Guess what. GRAND FINALE !!!! *21/03/10*

[foggyjames]

They're very, very good cars, for what they are.

We once managed Derby to South Devon (230 miles?) on £10 of diesel in one. That worked out to be 80mpg at the time. I shit you not.

cheers

James

[volvosneverdie]

They're very, very good cars, for what they are.

We once managed Derby to South Devon (230 miles?) on £10 of diesel in one. That worked out to be 80mpg at the time. I shit you not.

cheers

James

Thats amazing.
Think im gonna have it as a thrifty stopgap if its in reasonable condition.
Get back to a 300 when a nice one comes up and Ive got the time and money to travel.

Going to look at it tues.

[jtbo]

Chavalier is half way between a car and a french crap, but when you find good one it is cheap motoring, that is my impression, good luck, hopefully it is a good one

[SteveP]

I honestly don't blame you if you go for a Cav diesel... I've heard good things about them Izuzu lumps...

I even started looking at Rover 220SDI's (103bhp) as a stop gap once (also tweaks upto 140bhp)... well worth a punt and much better than you'd think. A little unrefined but the engine has some mid range shove you would'nt believe for such a cheap and cheap to run car. I honestly think in most situations one of them is quicker than the S70

[trabitom99]

Yes, you're correct.
My 406 has renedered itself useless.
....
Can someone sell me a 300 please?

This all sounds so familiar ... I had the misfortune to own a Peugeot 405 1.6 GL around 1995 - 1997. It was the newest car I've ever owned (7½ years old when I bought it) had a measly 60000 miles on the clock, and had the best previous owner in the world - my dad! The gentlest driver I've ever known, who faithfully pottered over to the local Peugeot dealer for every service.

I should've seen the warning signs (head gasket gone at 30000 miles, snapped bonnet release cable) but if an old 343 can be reliable, surely this gleaming nearly new car would be even better?

The thing fell apart in my hands. Just about EVERYTHING went wrong. In my 2½ years of ownership it needed a new engine, a new carb, the second gear barely went in anymore, the thing leaked like a sieve so I had mould on the seatbelts, mould on the carpets, mould on the roof lining and it stank. The water pump packed up, the ventilation fan first started squealing, then stopped working (not good with a damp car constantly fogging up), permanent earth problems with the rear lights ...

That engine swap - God, what a nightmare. It packed in just before I was going on holiday. I remember driving from Germany to England in an ancient Passat estate with a biblical amount of kms on the tacho, the wrecked engine in the boot (cracked cylinder linings, noticed after the second head gasket fail) swapping it for some recon engine from a dingy place in Deptford, nearly driving headlong into a bus because I was so tired and was driving on the wrong side of the road, straight back to Germany without sleep, having the recon lump fitted (which used double the oil the first engine did), the bloke couldn't adjust the timing because his lamps were broken or something, back to England AGAIN the next day with 3 passengers for a long-planned holiday with the heater on full because the timing was so badly out, and the car was overheating, with something like 4 hours sleep in 72 hours.

It was comfy, had good brakes, the back box lasted 8 years (beat that, V300!) and there wasn't a speck of rust on it when I (gratefully) sold it to some poor sod.

A useless car. A car needs to be reliable and THEN fun. If it can't be reliable it's not fun. That car cured me from french-car ownership forever. My poor dad too, he never forgave himself for selling me such a piece of junk.

Tom

[volvosneverdie]

My poor dad too, he never forgave himself for selling me such a piece of junk.

Tom

Sounds like you had it a lot worse than me Tom!.

My dad is of the opinion that I have brought about all of these faults.
It was a smashing car when he gave it to me like, two weeks ago.

Yeah. Course.

[foggyjames]

the back box lasted 8 years (beat that, V300!)

Blame Bosal / Walker / whoever for that...the genuine ones are ok!

cheers

Jaems

[jtbo]

Not very surprising Tom, my french crap is newest car i have ever owned and when I bought it was very low mileage for it's age, but darn thing is absolutely rubbish, there will be always some new faults. I took out central locking unit, now ABS seem to be working even if it is cold weather and today on test drive I could not make ABS problem light lit even when I did use full beam relatively short time after starting the car, so there have to be some connection between central locking unit, full beam and ABS brakes, yeah, sound logical?

It is very likely that next problem will be something major, I have cured some problems, so it is time for new problems to emerge and those are even worse.

360 would need NLA parts to get it to road + fixing of oil leak, 240 would need new bodyshell, I did talked with repairman and rust has pretty much eaten everything behind rear seats and half from front of rear seats, yank tank would need MOT and new computer brain + emissions systems need to be fixed, so it really does not look too well with my other cars either, but at least with Volvo's problems are something understandable.

[macplaxton]

In defence of French motors, the wife has had a 2000 Pug 106 for 5 years. It has averaged about 6500 miles a year in her ownership. Now just short of 82 000 miles is on the clock. So it's time for me to do a cambelt It's never catastrophically failed, nor needed recovering. Last year it stuck it's hand a few times, but this is uncharacteristic. Jobs were 4 new tyres (old ones plenty of tread by dried out and crap), clutch (died at 78k when I was 70 miles from home, but as I was driving I got it back no bother), exhaust centre section broke just before the cat, so it got a new middle and rear, front discs and pads done too. It nearly breezed through its NCT test, bar the fact that the nearside headlamp was out of alignment. Still good underneath too.

