OT: Ping ex / current Peugeot 407 owners?

[T i m]

Daughters little 2001 1.2 16V Corsa has managed to put another 8,000 miles on top of the 200,000 since we got it though it's last couple of MOT's and it's due again in January. I stuck a new rad in it a couple of months back as even at £36 for 3 months (if it fails the MOT on something 'terminal') that's still cheap motoring. ;-)

It's had water leak stop for a potential head gasket issue, oil leak stop for an MOT failing oil leak and the last being a compression restorer as one cyl was down to about 40 psi. Tickover is still a bit rough but once it's got a few revs it runs well and drives like new. ;-)

Anyroadup, a neighbour has just changed his car, a 2007 407 1.6 120K diesel Saloon and whilst 'Peugeot', 'diesel and 'saloon' weren't on her checklist for any replacement car, it's had many of the important bits doing (clutch, gearbox, timing belt, disks and pads, immobiliser and key, 2 new tyres etc), he's had it from 1 year old and is only selling it because it's diesel and he needs to go into the expanding London ULEZ fairly regularly.

So apart from the new bits above, the 'plusses' for her would be that it's 'known', is bigger than the Corsa (especially the boot), lower mileage, is the same tax cost and does as good if not better MPG than the Corsa, possibly at the cost of a bit more insurance.

But what are they like to drive / live with? We have never had a Peugeot in the family, mostly Fords and Vauxhalls and whilst out dog walking, I don't seem to see that many Pugs about?

The 1.9 Pug diesel in my Rover 218SD seemed to be pretty indestructible and mate says this 1.6 doesn't burn or leak any oil at all.

She's not 'interested' in cars as such, as long as they do what she needs but I think she might find the Corsa could take some beating, from driver visibility and ease of parking (especially in spaces many might not even try) POV?

Cheers, T i m

[NY]

I can vouch for the 1.6 HDi engine. I've got a 308 (not a 407, admittedly) with that engine and the car has done nearly 190,000 miles and is 12 years old. It still goes like a bomb - far more nippy and responsive than my wife's 5-year old Honda CRV with a 1.6 engine, which has bugger-all low-rev torque (not very diesel-like!) and needs one or even two gears lower when accelerating out of junctions or roundabouts. My Pug has bags of torque at low speed, which means I've got into the habit of not changing down quite as far as I need to in the Honda - bad habits!

The only significant work that my Pug has needed was a new diesel particulate filter and cat at about 130,000 miles, which together set me back about £1000. All other expenses have been expected - eg new brake pads/discs and (for the last MOT) a new spring to replace one that had (rather alarmingly) broken.

I'd say "go for it" - as long as she won't need the added convenience of a hatchback. I wouldn't touch any saloon or 2-door car with a bargepole, but then my Pug spends a fair amount of its time taking garden waste and Amazon cardboard boxes to the tip (the Honda is "too posh" for that!!!).

[T i m]

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OK, good to know.

Strange.

Quite. On that, the 407 also has a towbar and as it's not an estate / hatchback, that could come in handy in the future (especially if it's torquy etc).

Ouch. I think that's more than we have pair for any cars, or maybe rven all our cars in total! ;-)

Would this be the sort of thing that would come up on an MOT and bite us in the (near) future (given it's up to 120k etc)?

Yeah, that can do that eh. Took the inside of the tyrewall out on mates Focus. ;-(

ATM it's mainly for all the shopping she's doing (for herself, her granny and us). When she's bought small furnitutre from the charity shops etc she often feeds them onto the back seats in any case.

No, that was going to be a dealbreaker for her as well.

Yup, that's the sort of work any car of hers doing and considering the range of stuff she has had in the back of the Corsa, it still cleans up pretty well (normally just for the MOT or if she's taking granny anywhere). ;-)

Thanks for the feedback.

Cheers, T i m

[Torx]

I had a 407 from new some years ago (just after it was first on the market). Loved it. Nice drive, comfortable, reliable, never had any trouble with it until a Dutch artic driver tried to park on top of it. Mine was petrol but friends of mine say the diesel is reliable and reasonably thrifty. I've always like pugs,owned several even though I now drive a Qashqai. If it's a good deal I'd go for it. I'm actually thinking of getting a new 3008 but waiting to see what the

2021 Qashqai has to offer.

[T i m]

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Ok.

