1994 Renault Safrane : progress after crash...

[masi]

Usual story of wife getting job, requiring the car (Laguna 2.0 Turbo). I have Renault 11 (even many ), but wasn't counting on them for my nearly daily commute of 70km (around 40 miles). So got this instead! Bordering the line of retro, at least it's rare. It's an -94 Safrane 2.2 RN Vi (basic spec :/ ). I went for a test drive, and it was so good to drive (even in snow and ice)! Anyway, time for first day pics, will get better ones later on:









ToDo:
- change gearknob to original (in boot)
- left repeater stops working when pressing brake
- one door lock doesn't work as expected
- ...

many more to come, but it will be nice to have such "small" things to deal with.

[Siert]

One evening I was doing some work on my Peugeot at "Teekkarien Autokerho" when some Finnish girl opened the doors, drove a Safrane inside, and left. I was impressed with how she had parked the huge car effortlessly in a tight spot, but I wasn't particularly interested in the car. About half an hour later my friends arrived (one of whom a Renault addict) and they went more than a little bit crazy about the car... I looked at them wondering what the fuzz was about, at which time I may have mentioned that the person parking it there was a girl, which did not help to reduce their excitement... I only understood afterwards that Safrane's were only available on special order from Finnish Renault dealers, and there really are very few of these here. I think they're a nice example of a large French car, but I still don't get the excitement. Witnessing the heater matrix replacement one car club member subsequently did on that particular Safrane may have cured some of my friends of their excitement as well...

Good luck with it, I hope it'll provide you comfortable journeys for a long time

[lordyoung1980]

I like these a lot, about 10 years ago i was working at a place where they had a lot of people from the former Yugoslavia and they went crazy for these. And when they found out how cheap they could get them just made them want them more. I always wanted the V6 turbo version. You have to admire the french for trying to take the Germans on with executive cars. Enjoy

[doobie]

Strangely i also bought a Safrane today... mine is a 1997 2.5 RXE...

[masi]

Thanks, let's hope this works as well during the whole winter as it does now. And that RXE must be much more comfortable inside

I promised some better pictures, so here they are:

[0a]

Very nice - the parents had a late Laguna MK1 that was supremely comfortable, with the longer wheelbase I'd imagine the Safrane is even better. 

[masi]

ToDo:
- change gearknob to original (in boot)

This is what it came with:


Now fixed, see photo above

- left repeater stops working when pressing brake Ground problem? Currently thinking it's the towbar wiring
- one door lock doesn't work as expected Multiple door locks don't work, waiting for repair manual to open doorcards
- heater blow will blow only towards the windscreen won't have time to fix that any time soon
- some interior plastics need changing
- change / fix rear bumper hole
- change seats, I always want the best seats that have been available
- find middle armrest
- change bulbs in dashboard
- change windscreen and rear window wipers
- change antenna

[masi]

ToDo:
- change gearknob to original (in boot)
- left repeater stops working when pressing brake Ground problem? Currently thinking it's the towbar wiring
--› This was due to bad earth either in the backplate or the connector. New ground wire solved the issue.
- one door lock doesn't work as expected Multiple door locks don't work, waiting for repair manual to open doorcards
- heater blow will blow only towards the windscreen won't have time to fix that any time soon
- some interior plastics need changing
- change / fix rear bumper hole
- change seats, I always want the best seats that have been available
- find middle armrest
- change bulbs in dashboard
- change windscreen and rear window wipers
- change antenna

[masi]

Small things but they do make a difference. Tonight's one hour job was to change the handbrake gater.

Ordered old gaiter from France with some other stuff, was in same shape as mine, but had the bezel intact contrary to mine. Then ordered the gater from ebay uk.



Had some fiddling to get the staples go through the bezel, but at the end was fine.



Passed from this tired and cracked old gater...



... to this:

[masi]

Also as we finally got some freezing temperatures around here (so the car will stay clean a lot longer), I washed the cars and took a couple of pics...

[masi]

As it started to get cold and it was a beautiful day, it pushed me to take photos again. I prefer posts with photos

[rich745]

my dad had one of these when i was little, remember it being lovely car to be in!  his was the 3.0? V6 with an auto, but unfortunately it did suffer from pretty major electrical gremlins and we eventually sold it on.  saw it in northampton a while later but it had been involved in an accident and sadly no longer lives.  

does yours have the computer in the dash that talks to tell you about faults? - i have memories of comically long strings of faults every time you started ours up!

Good to see one again, haven't seen one in the UK for years! 

Richard

[masi]

Noup, no dash computer or speech. Just quiet and comfort driving

[masi]

The blinkers seemed a little dull?

Let's compare to new ones which arrived from Germany:



After change, have a new winter pic

[homeforsummer]

Very nice. I grew up around Renaults and as the company's flagship, the Safrane was always one I lusted after. Funny that by most they're considered utterly featureless and largely forgotten. They've aged well, looks-wise.

[masi]

Last week thursday, our main car, laguna II turbo had engine failure when wife drove to work. Today, this when she drove to work:



Now I'm left with a rental car in front of my house to get the kids to kindergarten. I'm quite depressed. There is no Safrane in sale in Finland at the moment. No way to replace No money to get something nice. Blah.

[SamR380]

Wow, I hope your wife is ok! Best of luck finding another Safrane, they're a rare car here too.

[Mercdan68]

ah mate that just bad news...hope the wife is ok

[Deleted]

D: Likewise, I hope everyone is okay!

[masi]

Thanks all!

As a Finnish guy, I can I say I have reached the low spot of my life, I am driving a toyota corolla (rental car). Everyone's ok, the issue is how to go on from here. Get 1 new car quickly, get 2 cars, get 1 repair 1 etc...? The children are 1 and 3, so we need a car daily to get them to daycare, we both work 20 miles from here and need cars, and both of them are destroyed within a week.

I told my wife I want to think on this, because when you buy yourself a cheap daily car, you easily find yourself having had the car for years even if it was temporary. So I might want to replace the laguna with a new one, get a daily from godfather and wait for a safrane to become available.

If this was summer, I would have fixed my R11...