My Citroen, I haven't had to chuck spanners at very often. Recently it was the heater control wire that had come out of the hole in the lever - dashboard out time , but from a mechanical point of view, it's been very reliable.

I put these things down to regular maintenance and a preventative approach. It might be that these nationalities of cars attract owners that don't look after them...

[jtbo]

It could very well be previous owner's bad car servicing, my car has more dents that a golf ball from previous owners, also it tends to leak almost all liquids, I have been trying to teach it not to, but it remembers lesson for only 2 weeks at tops. There is how ever no excuse to all weird electric problems. Also I did pay better half of grand to get front suspension bushes and joints sorted last year and now again there is something worn off, darn thing is eating parts, me thinks.

Also I could not find any explanation to that why radio kept turning on if I made bit quicker right turn at intersection, so I took it out too, seem to be best practice, everytime there is a problem just throw it out

Engine sometimes starts ok, sometimes starts ok but then is coughing after few minutes, running on 3 and so on, other times no problem, sometimes drinks up 1 litre of oil for 1000km, sometimes not at all for 10 000km, can't say where undocumented features start and bad maintenance ends.

Only car ever that has failed me on road was Citroen, crank welded solid with rest of engine as oil froze up to oilpan at -32C, it was not my car. I try to do pre emptive service to cars, but this french crap is one that seem to be impossible, no matter how much I replace parts, it will wear some of recently replaced parts out right after I have replaced some other parts. Thermostat, radiator, radiator fans, temp sensors (still fan will not start), wheel bearings (twice to front), joints, bushes, brake discs, pads, calipers, hand brake cable (twice), exhaust and now need to do it again as center part is gone already, well you get the picture, have had this thing less than two years

I'm too afraid to even wash that thing, it will probably cause some weird electric problem.

[nvdw]

A rotten sill on a 406? What a load of toss that car must be, reason enough to swear at it man. Hope for the best Ben, you don't deserve the bad luck that's headed your way all too often lately.

As a bit of comfort, in the way that more people have suffered at the hands of French car building incompetence, my father for once said no to his default choice Opel Kadett for his colleague had exactly the same car already, and in the pre-internet age a different colour wasn't sourced that quickly. He apparently fell for what was once the Car of the Year, the Talbot Horizon (it might even have been a Simca!). It turned out to be the worst car he ever owned. Both front seats snapped clean off their undercarriage during his tenure, and the introduction of the Dutch MOT provided my dad with a FAIL because the car had suffered from severe corrosion. It became 'the unspeakable car' since then, so I don't know that much details, but it couldn't have been more than five or six years old. Go figure.

After another stint of German engineering (including a trouble-free Seat Ibiza diesel) his trust in French workmanship was put into a Renault Scénic, which did what it said on the tin, but never rewarded his confidence. It wasn't a total bucket o'shite but it wasn't very well made. I remember the lid on the center console box snapped off very soon in its life and the battery discharged completely while being on a ferry (a typical Dutch short cross-river trip). His next car was a Toyota.

I've never owned a French car but then again, I've had enough arse ache with my Renault-engined tat

(Weren't those RHD Pugs built in Ryton, by the way?)

[volvosneverdie]

Grande Finale time.

And I'm seriously not making this up.

Poor Filthyjohn tried to limp the piece of shit back to mine this evening, So I could hand it back to my old man. He got as far as the Tyne tunnel and the fucking head gasket blew.
Car shit itself all over the road and left him stranded.

The car was towed the rest of the way by ronnies 1.(insert small number) 8 valve skoda.
Which performed the task admirably.

The 406 is dead. It's still pissing water and oil all over my street, but at least it's dead.

Sorry to john and ronnie, and cheers everyone for keeping me pecker up.

Rant ends.

Oh, and uncommon though is, the sill went as the drain hole got clogged, the sill filled with water and rotted from the inside out

A fitting epitaph.

[jtbo]

(Weren't those RHD Pugs built in Ryton, by the way?)

Hmm, now would this be good or bad thing for quality?

edit: VND, that really can't be possible, tell me you are joking? Is it a car from some horror fiction or what? Bloody good thing it was not something like Christine then

Shitty machine spoiled evenings of lot of you, it really deserves to be crushed, or something much worse.

[volvosneverdie]

(Weren't those RHD Pugs built in Ryton, by the way?)

Hmm, now would this be good or bad thing for quality?

edit: VND, that really can't be possible, tell me you are joking? Is it a car from some horror fiction or what? Bloody good thing it was not something like Christine then

Shitty machine spoiled evenings of lot of you, it really deserves to be crushed, or something much worse.

Dead serious.
That'll be why it was losing power.
Wasn't overheating though, which is odd.
I feel sorry for john who was stuck at the side of the road with it.
Think I'd have kicked the living shit out of it with my size 13s.
But he remained calm and called for assistance.

I'm gutted, embarrased and pissed off.
Time for a sleep.

[foggyjames]

Dude...that's impressive. We ought to give the 406 some credit for commitment to the cause...

...of showing you why we don't buy French cars. Ever.

cheers

James