I've just spent the weekend undertaking the dubious pleasure of a cambelt and water pump change (amongst other things) on my wife's 2004 Scenic 1.9DCi.

The amount of bodywork etc that has to be taken off is frankly ridiculous. Should it really be necessary to take the windscreen wipers off to change a water pump? The location of the hole for insertion of the crank locking pin is a joke; I gave up after about 40 minutes of trying to get clear access. The Haynes manual makes it look easy, because they're working on the engine with it removed from the car - hardly the most realistic of approaches . Putting the new aux belt on, even though it's a lot shorter than the one on the JTD Multipla, is also a pig.

The Multi may have a cramped engine bay and some parts are nasty to get at (courtesy of a crossflow head) but in the main, it's a lot better though out than the Renault. The only thing I've found that's easier on the Scenic than the Multi is changing glow plugs.

Seasoned Multi owners will be comforted to hear that the intercooler rubber inlet hose gets just as minging on the Scenic, and leaks in a very similar manner :yuck:

The 1.5 is the same, wipers and scuttle trim off. disconnect engine mounts, engine up, engine down, engine up, engine down, bugger all space, pig of a job.
Timing belt on the espace v6 is a full engine out job.

If you go to Renault, yes, but not it's strictly true. The belt can be changed with the engine in situ, if you take advice from the right people. I'll be doing the one on my Avantime in the next couple of weeks.

Or did you mean the V6 diesel ?

You have an Avantime? Wow…. Just done my a/c condensor at the week end. Unfortunately I've damaged the facing on the lower inlet pipe and have to replace it. As I had to cut out the bolt and got a bit carried away… £90 including discount for the pipe… so that another bumper off job again!