My latest toy

[Guest]

Apologies for the long absence.  I've been fiatless for about 14 months now since selling my Cinquecento. I decided to sell it before it got wrecked going to stage rallies in it. It had very low suspension and I was struggling with it on rough ground. I mainly use my car to go marshalling on rallies and at race tracks, so the poor little car just wasnt practical.
I bought a Citroen Xsara Forte 1.6i to replace it. What a huge disappointment it was. The build quality was dreadful, unlike many of the previous citroens I've owned over the past 20 years. I kept it for 9 months and decided it had to go as I truly hated it.
That took me to Sept 08 and I contacted Rich at Wolfdirectracing for advice on what to look for as my next toy. I didnt want another cinq as theres not that many really good ones left now and they are really a bit too small to get all my marshalling kit into. He suggested looking for a Clio 172 as they are relatively cheap to buy and tremendous fun to drive. I took him at his word and trawled the used car ads on the net and eventually  found a Clio 172 for sale that sounded like a good buy.
It was for sale with a trader the other side of oldham,so I jumped in the car and arranged to have a look at the car. It was parked in a public car park looking sorry for itself with no history or handbook , but something told me it was potentially a good buy.
The car had been standing for a while as it was filthy with rubbish off the trees in the car park and a bit green eventhough it was silver. It started up first turn of the key and everything worked including the aircon. I took it for a quick drive and decided I wanted it. We shook on a deal and I went to pick it up a week later.
I hadnt driven it at speed until I picked it up so hadnt noticed the tyres had gone very hard and the tread blocks were so hard that they were really noisy at motorway speed. I drove it home anyway and went straight round to my mechanic for his opnion on the noise. He said the rear tyres were past their best and the rear brakes and bearings were shot. Ouch! Well needless to say I had to buy new rear hubs and tyres within the first few days. That hurt a bit!
Anyhow, I got the car home and gave it a good wash and polish to get rid of the green film from the outside. It came up a treat and looked a different car. I got varried away with the hoepipe and thought I'd clean the engine. Loads of engine cleaner went on then soaked it with the hosepipe. It looked a treat but when I tried to fire it up it was misfiring really badly. I couldnt figure out what the cause was so rang Rich at WDR and asked for his advice. He said the coilpacks are very easy to drown, so I bought a new coilpack at around £70 and fitted it. Still misfiring as bad as before. Doh!! After much headscratching I took it back up to my local mechanic and between us discovered the plug leads were soaked still. We dried everything we could see and soaked the system in WD40 and fitted a new set of plugs. It fired up on all four again! The bargain wasnt so cheap any more after another few hundred quid got thrown at it to sort the niggles.
Well I've had the car four months now and clocked up a few thousand miles in it, including a trip to Mull for the rally in october and two track days thrashing it round Oulton Park. The car is awesome fun to drive. Its got an open induction kit on it but other than that it appears to look standard. Although it has no history its had a recent cambelt and pulleys fitted which are all quality stock and generally its been well maintained. The car is an X reg phase one Clio 172 Sport in iceburg silver with blue leather and alcantara trim inside. Theres no dents on the car and its nice and straight. The engine is sweet as a nut and is extremely powerful. It appears to have been tuned as it pulls extremely well. I let my friend who owns a rolling road have the car vfor a weekend to run around in, and he says its the quickest 172 he's ever driven!He estimates it producing around 190 BHP!
I absolutely love taking it for a blast when the roads are empty, the handling is way better than the cinquecento ever was and the performance is mind blowing when the VVT kicks in at 4500 rpm!
I reckon I'll be keeping this car a while! The grin factor is something else!

[abarthmark]

