Trophy Damper Rebuilds

[hoolio]

Cunning ploy steve but you forgot to edit all your old posts :twisted:

 

[Nik]

LOL! :lol:

Dont get me started on that!

 

[Neal]

FAO future buyers of No.298 - I only ever get mine out of the garage (heated and air conditioned) to run it around for a few miles and to give it it's 100 mile/3 month service, which is done by the Renault F1 team. It has never seen a speed bump and if I approach a corner, I stop the car and push it round as to not create undue stress to any of the moving parts. The engine has never been taken above 3000rpm and the brakes only squeezed lightly on returning to garage to keep them running free. On return it is polished by a naked supermodel under my close inspection and vacuum shrink-wrapped until it's next outing, which is only ever in 0-5% humidity, with an ambient temperature of 17-21C and no atmospheric dust.

Abit like mine then :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[fazedesign]

FAO future buyers of No.298 - I only ever get mine out of the garage (heated and air conditioned) to run it around for a few miles and to give it it's 100 mile/3 month service, which is done by the Renault F1 team. It has never seen a speed bump and if I approach a corner, I stop the car and push it round as to not create undue stress to any of the moving parts. The engine has never been taken above 3000rpm and the brakes only squeezed lightly on returning to garage to keep them running free. On return it is polished by a naked supermodel under my close inspection and vacuum shrink-wrapped until it's next outing, which is only ever in 0-5% humidity, with an ambient temperature of 17-21C and no atmospheric dust.

Abit like mine then :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Aaah, your avatar is photoshopped then! :lol:

 

[nig63]

I don't know if your comments are a dig at me but i think you should may be take the piss out of the people who would not even look at my car because of the posts i have put on here . I agree we should post are good and bad things that happen to are cars hoping it will help some one with the same problems or get advice on how to get them sorted .

 

[Carlos13]

I have a modified impreza with coilvers (AST) that will probably require a rebuild every couple of years or so. When I initially bought them I was well aware that "race" suspension requires this maintenance.

I hope to own a Trophy in the future, it wouldn't bother me to have to rebuild the dampers, but that's because I'm conditioned to it. However, isn't it generally well known that this type of unit requires regular rebuilds?

If the car is under warranty and the dampers are under-performing, I would expect the rebuild to be carried out by Renault. Dampers are definitely a warranty item.

 

[oliie]

I have a modified impreza with coilvers (AST) that will probably require a rebuild every couple of years or so. When I initially bought them I was well aware that "race" suspension requires this maintenance.

I hope to own a Trophy in the future, it wouldn't bother me to have to rebuild the dampers, but that's because I'm conditioned to it. However, isn't it generally well known that this type of unit requires regular rebuilds?

If the car is under warranty and the dampers are under-performing, I would expect the rebuild to be carried out by Renault. Dampers are definitely a warranty item.

Welcome

How much do you pay for your AST rebuilds? Also were you told of this when you bought the car?

O.

 

[Nik]

I don't know if your comments are a dig at me but i think you should may be take the **** out of the people who would not even look at my car because of the posts i have put on here . I agree we should post are good and bad things that happen to are cars hoping it will help some one with the same problems or get advice on how to get them sorted .

No I don't think anyone is having a dig at you personally, I think we are really taking the piss out of the people who wont look at a car because of something posted on here. I'm gutted that people have been put of your car for something posted on here, I certainly sympathise with the problem you've had .

Trust me you're not the only one who's asked for all or some of their posts to be removed, it's an issue i've discussed a lot with people. Its a shame if people cant discuss issues they may have had with the car for fear of problems come sale time though. Maybe i'll just have to remove the owners register altogether

 

[jezza l]

well i'm lucky enough (or rather no unlucky enough) to drive many many miles of beautiful country backroads each day. I'm about 10 miles off 18k and my suspension still feels as tight as when i got the car. Although if there had been a gradual decrease i probably wouldn't have noticed. Anyway i'd be interested to hear what renaultsport have to say.

 

[OliS]

Maybe i'll just have to remove the owners register altogether

No don't do it! It's a great feature to have on the forum, if anything it's the other posts that people make on the forum about problems, trackdays etc that are causing the problems. If people are worried about posting problems or about the fact that their Trophy has been on track, then they should not post in these subjects. It's their responsibility at the end of the day...

As for this topic, this is the first indication we've had on the life expectancy of the Trophy dampers, before this we were all in the dark. Even though the estimation of damper life was lower than I expected, at least I now have some idea of how long they may last. This topic is contains important information for current owners and prospective owners.

Anyway, one good aspect has got to be that there have been no reports on this forum of anyone having problems with their dampers, even from the owners who have exceeded the 18k mile threshold, or who have subjected their Trophy to lots of track abuse.

 

[Nik]

Thats very true. If we all had the standard Clio dampers, i guarantee several of us would have had replacements by now after finding them leaking oil everywhere.

