite car problem" message

The customer is complaining again about the same problem - send another friendly mail assuring them that they are important and that Renault takes their concerns seriously? (Wouldn’t you expect that?)

The customer is threatening to the dealer's head off - Dear sir, we have contacted the branch concerned and assure you of our best interest at all times...blah blah blah blah f%cken blah!

So what I am saying is that they are useless when it comes to service! Apparently that part of selling a car didn't cross their minds, let alone any of their training courses. Which from their technical workmanship, none of them attended?

So the car ended up at that grease palace again and this time I was told the rear main seal needed to be replaced....oh yes, didn't they do that at the first garage, or somewhere along the line they did. Didn't mention that above, but they did. So this was the second seal to go in to stop the oil! Eeek.....at 11000km this is what you get when you buy a shite Renault! I can literally go on more than what I have already, but it is honestly not worth the web space!

I ended up getting rid of the car, just before 30 000km, the radiator at this stage had a crack and they replaced at that service interval........

So people please read this and take note that no matter how convincing the salesman is and no matter how sweet a deal he offers you....DON'T TRUST HIM/HER/IT, until you have checked out the car and done some research.

The best type of research I can tell you to do is start looking at consumer websites that tackles customer satisfaction. These websites usually yield the consumer problems that we are faced with everyday! These problems are not always publicly known, but that’s why I am telling you via my blog RENAULT is not a good brand to buy, in South Africa anyway, this from personal experience that I tell you this. There are many other unhappy people too, you can just check out my favorite consumer website:

www.hellopeter.co.za

Very useful and it covers most products as well as services in South Africa. So remember that in depth research is very important!

Good luck folks!

.............and a warning to Renault:

You're gonna get caught out one day....you're a bunch of liars and you sell shoddy products! And you're also a slippery bunch too.....hmm we heading back to the slide thing again...!!

So bugger you Renault and I hope that the fleas of a thousand camels infest your MANAGEMENTS ARMPITS!

Viva Schumi Viva! P.S Alonso you drive like a demon! You go boy!

FRIM - Wesak Day Ride

Another great ride in Malaysia, that’s how I can sum up today’s ride. There was a good turnout and I met a few new guys, Jason x2, Justin, CenseSense, and Yish. Pleasure to meet you guys and great riding with you! Ride started off at about 8:30am and we headed straight into FRIM via the Guardhouse entrance, we paid our RM1 and we were off, passing by the walkers, crawlers, runners, cars, motorbikes, houses and all the other things you wouldn't think of finding in the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia! Hahaha, I am just being a prick again. But it is kind good to see so many other people out on a public holiday sweating it up in the forests...some decent eye candy too, but that’s not coming from me, Josh and the other guys made that comment, wasn't me, I never said that , just relaying information..... ;). The beginning part of the trails are pretty packed with the above mentioned exercise bunnies and so you have to respectful and give a warning that you are about to pass, it also required some extra consideration due to the puddles etc that covered our paths...we made sure not to splash anyone! I enjoyed this section as it was a good warm-up stretch with some short small climbs followed by some short descents. Ooooohh, speaking of descents, the last part of the first part (hmmmmm sounds weird hey?) is slippery to say the least. I was in the middle and came down this stretch by myself and I noticed immediately that this tarred/stoned section was dangerous, pull the rear disc and it already started to slip and slide so I took it easy since there were some more bunnies in front of me! When I got to the bottom we started chatting then we heard the slipping and sliding as Yish had managed to go lefty down this slippery section.....it wasn't pretty, blood, skin, thorns....and bunnies of course, but no bunnies were injured during the making of this casualty department photo shoot. Yish was up and running shortly, I mean up and riding shortly after this mishap and we were then on out way to the rest of FRIM. The next stretch was pretty fun as we headed up on a sort of fire road...Jeep track....I guess it could be called. Was nice with a few little climbs and eventually came out at a crossroads sort of section which ended up being the "toilet"...I heard that I may have been caught on camera whilst "researching" at FRIM...hmmmmmm, I sure hope that I don't see any visual evidence --hahahaha. It was then off onto a side little track that was made of a welcome downhill section with rocks and little pebbles etc....some green slimy rocks too...we followed this all the way down, this track ended in the direction of Jalan Hospital in SG Buloh, and at the end we simply turned around and headed back up the track that we so enjoyed bombing down!!! Argggghh, the first of many climbs had just hit us. So it back to the crossroad area and then onto a bigger hill, in fact one of the longest climbs I have done in Malaysia so far....Steroid Hill (now I wonder why they F%^&ing call it that?? No prizes for guessing right) this is a BIAAAATCH hill, but nevertheless we all made it up to the peak to have a look at the Mango tree, oh gees, a mango tree. I must confess, I didn't look at the Mango tree, there was talk of Hornets and after last week's HASH
I decided against offering myself to the Hornets gods again! So it was off down Steroid Hill.....FAST-FUN-FAB, that's my description of this downhill.....really great, even though I was getting sun burnt at all the exposed areas! We ended up at the bottom of he hill in no time and our next destination was the car park where we came up from....the rest of the ride was calm and we relaxed on the way back to the cars.....here are my GPS Stats:

Total Distance: 18.7km
Total Ride Time: 2hr10min
Breaks: 1hr36min
Max Speed: 51km/h
Start Altitude: 74.2m
Max Altitude: 307m

So overall it looked okay, except we need to cut out the breaks a bit more, but we must remember that we had to make sure everything was okay with Yish before we continued, so that was about 30 mins....not too bad considering his fall ---- ouch. We hope to see some pics soon! Thanks guys, had fun! G

Bangi Hash - 7 May 2006

I really enjoyed this hash. Started out on time at 9:30 and surprisingly there wasn't as much mud as I thought there would be. The night before the ride was a wet one, a large amount of rain in a short time frame....so while I was lying in bed I was wondering to myself how I will get my bike back in the hotel AGAIN with half of Malaysia's mud on it. I found the site easily thanks to the Co Ordinates posted by Adil on the KLMBH Forum. Very accurate and I even got there early enough to be the second one there, I mustn't make this a habit...ruining my beauty sleep (and you know how I need that). Yeah, there was a big turnout, I am not sure of numbers but there were a lot of people. Even some new faces, that’s always great to see. I was looking forward to this ride and it makes a great break in a busy month. Ride was fun...nothing too hectic except the first part which consisted of the "Paper Trail Confusion" followed by some serious mud wall/ steep slope climbing..Not too much fun since the concept of biking usually involves actually riding the bike, but fun anyhow and made for some laughs especially when a wasp decided that my left temple was the place to park his sting. That really hurt and has left me with a numbing headache, I am sure I will be fine. The thing must have had a super long sting to penetrate my thick head. So yeah the ride was made up of a few slippery downhill’s....some grassy, bushy areas that were covered by trees and some muddy patches. The final part ran through some palm oil plantations. Over all the Long ride was about 17km. Not sure about the short ride, cos I did the long..makes sense doesn't it. I had a decent breakfast today so I was stronger than last weeks Mayday ride. I managed to track the route on my GPS so if anyone is interest in the track, then please comment that with your email and I can mail it to you. Oh yeah, must mention that I met three new people today.. Dirk from SA, Johan from Namibia and a "local Lady" - Rebecca who has the impression that us Fakawi's are a wild bunch or jungle monsters! Well we are, kinda, sorta, hmm maybe not....just jungle teddy bears :) Have a great week and you will hear from me soon.....P.S I attached a snapshot of the route!! G

8 Hour Kemensah Epic

Well....this is a post to finish off a truly hectic epic day. Started off at 6:00am with the alarm clock, followed by a quick breakfast of Weet Bix and Raisins, which I would later regret. I picked up Joshie at his place at 6:45 and off we went to meet up with Long Con and Ong (Fakawichief) a the Zoo Negara where we would start out ride. The general layout of this ride took place over a jungle area with different areas being exposed as we ventured further in and deeper into the jungle. What is very interesting are the different types of trees you get as you go further and further into the jungle. Now all you SA boys, this is a real jungle..even with the threat of tigers!! Scary I know but we braved it for the sake of Going just over 22km in 8 hours. The beginning of the ride was very interesting and new for me, so I was looking around and taking as much in as was possible while Ong and the rest of the guys took photos. Just before the stop for some lunch Joshie managed to find every leech in Malaysia, in fact I think he found the breeding area for all leeches in the world. He had it so bad that they were even crawling in his belly button. From the shouts and all the salt getting thrown on I do believe that Joshie DOES NOT LIKE the little slimy buggers at all. They are pretty gross and they do cause lots of blood to flow but they are relatively easily removed and thrown on the ground. The only problem is that whilst you are picking them off, the new ones are busy climbing into/onto your shoes making their way up to some tasty blood. After the lunch break it was time to turn back. Since this is an IN OUT route we had to track back on our first route. It was at this point that I realized that I was absolutely stuffed, I started to lose energy and really battled along the route home, it was the least enjoyable part of the ride for me and honestly I can say that I need to get fitter. After discussions with the guys I also decided that what I had for breakfast was far too little. Over the entire ride was super great. I also managed to test the GPS, it went swimming and also gave great reception under the thick trees, I am really happy with that one. Well folks, I am off now as I am tired as hell, gonna go sleep. Till next time - Cheers