Cool.

Yeah, our old Astra Saloon went that way when parked and the arctic turning round. ;-(

Yeah, mate said he's go 61 mpg out of his when pottering along the motorway.

I was thinking the 'costs' go from the likes of Ford / Vauxhall, then yer Renault / Citroen / Pug and then German / Japanese?

Basically it's scrap value as he's rather scrap it than sell it to anyone 'else' (just his thing).

Good to hear you are still 'up' for a Pug. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Tim Lamb]

If that is the same engine as the 1600TDi Fiesta, there is a fairly expensive cam belt change at 80,000m.

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[NY]

I suspect that the 1.6 in the Honda CRV is turbocharged to within an inch of its life, to get the power and torque needed for a much heavier car out of such a small engine. So if the turbo boost runs out (eg when you slow down in a high gear, then change to 2nd and accelerate away) then engine is running naturally aspirated and is a little "wrong-footed" until it can spin the turbo back up again. My Pug suddenly lost all power - I struggled to get up a gentle hill, and couldn't get it above 40 even on the level. I'd got it booked into the garage when something made me look under the bonnet and I saw a fat hose from the turbo was hanging loose. As soon as I put it back (and tightened the jubilee clip *properly*) the car was back to normal. I'd only just got the car back from the garage for other repairs, so I suspect they had to remove the hose and hadn't properly re-tightened it... My first question when I phoned to cancel was to ask whether the work I'd had done would have required the turbo-to-inlet-manifold hose removing, and they said yes, so I gave them a very polite bollocking - no recriminations or bad feelings, but watch it in future! At least it was an easy fix and not a new turbo needed...

Possibly. The garage said (but, like Mandy Rice Davies, "they would say that, wouldn't they") that my DPF had had a good life at 130,000 miles. I should have got away with just the DPF at about £500, but the garage managed to strip a thread on a hose between cat and DPF, requiring the cat to be replaced as well - and they were adamant (Mandy RD again) that the stripping of the thread was not their fault.

What was scary was not that the spring had broken but the thought that I'd been driving around with it potentially like that since the last MOT 18 months ago, without any symptoms such as leaning at one corner, poor cornering or noises when I went over speed bumps. I'm not glad to have the expense but very grateful that they picked it up.

[T i m]

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Yeah, revvy motorbikes can get 'bogged down' if you don't keep track of the revs / speed.

Sounds like my mates 'works' Transit. I got him to take me round the block in it and I said it all felt / sounded like a 'turbo issue'.

Result.

(Don't you just hate that and doesn't it make you wonder what else they might have (or have not) done? ;-(

In my mates case it turned out to be a split turbo hose, the split opening worse when you put your foot down (similar outcome though).

Is that the thing I've seen mention of being cleaned or 'burnt off'?

Ouch. That would be one of those jobs you wouldn't mind of you knew it would allow the car to carry on for another couple of years (and not fail on something else 'expensive').

Hmmm ...

Yup. You would think you would notice wouldn't you. Daughter did when a rear spring broke on her Corsa as it came out and bounced down the road after them. ;-)

Daughter fitted two new springs herself. The irony is the 'other' rear spring had gone only a couple of months earlier (when the car was owned by her B/F in Scotland) and they only changed out the one. Even though one was only two months old, she still replaced both of them (it was easy and cheap).

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Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

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Even if it is, the 407 had a new cam belt about 3 years ago and it's not been used much in-between.

The Meriva needs a belt ever 10 years or 100,000 miles and so we did it at 10 years and 60k miles as we were doing the thermostat at the time.

Cheers, T i m

[NY]

"T i m" [e-mail]> wrote in message news: [e-mail]...

