Le Smart Car It Is Tres Stupid (On the road in a Renault Vel Satis)

American Digest ^ | October 5, 2004 | Unattributed

[quidnunc]

Okay, know going in that this story is going to cause your brain to curdle. You've got French technology, French manufacturing, and a French driver all going wildly, terribly wrong. On top of that you have a not-ready-for-prime-time Google translation from German to English. It's going to be a rough ride, but once you get into the spirit of the thing it just sort of skips along.

To set the scene: You have a cutting-edge French car with "smart" technology that takes so many little, irritating tasks away from the driver. You know, little things like air conditioningl, seat adjustment, radio tuning, control over acceleration, braking, and the ability to shut the whole thing down. Add in a wide open road and what do you have? Terror on the tarmac!

[Text verbatim, but cut — out of respect for our shared humanity.]

It was worse than a nightmare: A normal route on the motorway. To be stopped suddenly will the car ever faster, is no more.

Well one hour long hunted a French driver with speed 200 over the runway, in the Slalom around the other cars. …

It has a truck overhauled, when its car accelerated suddenly independently on 190 kilometers per hour, quoted the French daily paper "Le Parisien" the driver Hicham Dequiedt on Tuesday:

"It was impossible to drive more slowly. On the brake to step, nothing proved functioned. as useless. " …

A cause for the Horrortrip was a electronics error in the vehicle: the Tempomat of its Renault Vel Satis was defective. The ignition to switch off is not possibly been, since the car has a smart card instead of a key....

-snip-

[jackibutterfly]

never did.

[blackdog]

I bought a Peugeot in 1980. It had been totalled by the insurance company and factory rep because it had been vandalized on the dealers lot with some sort of etching chemical. I replaced the glass and stripped and repainted the whole thing, giving me a brand new car for less than half price. It broke down constantly. I cobbled it into mechanical sense. I bypassed the fuel pump with a good one. I installed a strainer and sump drain for the fuel lines. I rewired most of the car, as the wiring was soooo undersized for the current and corrosion insulation. It had something like 26AWG while 20AWG was needed. The cylinder head bolts stretched under the diesel loads and had to be replaced several times before I retapped the block and installed proper case hardened ones. The gearbox was not only substandard but had a layshaft that spewed metal like a lathe.

It sure gave my garage some class and dignity with that Peugeot Lion Badge. I sold it to some dumass neighbor kid who enjoyed enormous success using it to pick up preppy chicks and get some Buffy Muffy. I had straightened out most of the problems over the course of a few years, but for someone without a full set of proper tools, a garage, an air compressor, sandblaster, welding setup, and a wiring loom, the car would have been junked before hitting 60,000 miles. The repair costs would have exceeded $500 per month on an averaged basis if done by a dealer.

[paulcissa]

Be happy you never owned a Renault Fuego. I drove a dealer demo for six months, put less than 1000 miles on it, it spent more time in the shop on the lift than it did on the ground resting on it's tires.

The geniuses at Renault found it appropriate to place the coolant resevoiur lower than the top of the cooling jacket. When mom or aunt Becky would have the nice gas station attendent check the coolant level (remember, we're talking '70s/`80's here when middle class high school boys would pump gas for a living), they would inadvertantly let air into the system and consequently overheat the very expensive and very hard to obtain aluminum cylinder head and engine block.

My shop kept two complete engines in stock, ready to go, for a premium price. It's no wonder they built it for three years and abandoned the design.

BTW- The Alliances and Encores had the EXACT SAME PROBLEM for the next four years. The French are not engineers. They are cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

[Old Professer]

In place to hold later for.

[ctdonath2]

Goofy/nifty things; saw them all over Germany. There's even a "sport" version (saw it, kinda neat) and SUV version.

They're coming to the USA in '06.

[blackdog]

Why not just reposition the coolant resevior to a height even with the top most portion of the coolant in the block? Oh yeah, a dealer cannot legally do that.

I bought the Plymouth K Car wagon in 1987. I went thru MAP sensors like crazy. I discovered that every one that failed was wet, even though it was part of a vacum system used for ignition timing. I noticed a low point in the vacum line and discovered water would condense inside the line and lay at the lowest point. I installed a drain fitting which I would open once a week and never had another sensor fail in 300,000 miles. I replaced the engine once. At 300,000 miles it still had the factory brakes on it. The odometer just kept returning to zero every 100,000 miles. The day my wife totalled it, it looked like the day it rolled off the dealer lot.

