I have a 1990 auto renault 5 which is great apart from a light has started to come on the dash, I believe it is a auto transmission warning light. It is not on all the time but when it does come on I lose the kick down/acceleration and the gear changes become very jerky. If I stop and turn the engine off and on the light is off and I can carry on my journey for a while till it happens again. I really need this car to be ok as I can't afford to repair it, as this year I am saving for shares in a buisness. Will it break totally if I carry on ignoring it? What might the problem be, could I cure it myself? cheers for any help and sorry if this is one of those too vague things to diagnose. I just know nothing, so any more than that is a bonus. 🙂
Its French, I think you're lucky its lasted this long to be honest. 😀
Edit - sorry that wasn't a nice thing to say
Have you checked the auto gearbox oil level? Our old Auto Renault 5 had a leak, got really low and then the car lost all drive....
Yeah I have checked the fluid level and it looks ok so I don't think its that. I agree with the french comment too and would not normally buy one but something came up where I needed a car and I only had a few hundred quid and about 2hrs to buy one. will give myself 3hrs next time and get something decent!!
you are probably too young to remember the renault 5 ad's with the tag line "what do you call yours"
answer was "f*ck*r" - my first one that turned out to be a lot older than the reg' irish import (yes i was young) 2nd one never did a thing to it for 5yrs except change the oil - but not an auto
have u tried looking for a classic site ? usually quite a few cars at classic shows
what colour is the automatic gearbox oil (ATF)? If it's black/purple and stinks like death, it's probably overheated and dead. If it's a nice clean red colour, it's fairly new and probably alright.
Some auto box problems will be solved by a simple oil change, which is not usually a big deal and you can do yourself.
As has been said, oil change is usually the first thing, followed by cleaning the pickup filter for the internal oil pumps.
Autos of that age rely on brake bands for gear selection, and they eventually wear, contaminating the oil and choking filters.
I work on Renaults and it sounds like you have a pressure regulation problem inside the gearbox.When the fault occurs the box goes into "default mode" (3rd and reverse only)Turning the engine off resets the auto box computer and puts the fault from a "permanant fault to a memorised fault"Ultimatly you will need a repair/replacement gearbox.
Oh plop! If gearz is right, I shall drive it till it dies fully as a repair/replacement gearbox aint happening at the moment unless the garage is happy to let me do the washing up to pay for the bill!
but surely driving it into the ground will leave you out of pocket soon enough, having to mend it with a new(er) one
I had an '89 5TR. I called mine "lemon".
The one before it, a mark 1 R5 on an 82 Y plate was a cracking little car, while it lasted. Some daft twonk in a Luton van decided he could turn left from the right hand lane of three, with me in his way