Apologies for the long absence.  I've been fiatless for about 14 months now since selling my Cinquecento. I decided to sell it before it got wrecked going to stage rallies in it. It had very low suspension and I was struggling with it on rough ground. I mainly use my car to go marshalling on rallies and at race tracks, so the poor little car just wasnt practical.
I bought a Citroen Xsara Forte 1.6i to replace it. What a huge disappointment it was. The build quality was dreadful, unlike many of the previous citroens I've owned over the past 20 years. I kept it for 9 months and decided it had to go as I truly hated it.
That took me to Sept 08 and I contacted Rich at Wolfdirectracing for advice on what to look for as my next toy. I didnt want another cinq as theres not that many really good ones left now and they are really a bit too small to get all my marshalling kit into. He suggested looking for a Clio 172 as they are relatively cheap to buy and tremendous fun to drive. I took him at his word and trawled the used car ads on the net and eventually  found a Clio 172 for sale that sounded like a good buy.
It was for sale with a trader the other side of oldham,so I jumped in the car and arranged to have a look at the car. It was parked in a public car park looking sorry for itself with no history or handbook , but something told me it was potentially a good buy.
The car had been standing for a while as it was filthy with rubbish off the trees in the car park and a bit green eventhough it was silver. It started up first turn of the key and everything worked including the aircon. I took it for a quick drive and decided I wanted it. We shook on a deal and I went to pick it up a week later.
I hadnt driven it at speed until I picked it up so hadnt noticed the tyres had gone very hard and the tread blocks were so hard that they were really noisy at motorway speed. I drove it home anyway and went straight round to my mechanic for his opnion on the noise. He said the rear tyres were past their best and the rear brakes and bearings were shot. Ouch! Well needless to say I had to buy new rear hubs and tyres within the first few days. That hurt a bit!
Anyhow, I got the car home and gave it a good wash and polish to get rid of the green film from the outside. It came up a treat and looked a different car. I got varried away with the hoepipe and thought I'd clean the engine. Loads of engine cleaner went on then soaked it with the hosepipe. It looked a treat but when I tried to fire it up it was misfiring really badly. I couldnt figure out what the cause was so rang Rich at WDR and asked for his advice. He said the coilpacks are very easy to drown, so I bought a new coilpack at around £70 and fitted it. Still misfiring as bad as before. Doh!! After much headscratching I took it back up to my local mechanic and between us discovered the plug leads were soaked still. We dried everything we could see and soaked the system in WD40 and fitted a new set of plugs. It fired up on all four again! The bargain wasnt so cheap any more after another few hundred quid got thrown at it to sort the niggles.
Well I've had the car four months now and clocked up a few thousand miles in it, including a trip to Mull for the rally in october and two track days thrashing it round Oulton Park. The car is awesome fun to drive. Its got an open induction kit on it but other than that it appears to look standard. Although it has no history its had a recent cambelt and pulleys fitted which are all quality stock and generally its been well maintained. The car is an X reg phase one Clio 172 Sport in iceburg silver with blue leather and alcantara trim inside. Theres no dents on the car and its nice and straight. The engine is sweet as a nut and is extremely powerful. It appears to have been tuned as it pulls extremely well. I let my friend who owns a rolling road have the car vfor a weekend to run around in, and he says its the quickest 172 he's ever driven!He estimates it producing around 190 BHP!
I absolutely love taking it for a blast when the roads are empty, the handling is way better than the cinquecento ever was and the performance is mind blowing when the VVT kicks in at 4500 rpm!
I reckon I'll be keeping this car a while! The grin factor is something else!

[halfpint]

nice to c you back mark. has been a while. nice to know it's not just the fiats that make ones wallet scream. so where's the pics of the new toy? look forward to hearing more from you on the site.

[abarthmark]

http://www.turbosport.co.uk/showthread.php?t=134780
Some photos of the clio on here! I'm off to northumberland tomorrow to visit my mum. As a detour I'm going via the A686 which goes from Penrith to Alston and eventually to Hexham over the moors. Its one for the best roads in Cumbria and is well known amongst the biking folks. There's a cafe at the top of Hartside Pass called the Hartside Cafe. The views from there on a clear day are awesome! You can see right across the lake district and out to the Irish sea. The road is something to be seen, it climbs steeply up the pass with some sharp hairpin bends. I often take this route as its 40 miles shorter than going to J43 on the M6 and taking the A69 to Hexham.
The other option is to go to J43, take the A69 and turn off at Greenhead and follow the old military road along Hadrians Wall and come off at Chollerford and drop down the A68 to Corbridge where my mum lives. The military road is dead straight for miles and follows the countours which are extremely undulating and will test the skills and suspension of any fast car!

[halfpint]

take some pics mark. sounds like an ideallic view.

[Jamie86]

Cool car i'm also in the 172 club since selling the Sei tub 

[j333evo]

Cool car, remember that Clios (in fact just about all cars) are quoted in PS, not BHP so a Clio 172 is about 169-170bhp, but they often make about 165ish standard as all car makers are allowed to sell cars to within 10% of published power output, and many use it to there advantage.

Early 172's (1st 1000 IIRC)had an alloy bonnet as well, easy to tell as very light, whereas later bonnets can be felt.

Little online calculator to show you differance http://www.statman.info/conversions/power.html