Saint AAI

Two weeks ago I bought a Clio 182 as a daily driver and last Thursday I took the girlfriend down south to see her family. I was on the A14 with cruise control set to 70mph when a lorry pulled out to overtake another lorry. When I started to approach the lorry in the fast lane I tried to slow the cruise control using the buttons on the steering wheel to match the lorry. That didn't work so I pressed on the brake. The car applied more torque and did not switch cruise control off! Then I panicked and tried to turn it off using the switch on the steering wheel, but it still stayed on so I pressed the brake again and harder, but the pedal went to the floor, maybe boiled from first time? By then it was too late and I went into the back of the lorry. Should have put clutch in sooner and maybe used handbrake or something to slow, but at the time I couldn't think straight. The airbags failed to go off as well.

The main thing is that me, my girlfriend and the four kittens we were taking down to give homes too, are all fine.

Not sure what to do, I've googled it and a similar thing has happened to a few people where the cruise control has stuck on. Do I take this to Renault? The problem I think I might have is that the car doesn't have a full service history and was made in 2005, so they might not do anything about it. I don't really know where to go with it and have enough going on at the moment without all this.

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

I would expect it to be very difficult to prove .. probably cost you quite a bit to get someone to investigate it ..

Balance up the cost vs the chance and gains from winning, maybe speak to an independent garage first and citizens advice.

Jamo

iTrader: (23)

I bloody well would, you could have quite easily been dead.

id have a good search, and see if you can contact the other people it happened to, and see what they did about it.Maybe it would be worth contacting Which?

Guv

iTrader: (8)

Sounds scary...glad to hear you ok

Leslie

That must have been a pretty frightening moment for you.

That fault should never happen of course and I would certainly go to the car manufacturer and make a big fuss about it. Something seriously wrong if all those interlocks failed to switch it off. You are hardly likely to do that unless you had an incident as you described.

If nothing else, it might just prevent it happening to someone else with even worse results. I wouild report it to the appropriate authorities as well.

Les

nick172sport

iTrader: (6)

it happens quite a lot with clio 172s and 182s put a thread in cliosport at least your both alright

PaulC72

Glad you are all ok, do you have legal cover with your insurance, maybe you can speak to them for some legal advice, failing that CAB.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

F**k me! If this is a known fault then yes, pursue Renault all the way as they need prosecuting if they are building cars like that.

Hateful cars anyway to be frank!! Glad you are OK and how is the car?... financially written off with a bit of luck so you can go out and buy something reliable

andythejock01wrx

Hi mate. I'm an insurance advisor.

Are you comprehensively insured? Your own insurers may inspect the vehicle - your best bet would be if you could get your insurers on board in pursuing a recovery based on their own/an independent engineers report. Must admit, they may not think it's viable and I'm not an engineer so I don't know whether the defect would be identified by an inspection or not.

Other than that it's your legal expense cover or a solicitor that deals with such claims/accident management company.

Tricky one! Glad your ok anyway.

AndytheJock ACII

Saint AAI

I am fully comp so will ring Renault and the insurance company and see what they say. Will be happy if Renault pay for the damage instead of my insurance, but also think they should do something about the problem if it's common.

Loco

iTrader: (1)

if it has happened before with other owners, i wouldn't just want them to be paying for the damage, i would be suing the **** out of them!!!

nick172sport

iTrader: (6)

check your bonnet catch aswell they recalled them for it if its rusty take it to renault they have a tendency to fly up on the motorway

Ant

That's a bit too late looking at the state of it

nick172sport

iTrader: (6)

your right

Saint AAI

Bonnet catch looks fine

Jamo

iTrader: (23)

wow are you a party animal? I just looked on you're pb account, you have loads of pics of ***** and beer on there

speedking

Can't believe that you would have boiled or faded the brakes in one slow from 70 to 50mph.

Cruise control should disengage when you apply the brake, no need to fiddle with the buttons on the wheel.

Where did you buy the car? Tell them that they have sold you a car with a faulty brake system. If private then no come back, but ask the previous owner whether they experienced anything similar.

Finally, having had that experience, and if Renault claims that it is not a known fault (therefore by definition there is nothing to fix) would you want the car back?

Saint AAI

As I stated in the first post, pressing the brake did not turn it off. And I didn't get brake fade from slowing from 70 to 50, the car didn't slow much at all. Got fade from trying to brake while the car wanted to accelerate. From what I've read, these cars suffer fade from poor brake ventilation.


Should have just pressed the clutch, but been in an auto for last 6 months so when I panicked I didn't think about the clutch.

Leslie

Did you read his original post where he said he applied the brakes? It is always the case that the brakes should cancel the cruise control and he obviously knew that at the time anyway.

It is one thing to tell him what he should have done while you are at the keyboard, but quite another thing when you are in a car which is effectively out of control at the time and heading for the back of a lorry. I doubt he would have had much significant time in which to react either. Of course there was one thing he could have done but he was trying at the time to cancel the cruise control.

It is quite conceivable that the brakes would overheat in that situation
since he was applying heavy braking at the time against the cruise control which was trying to maintain the set speed with up to full throttle. Not too difficult to work out really.

Les

BlkKnight

http://www.cliosport.net/forum/showt...got-stuck-on!&

Nevermind - just seen you've posted there

speedking

Les, you appear to have taken a condescending pill. Did you read the OP?

"I pressed the brake again and harder, but the pedal went to the floor ..." Would that be caused by overheating? or braking against the cruise control? I don't think so, the whole incident would have lasted only a few seconds, even poor brakes would not overheat in that time. Therefore IMO there is an underlying problem with the braking system which should be referred back to the seller.

PS If you read my post, I did not tell him what he should have done.

Saint AAI

I was on the brakes very hard the first time, this would have got them very hot. While still under pressure they wouldn't have boiled. As I released the pressure for a split second while frantically pressing the off button on the steering wheel, they would have boiled so when I braked again, the pedal was spongy and went to the floor pretty easily. This does happen if you boil brake fluid. Since the car has no service history for most of it's life, I would say there's a good chance the fluid has never been changed. If it's absorbed water, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest they could boil after trying to outbrake the car. After the collision, the brakes came back.

Edit: Reading Cliosport forum, someone else fried the brakes when the same thing happened.

Edit 2: Went the same route last night, it was also down hill where it happened.



lol, the ***** is for the cats v dogs thread on here. The beer was from about 12 years ago when a mates parents were on holiday.

Leslie

I imagine you will have read his explanatory post.

Les

speedking

Noted :shakehands: