2008 RENAULT Clio reviews

Renault Clio 2008

On the evening of the 2nd November 2010 I received a distressing call from my wife telling me that as she went to pull off from St Andrews car park in Norwich the front right hand wheel collapsed. She was very distressed especially when the RAC turned up and informed her she was very lucky this had not happened on an open road, at speed as the car would probably of rolled. She had 4 children in the car and was very upset. I travelled through from Bradenham so she could take the children home and when I got their I was shocked to see the car collapsed on the front wheel. The RAC man informed me that he had never seen this happen before and that it was unbelievable on a car this new. He had to strap the wheel to the car so we could load it onto a flatbed truck to get it home. I eventually arrived home at 1.00am with a bill for £100 for the transport back to my house. The next day I immediately contacted East Bilney Renault Garage and they arranged for the car to be collected. When we arrived at the garage the chief mechanic was shocked by what he saw and I was told that they would immediately contact Renault and that I should speak to their complaints department. They immediately gave me a courtesy car for my wife and have been very supportive and helpful. I contacted Renault and was told that they were going to send an engineer out to check the vehicle and would inform me of the outcome. I have recently received the report and cannot believe what their conclusions are. To claim that the damage to the rubber cover on the ball joint resulted in the joint coming apart due to lack of lubrication is frankly outrageous. This is not even an MOT failure. If every car with slight damage to the ball joint gaitor would result in the the wheel eventually collapsing surely this would be seen as a major problem. I have discussed this with a number of reputable mechanics and they have all expressed shock at how the wheel collapsed. Comments range from "I have never seen this on a car this new" to" it should not happen".