The Renault Espace-Anything nice to say about it?

[NewcastleFalcon]

Reason being

Just viewed this one, bit of corrosion on the crossmember under the radiator unlikely to stand up to an over zealous MOT Tester's tool, but otherwise in good nick bodywork wise. Little hint of a bit of oil drippage, but not much to worry about.

Then I had a look at "Honest John" for the particular vintage 1997-2002 only listed one good point then a catalogue of bad points.

At just under a grand for this 2001 example Renault Espace 2.0 petrol MPV 7 seater with 109K on the clock looks a good candidate for a summer "camping car".

So if you have any positive comments please lob them in. I quite like the looks, there's a lot of windscreen, loads of room.



regards Neil

[Zelandeth]

We had a few through the garage back in the day. Cleverly packaged car, but nowhere near as clever as the original. Compared to the older generation they always felt flimsy. While it was seldom anything critical, there always seemed to be *something* wrong with them, which often turned into quite a protracted battle to resolve. That did little to endear them to us, as we were generally determined that unless it was a £250 trade in to clear marketed clearly as such we always wanted our rolling stock to be absolutely 100%.

Biggest headaches we had with them were problems with water ingress into the cabin (never from the same place twice) and the usual slew of early 2000s Renault electronic gremlins. We had one that used to eat batteries as well that we never did get to the bottom of.

VW Sharan/Ford Galaxy of the same era we all reckoned was a better bet both to drive and from reliability perspectives - at least we never had any problems with them that I can remember, and we had quite a few Sharans through (the VR6 version was always fun too even if it made no real sense!).

[NewcastleFalcon]

Thanks Zel interesting to get your views. I'll give the Sharan and the Galaxy a bit of a search. In 50 years since we got our first ford anglia in the early 60's I have never had a Volkswagen. Some near misses with old beetles/polo's/passats and even at one time a yellow VW variant.

Looking round for suitable camping cars/vehicles I've been trawling the usual internet sites and have come to the conclusion that though it would be nice to have a proper camper/motorhome ie a VW, or a Mazda Bongo, or Renault Traffic the premium you have to pay for the sake of having a tiny sink, cooker and portaloo is far too high, and quite unneccesary for our needs.

So its a vehicle with a good headroom and a flat space in the back when seats are removed/folded down to provide a comfortable double bed platform and our driveaway awning provides the additional space for dressing/eating and the rest.

plenty of examples of people doing it in berlingo's . A few Ikea Boxes, and a couple of inflatable camping matresses and off you go.




regards Neil

[elma]

I did the same with a Scenic for a while before I had my van. Vehicle seems ideal for your purposes. Mine was a 2.0 from the same era, it used to eat pencil coils and eventually ate its own gearbox. I loved it though and would have another although only as a cheap disposable car. It's a real pain waking up in an MPV compared to a van because you can't stretch out or get dressed so easily. If you get into the camping thing I reckon you'll get a hi top van within a year.

[NewcastleFalcon]

The old driveaway awning does help with the getting dressed standing up thing. Its the headroom in the "sleeping quarters" thats the vital dimension especially when nature calls and you need to exit without distrubing your sleeping partner (impossible of course)

I can see how the process eventually leads to a desire for the more comfortable, less faffy option of the hi-top. We have already moved from the normal saloon/hatch with the driveaway awning stage to looking for more headroom/ more width options offered by berlingo's, partners, c8's, 807's, kangoos, espaces, sharans, galaxy , dispatches with windows, etc.

regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Had another poke and prod of the espace today, again nothing too offputing apart from the front crossmember, and possibly the clutch pedal which was flat to the floor. Then again I know nothing about espaces and it may perk itself up when the engine starts. Interior was unvaleted and had that sort of "scrapyard smell". You cant beat a few one star reviews from espace owners on whatcar/parkers etc to begin to influence your thinking

One of the negatives

"My gripe is the cost of parts and labour these are beyond belief and the vehicle has either been purposely designed so that maximum labour time is required to repair or it has been so badly designed that no thought has been given to replacing parts"

I think Haynes gave up on the Espace after 1996



My thoughts are turning back to the Berlingo! Why didn't they make a long wheelbase morris traveller with at leaast 6' 6" behind the front seats!

regards Neil

[Zelandeth]

Pretty good summary there - one of the things I do remember was that the general mantra that came before any repair work was "take the entire car apart first."

The clutch on these is cable operated if I remember right, so if it's sitting on the floor the cable's probably snapped or there's bigger problems with the clutch. I don't think they can come unhooked as the Mk IV Escorts could if you made the mistake of lifting the clutch pedal with your foot when in traffic (did that three or four times in the old works van much to the amusement of my co-workers who were with me, especially after the first time!).

Berlingo on the other hand I've nothing but praise for. It's a relatively simple motor for the era and I don't remember us ever having any problems with any of them which we had through. Always struck me as being quite a lot of car for the money, especially if you're looking for space!

You can lay down in the back of a Classic Saab 900 with the rear seats down, and the hatch bay is large and tall enough to give a decent working area - I've pondered the idea of putting together an awning to drape over it...but it's never made its way to the top of the priority list...especially with a camper van that may at some point be dragged back into the land of the living if I can ever find a welding company that I can take out enough shares in...

[Stickyfinger]

A C5 with a Pop-Up Gazebo (with sides) to back up into ?....worked a good few times for me +1, warm as well (just take a radio as the car goes into Sleep mode and really DOES NOT like its battery drained) and really easy to pack up quick.