Can’t really knock your choice of the Renault they are good motors, been tempted myself by them plenty of times, you will miss the torque, though probably enjoy some high revving goodness on track, if I was going to go Renault sport it’d have to be the Megane personally, the clio would not suit my lazy motorway driving style with no turbo. If my other halfs Renault build quality is anything to go by over 3yrs /60k you'd be happy, I’ve had zero reasons to visit a dealer (well a fuse blew and I couldn’t find it as it wasn’t in the manual, but apart from that) and there are still no rattles/squeaks etc. Awesome, it just works, not that my Abarth has been bad but I have had to visit the dealer for the odd niggle, to be met with the same response you got, they can find nothing wrong, it’s Wessex too though
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buckled alloy, you would of surely felt that on the track, its quite possible you could have done it on track if your pressures were a bit low but again you probably would of felt or heard it dig in.
It’s a bit of a bummer when you have a fault that is hard to trace and a useless garage, dump valve can be a weak point, often leaky due to weak springs leading to a laggy motor, you’ll probably find the pick up from your motor more impressive that you remember as it most likely would have been a gradual fail.
Hope its all good when you get it back.