The irony is that the drain modification I did to the vacum system was illegal. You cannot alter the systems which control emmissions. And that's just about everything in a modern car.

[blackdog]

I was one of those gas pumping boys in the 70's. I remember every little old lady who was never satisfied if you didn't inform them they needed oil. They were very suspect of being denied a quart of oil. So we used to punch the cans(remember the old cans and punch spout?) from the bottom and return them to the full display rack as though they were full. When old ladies were miserable because they knew you were denying them their much needed quart of oil, we would punch the empty can from the top and pretend to add it to the engine. It was the only way to make them happy!

Modern cars sure don't burn much oil. If they do, it's time for an engine rebuild. My airplane on the other hand burns a quart of oil every five hours. Most of it is blow-by, spewing all over the belly, but engine designs of old do either burn or push a lot of oil thru the system.

[Champs elysees]

You said :

The French are not engineers. They are cheese-eating surrender monkeys.


The Renault group

The Renault group has over 350 industrial and commercial sites in over 40 countries, and employs 130,740 people worldwide. In 2003, the group generated revenues of EUR37.5 billion, an increase of 3.8%.
The group's profitable growth strategy is based on three main priorities: competitiveness, innovation and international development. Renault's bi-national alliance with Nissan - 5,357,315 vehicles sold in 2003, one of the world's top five automobile manufacturers - is part and parcel of this strategy.

Not bad !! Renault is all over the world except in USA/canada.....

And i'de like your Xenophobic comments about Monkeys and cheese... Very intelligente. ça c'est la classe mec !!

[Mr Rogers]

Dang! That's a lot of folks, and they STILL build a POS car!

[Aquinasfan]

No one does ugly cars like the French.

[Aquinasfan]

When old ladies were miserable because they knew you were denying them their much needed quart of oil, we would punch the empty can from the top and pretend to add it to the engine. It was the only way to make them happy!

LOL!

[paulcissa]

"Not bad !! Renault is all over the world except in USA/canada...

Not bad, huh? Renault can't compete in an open market environment; they're force to rely on European cheerleader subjects to gleefully consume a garbage-class product. Renault is also the most heavily government subsidized auto maker in the world, followed closely by Fiat. So, keep eating that cheese. Follow it up with some French Kool-Aid. Renault builds crap; always has, always will. The fact that your people are willing to pay for crap is a testimony to your ignorance.

Oh, BTW: Welcome to Free Republic. Now, piss off.

[Champs elysees]

It's a little bit xenophobic as remark not?
I like Renault, Peugeot, citroen, Wolksvagen, Chrysler, Ford and Honda. On the other hand I do not really like Nissan, toyota and Fiat. I like a brand not a country. Say that the French cars are some shit is not sincer.
I try to convince nobody. Renault is the first importer in Germany. Germany is nevertheless a difficult market with BMW or mercedes.
Finally your post more racist than technique.

[moehoward]

Say what you want. I've owned two of these 1985 "Evo"s. This is the only side of the car any challenger ever saw.

[reagan_fanatic]

The french still suck. Deal with it and move on.

[reagan_fanatic]

[Champs elysees]

It's a Twingo 1993 model.. good car but not my favorite !!
The WV2 is over since 1944 so Mein kampf.... C'est pathetique.

When I think of the millions of deaths americains German and French during the WV2. you did not hold,retain lesson of past. We are 1n 2004 not in 1939.

To denigrate the other nations, that looks like the Nazis of 1939. you aren't like your compatriots, you aren't a true american... Sorry

[Champs elysees]

The all new Citroen C4 "alive with technology"

CITROEN - CITROEN - CITROEN - CITROEN.
TV AD : http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/video/citroen.php

ALIVE WITH TECHNOLOGY

[Champs elysees]

FRENCH AREN'T ENGINEERS ?

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/video/citroen.php

Airbus is a french compagny based at Toulouse.
Arianespace is à french compagny based at Les Mureaux (suburd of Paris)
Alstom which(who) builds subways (NY/chicago..) french too
Thomson TV called RCA in USA french, Alcatel.... well.

[reagandemo]

"They are really cute" Better not get in the way of my large gas guzzling SUV. It will cause all the cuteness to go away real fast. Seriously would you want to be in one of those tin cans and have a wreck?