Renault Clio "Intermittent" Battery Problem, what to do?

Cerulean Chicken

Hi there,

First time posting in this section so bear with me!

My 2001 Clio had this problem 3 years ago, the battery connection light would come on randomly, car would drag backwards like I went from 5th to 1st gear, and the STOP light would come on. This happened 4 times in 6 months and 3 different mechanics said it was intermittent, there's nothing they can do except check the connection and when that seemed fine they each said it was fixed. After the fourth time a mechanic finally said change the battery, and it never happened again.

Last week the light came on again, just as I left home, so I turned around and it kind of trudged/bunny-hopped the few feet back to the house. I contacted my mechanic of the last 2 years and asked him to take a look at it, he just said it's an intermittent fault with Renault, when it happens turn the car off and try again in 20 mins. That's fine in theory, but I need this car to commute for work, and if I'm on the motorway and/or overtaking something I can't really have the car pull this stunt and slow down so rapidly if cars are coming behind me. By some miracle every time it happened before there was nothing behind me, and my old boss was understanding if I was 1-2 hours later because of it, can't get away with that now!

So can anyone give me any advice, anything at all? My own mechanic has basically refused to even look at it because it's just an intermittent common fault with Renault, the next garage is 20 minutes away and is a Renault dealership, I brought it to one of them before and was just dismissed straight away. Can I just get a new battery, any hope that it might be the battery again and not the actual connection? I already had to replace the engine in the car last year, it's only worth about €2,000 at this stage anyway so I don't want to pour much more into it, another €400-500 is my cut off point before I give up on it altogether, so if it's going to start having problems like this that make it unreliable and unsafe for commuting I might have to say goodbye to it

Thanks for reading.

Stheno

Has anyone checked anything other than the battery or hooked it up to diagnostics to see if it reports any faults?

as it's doing this when the car is running, is it possible it's the alternator?

Cerulean Chicken

Stheno wrote: »

Has anyone checked anything other than the battery or hooked it up to diagnostics to see if it reports any faults?

as it's doing this when the car is running, is it possible it's the alternator?

Nobody has checked it at all this time, my local mechanic won't even look at it (doubt he has diagnostics anyway) so I'd have to bring it to the Renault garage, which I'm just trying to avoid doing if I can due to cost. But I suppose I might have to. Any time it has been checked in the past it has been immobiliser issues or the battery connection, no mention ever of the alternator, but I'll bear that in mind if I do end up bringing it to Renault.

Edit: Apparently the car goes into "Limp Home Mode", specifically made to do this when a fault occurs.

chainsawman

My friend have a problem with the key now, Renault Clio Key wont atomatically closed door, but ok with driving. Worried because the door is open all the time. Light not switch on in the key, tried new battery, not working at all.. Went to the main dealer, said it could be over €150. Hope you can help. Sorry to OP for hijacking your thread but i noticed your thread when i was looking for that problem.