These Sachs units definitely seem to be the high quality we expect them to be. Mine have probably had to work harder than most and they still feel spot on to me.

Certainly worth us getting some idea of who / where / how much for when rebuild time comes though. I have to say I doubt very much if Renault will cover any servicing or replacement under warranty though, it will be classed as a wear and tear item.

 

[ShinyAndy]

Apologies that I'm not a Trophy owner but I've sort of been brought into this by MikeS !

As mentioned in the "other thread" my VXR220 has remote reservoir Ohlin suspension fitted as an optional extra by Vauxhall from new. The car has done about 25K miles (all motorway) and I'd just done 2 trackdays on it after having the car corner weighted and setup for track use by a specialist. The suspension was perfect up till this point with absolutely no idea that anything was wrong. A week or so later driving on normal roads it felt as though someone had removed the springs from the offside rear and even crossing a white line jarred your spine and so it went back to the specialist who confirmed that the unit had failed (probably due to lack of servicing) and that they could send them both away at a cost of around £250 iirc

As Nik just mentioned its very unlikely that the dealer will see the unit as being covered by warranty as it would be considered wear and tear. My stance with Vauxhall (not the dealer) was that *if* the suspension is a serviceable item then it should be the dealers responsibility not mine to know it needs servicing. In the same way I'm not required to know what they cover in a "normal" service and assume that they would do everything required it should automatically be sorted by the dealer at the relevant time.

Fortunately Vauxhall have admitted in this instance that they are at fault and have offered to replace both rear shocks and at my insistence have agreed to pay the specialist that set them all up to redo the work carried out by them 2 weeks previous to the failure. Having said that they will have had the car for 2 months before the parts even turn up at the dealer so its been a real toss-up between just paying for them to be rebuilt/serviced or letting Vauxhall sort it out with the inconvenience of not having the car

Sounds to me like similar battles are about to commence in the Trophy world and I will watch with interest to the outcome of Renaults stance on the matter

Andy

 

[oliie]

My stance with Vauxhall (not the dealer) was that *if* the suspension is a serviceable item then it should be the dealers responsibility not mine to know it needs servicing.

Good point. This holds true here - not one Trophy owner knows for sure if officially they need to be serviced, and even if we did know that, we don't know how often.

Either way, happy to see it is a £250 job to sort out.

Thanks for the comments

Cheers
O.

 

[Steve]

I don't know if your comments are a dig at me but i think you should may be take the **** out of the people who would not even look at my car because of the posts i have put on here . I agree we should post are good and bad things that happen to are cars hoping it will help some one with the same problems or get advice on how to get them sorted .

Certainly not a dig at you or any other Trophy owner, more, as you say, making a joke of this whole documented history thing. I think we need to remeber that we've got a good thing going here and the benefits to the 180 or so of us who have registered on here and post regularly outweigh the negatives of a prospective buyer reading something he doesn't like. None of us are going to have a problem should we ever make the regrettable decision to sell our Trophy, it'll just go to a buyer who hasn't thought to look at this site (let's face it, there's still 300 odd Trophy owners who haven't!) or an intelligent buyer who would rather know about the problems that a car has had and that have been resolved, than one that he knows fook all about and could be a cut and shut from a renault 4 and a kangoo.

Could we take the usernames away from the owner's register and those of us who want our names against our register post can re-attach it? That way, the register is intact - giving details of where the car is, where it was bought from etc. and those who wish to remain anonymous can.

This dampers thread could prove to be the most useful thing about the site so far.

 

[fazedesign]

and could be a cut and shut from a renault 4 and a kangoo.

:shock: :shock: :shock:

I knew there was something not quite right about mine!

 

[OliS]

:lol: at the pic above!

Gutted to read that the dampers won't be classified as a warranty job, fooks my plan up. I just hope mine last a good deal longer than Bernard estimated...

I'll probably go to Aurok or Mark Fish to get mine rebuilt when the time comes, unless someone finds somewhere better in the meantime.

Anyway, it's not all that bad, rebuild time would be a good opportunity to get the dampers revavled to suit stiffer lower springs :idea:

 

[Day]

Hi Rob

 

[Steve]

Fazedesign isn't Stromba!

Is your Avatar an Alfa Romeo Guilia Sprint GTA? I drooled over one of those for about an hour at Goodwood, my mate has switched from looking for a 2002 turbo to one of these after seeing one. Awesome cars, if only they made RWD coupes that light now.

 

[cardealer]

This business about damper rebuilds. If at some time in the future they still damp (easy static test) and don't leak i.e fail an MOT then isn't it a bit OTT to recondition them? It's a bit like refurbing calipers if they are not leaking and working properly.

 

[MikeS]

Most 'motorsport' based dampers such as these are designed to be refurbished, ie the seals / oil require replacement etc. The actual damper tubes are fine. Unlike normal dampers that are mass produced and are cheaper to throw away.

Leda have some info on this on their site http://www.leda.com/Services.htm