Dear All,
We bought a used '65 plate Zoe Q 210 (battery lease) around 3 years ago with 6K miles for 5,000 quid. In the past 3 years we have put an additional 9K miles on it with very little trouble, just a change of tires as the originals were cracking. The car has been OK, it has good points and bad points like any car. Can't really grumble given the price.
Around 6 month ago the dreaded 'Check Electric System' warning appeared out of nowhere. Went to the car on a summer morning and the warning had appeared. Not really wanting to get into leaving the car at Renault service for a long period of time, I checked around the net for a simple fix. Seems the general concensus was that it was caused by low 12V battery. Bought a new bosch battery and fitted it, but the warning never went away. The car was working fine, so we forgot about it and continued to drive it.
Coming up to MOT time, I started to get an ABS warning light, so got the car to Renault for diagnostics. By this time it was out of warranty. 100 quid + VAT for the diagnostic test. My plan was to find the problem with the ABS (probably a sensor) and fix it myself. The check electric system is not an MOT fail issue so I planned to leave it. I half hoped that after being on the diagnostic machine the check electric system warning would fix itself, or they would suggest a new 12V battery (I put the original back in before taking it to the garage)! I half expected to be told that some component costing 5K needed replacing (when maybe it didn't). I was planning to ignore that and just keep driving it with the warning light on!
Dales Renault (Redruth Cornwall) called back the same day I dropped off the car and said it would take a little longer to diagnose the check electric system warning. Here's the interesting bit. They called me on day 3, the ABS light was upset with the tyre pressures (very cold weather), and had been reset. The check electric system warning was being caused by the 400 - 12v transformer (or something like that) and it would need to be replaced. Despite the car being out of warranty Renault offered to replace the component at no charge - free! It will take around a week to fix.
Seems like a very kind gesture by Renault. No one ever offered me a free repair before. Let's see how the repair works out and whether it fixes the warning light! I'll update in a week or so. Anyway, today I'm feeling like the world isn't such a bad place!
We bought a used '65 plate Zoe Q 210 (battery lease) around 3 years ago with 6K miles for 5,000 quid. In the past 3 years we have put an additional 9K miles on it with very little trouble, just a change of tires as the originals were cracking. The car has been OK, it has good points and bad points like any car. Can't really grumble given the price.
Around 6 month ago the dreaded 'Check Electric System' warning appeared out of nowhere. Went to the car on a summer morning and the warning had appeared. Not really wanting to get into leaving the car at Renault service for a long period of time, I checked around the net for a simple fix. Seems the general concensus was that it was caused by low 12V battery. Bought a new bosch battery and fitted it, but the warning never went away. The car was working fine, so we forgot about it and continued to drive it.
Coming up to MOT time, I started to get an ABS warning light, so got the car to Renault for diagnostics. By this time it was out of warranty. 100 quid + VAT for the diagnostic test. My plan was to find the problem with the ABS (probably a sensor) and fix it myself. The check electric system is not an MOT fail issue so I planned to leave it. I half hoped that after being on the diagnostic machine the check electric system warning would fix itself, or they would suggest a new 12V battery (I put the original back in before taking it to the garage)! I half expected to be told that some component costing 5K needed replacing (when maybe it didn't). I was planning to ignore that and just keep driving it with the warning light on!
Dales Renault (Redruth Cornwall) called back the same day I dropped off the car and said it would take a little longer to diagnose the check electric system warning. Here's the interesting bit. They called me on day 3, the ABS light was upset with the tyre pressures (very cold weather), and had been reset. The check electric system warning was being caused by the 400 - 12v transformer (or something like that) and it would need to be replaced. Despite the car being out of warranty Renault offered to replace the component at no charge - free! It will take around a week to fix.
Seems like a very kind gesture by Renault. No one ever offered me a free repair before. Let's see how the repair works out and whether it fixes the warning light! I'll update in a week or so. Anyway, today I'm feeling like the world isn't such a bad place!
