Mrs NiD came home this evening and commented that her Renault Clio was juddering on the drive home (16 miles through the countryside). I needled a bit more info out of her: does it in all gears & while idling, hasn’t stalled, has only started doing it today, there are no warning lights on the dash, nor does it indicate it is overheating & it has a full tank of fuel.

It’s a 1.4l 54 plate petrol Clio. Beyond that I am unsure of models (its just not a Defender).

My initial thoughts are that if its ‘juddering’ it is not getting enough air or fuel. From some basic research it seems there is only a mesh fuel filter in the fuel tank so doubtful its that. Can anyone shed any light on this? Where should I start before accepting my lack of man skillz and telling her to take it to a garage?

Difficult to be sure but I would start with the coil pack

Coil pack at that age of clio .

As above, that’s exactly what it was with our 54 plate Clio last year.
Can’t remember what the cost was to get it fixed, don’t remember it being a lot though.

Could be dirty fuel, or if she ran it near the bottom of the tank, shit from the bottom of the fuel tank. Wifes did exactly that for about a full tank after she ran it dry.

Whilst not a Clio, I’d borrowed my mums focus last year. Coming back from a day out, pulling away from a roundabout and go to accelerate away, massive drop in power, juddered to a layby and scratched my head. Managed to limp home by using very gentle throttle applications and it would be ok. Put your foot down and no power.
Turned out the spark plugs were at 73k miles and should have been changed 37k miles ago. Almost sorted it, but it still hesitated occasionally, so I ended up replacing the coil pack. Bingo, no more issues since.

Brother in law and his daughter both have them identical described faults both cured with new coil packs

Spark plug breaking down ?
My ex wife’s 55 plate Clio did this twice over a two year period. Dealer said they often saw this happen. They diagnosed if first time, I just replaced all four myself next time.
By the way, car would have been at 3000 miles first time and 6500 second time ! So, not high miles at all.

3000 miles and then 6500 miles for a spark plug to die? Blimey thats low!

Yeah, I was surprised, but the Renault man told me that for whatever reason they were prone to them failing, maybe something associated with the coil pack ??
She was doing very small annual mileages and only short journeys too. The car was only just over 4 years old at 6500 miles. It’s only just gone over 14000 miles now, less journeys, but slightly longer ones, no issues since .

Right – o. Cheers for your help – t’would appear we’ll be starting with the coil pack & crossing her fingers!

Feeling manly today! Whilst a simple job to replace the coil pack it was, nonetheless, very satisfying to fit the new one (£38), take it for a test drive and then announce that she can cancel the garage appointment she had made as I had fixed it (with a little help from you lot!)

Ta very much all

Sweet.