The Mégane II Owners' Club

Any one having trouble with this silly hand brake idea that Renault have used, it all started about a month back when the hand brake would not release in a traffic que of course, so I drove it to the side of the road dragging its rear wheels then like magic press the button and it worked? typical, now it has done this on a number of ocasions now more and more regular as time goes by.
It has to be used now by using your finger on the stupid thin bit of wire they used to operate the ratchet, don't know if any of you have seen this wire but I tell you this it is destine to fail, to thin and with a couple of bends in it, however my problem seems to be in the handle [I think] as the button does not come out at all or go in, well it goes in a fraction hardly worth a mention, tried bending the silly bit of wire to no avail, so does anyone know if you can get into the handle to see what is going on in there.
I am really not impressed by this car at all, They seem to have had some good ideas then ruined them by cheap technology, this hand brake is yet another example, my wifes Megane 1 Coupe on a 99 plate has better build quality I am afraid, if it carries on next year as it has this year it will on the market and gone, this 04 cc has had more money spent on it in less than 12 months than my wifes 99 Coupe has in 6 years, this is not a good sign!

The problem is very well documented. It is the assembly in the handle, usually the spring mounting snaps off which you can either fix yourself by taking it to pieces and gluing with epoxy resin, buying a new assembly from a scrapyard viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11194 and installing it yourself, or going to the dealership to be robbed.

I agree about the car design. They installed a lot of features for the money, but at the cost of quality.

Outstanding! thanks for that Dave, give me an idea of where I am going with this!

But yes good car in planning but awful in reality, two rear window regs gone, why? the plastic wheel which the cables wind onto inside the motor is to soft and slightly to small, so the cable move out of the tracks make there own in the soft plastic then fail, next problem is the card, two reapaired now both times the micro switches needed re-soldering, why? the card is to big and the plastic to soft to support it, or look at it another way, in the summer, t-shirt and jeans, where do you put this card? in your jeans, in the front it sticks in your, well, you know whats! so you put it in your back pocket so it bends when you sit down and if you have hands free entry the card stays in your pocket, but as the chap that repaired them both said it is only a little movement but constant enough to just lift the micro switches away from the board.
Now the hand brake, not to mention the useless horn, I can shout louder and the vibrating rear brakes when you reverse and brake? I mean come on how long have rear discs been out, it is not new technology, this is also one of the few cars you can't actually adjust the rear wheel tracking now, it has a fixed axel so needs to be 4 wheel tracked every time, I have had this car now just over 9 months and begining to wonder why I bought it as I said I have spent less on my wifes 1999 Megane Coupe which she has had for 6 years now, you do get a lot of car, but I think I would rather less of a car but more robust technology, still you don't know these things till you buy into them, no car is perfect, I don't mind replacing items on my car but not the same one over and over again, it get very tedious and expensive.