Sam Glover
Sam’s flirtation with modern motoring comes to an end
Our Technical editor’s brief dalliance with modern metal comes to a close.
I’m happy to say that I no longer own a Renault Vel Satis. It was a car that offered all the time-consuming hardship of classic car ownership but none of the driving pleasure. I bought it for £875, suffering the delusion that I was the one soul on earth that wanted a right-hand drive Vel Satis. I quickly realised I was wrong.
Its over-assisted and under-engaging controls meant I had no desire to drive it, so I had no impetus to fix it when it broke – which it duly did within two days of taking ownership. It developed a reliable tendency to cut out under hard acceleration. The engine oscillated frantically between 1500rpm and 2000rpm regardless of the position of the accelerator and the complaints screen on the dash reported ‘ESP fault’ and ‘fault in fuel injection’. Coasting to the roadside and turning the engine off and on again restored function until acceleration was next attempted. The screen sternly but unhelpfully demanded ‘SERVICE’.
A poke around on the internet suggested that all modern Renaults do this regularly. The range of causes is diverse. Every spare inch of the Vel Satis’s under-bonnet and under-dash space is packed with little black boxes with mysterious tendrils, the role of which is to fabricate problems and submit them to the ECU. Any of these could've been the culprit.
I dumped the car outside my workshop and picked at it whenever I had absolutely nothing better to do. Cleaning the mass air flow sensor and throttle body appeared to be the go-to solutions, but neither made any difference. Prodding at other boxes proved similarly useless. Over a number of testruns, however, a disapproving tooth-sucking noise under acceleration became increasingly intrusive. This was traced to a leaking intercooler pipe – and effecting a repair with gaffer tape and cable ties solved both the noise and the problem. I victoriously dumped the car back outside my workshop.
Months later, I found myself in need of a vehicle to convey four bodies to Techno Classica, Essen. If the Vel Satis had a reason to exist, I figured, this was it. I re-repaired the intercooler pipe to beyond factory specification using Volga M21 radiator hose. Imagine my annoyance, therefore, when a test-drive revealed that the problem had returned. In fact, it was now worse – occurring at random under any conditions rather than limiting itself to hard acceleration. The new offender turned out to be a furry throttle position sensor. Massaging its carbon tracks with contact cleaner re-solved the problem.
Czech mate
Although the Vel Satis was now capable of functioning in a car-like manner, I had no faith in its ability to continue to do so. We put our passage to Essen in the hands of tried-and-tested technology, in the form of Ed Hughes’s Lada Riva. It wafted there and back at 80mph with dignity.
Offloading the Vel Satis was a challenge. A £700 listing in Renotes, magazine of the Renault Owners' Club, attracted a flurry of silence. Masochists on
autoshite.com sensibly refused to shell out £500. My default solution in such situations is to find a way of dumping the car on Theodore J Gillam, but even he wouldn’t bite. Meanwhile, I’d agreed to buy a Škoda Favorit for £200 from my friend Paul Johns. I suggested a part-exchange deal. I got the Škoda, Paul got the Vel Satis and £100. Paul agreed.
A weight has been lifted – and the Škoda is a far more elegant mode of transport. Superb nippiness and superior handling mean it’s faster than the Vel Satis on everything but motorways, but it’ll still cruise at well beyond 70mph in perfect comfort. It has a bare minimum of electrics and moving parts, which means it’s less than half the weight, more economical and unerringly reliable. Surely it's as modern as any car needs to be?
‘Every spare inch is packed with little black boxes with mysterious tendrils’