I'd tried the normal remedies for burning off excess soot from the DPF, by running the car at higher than normal revs (eg 3rd gear at 50) for a few minutes to trigger the DPF into "regeneration mode". But still I got the dreaded "depollution failure" message on the info panel. No other symptoms - the car ran fine - but I thought "I really *ought* to get this fixed"... and I'm sure it would have been an MOT failure.

When I got the phone call from the garage to say that the bill would be twice what I was expecting, I did some hard thinking. The garage said they would buy it from me for £200, so I thought "Stuff that! The car's worth more to me as a running car than as a second-hand sale" so I got them to fix it (and withdrew a bit more money from savings). And I'm glad I did. It's lasted a good few more years, and it's still going strong. The only time it's let me down was in the month or so before we moved house, when I was driving to and fro between the old house and the new house taking all the small items (boxes of books etc), to cut down on the size of van that we'd need. And it started playing up: the first time I used it that morning, I'd get about a mile down the road (almost always to the same place!) and the engine would die. It would restart, run fine under no load, and then die when I let the clutch in. Rinse and repeat about five times, and then it ran perfectly for the rest of the day for a hundred mile round trip. And then a few days later (with usage in between) it would do that same thing again. I should have taken it to the garage when it first went wrong, but I couldn't do without it for a day (I wouldn't have been able to use a loan car to do a return trip to the new house!) so I prayed that it would last until we were in the new house and I could take it to a garage there. It was after I got it back from the garage that I had the turbo-hose problem, so the repairs to the fuel pump etc had evidently required the hose to be removed. Actually there was on other time it let me down, not long after I got it: the clutch actuator (hydraulic linkage between cable and clutch plate) failed as I was setting off from traffic lights. Because this caused the clutch to be let in much more smartly than my clutch pedal was commanding, the engine stalled - in gear - with no way of disengaging the clutch to get the car out of gear. I was not very popular because I was lead car at the lights, and the pedestrian island prevented anyone from overtaking me without going onto the wrong side of the road. Eventually after working the pedal repeatedly, I got it to activate the clutch and disengage it, so I could get the car in neutral and roll back down the hill to the side of the road. Fortunately the repair wasn't very expensive because it didn't involve going inside the clutch housing: it was all external so there was no need to remove engine and gearbox. Somehow I'm still on the original clutch, after 190,000 miles - damn good clutch linings these Pugs have!

I had another "you'd think I'd have noticed" many years ago not long after I passed my test. I was driving my mum's car, late at night on my own, when I smelled hot rubber and thought "I'd better investigate". One of the front tyres was completely shredded and molten. How had I driven on a tyre that had not only gone flat but was virtually riding on the wheel rim, without feeling *anything* - the car didn't pull to one side, or lurch on corners. It was not fun changing a wheel on an unlit road, with no torch and only the reflected headlight from my light coloured coat that I hung on a bush to light up what I was doing. I was more or less working by feel. Luckily it was nearside so I wasn't at risk from overtaking or oncoming cars. I was glad I remembered all that my grandpa had taught me about how to change a wheel, though that had been in daylight!

[NY]

It may well be. I think Ford and Peugeot do share engines. Though mine was due at about 110,000 miles. The garage advised me to have my water pump changed at the same time because it is driven from the cambelt and if it needs to be replaced, it's the same labour as changing the cambelt. It is cheaper (only £40) to replace a pump unnecessarily than to pay twice for the same labour: now for the cambelt and all over again if the water pump should fail later.

I think most diesel engines need cambelt changes at certain intervals. It's more important for a diesel because the valves and the pistons overlap - it is only the cambelt controlling the valve timing that makes sure the valves and the piston never occupy the same space at the same time. Almost all diesel engines are "interference engines" where this happens, whereas some petrols aren't and the engine just stops, without putting valves through the top of the piston... OK, so some cars have a chain rather than a belt which lasts a great deal longer.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Two petrol Vauxhalls - corsa and astra - belts went Both broke rockers.

Almost any engine will break something if a cambelt goes

[Tim Lamb]

In message [e-mail], T i m [e-mail]> writes

The DPF issue is more to do with driving usage than that particular engine. If you don't do any significant motorway/high speed driving, the engine management never triggers the cleanup cycle. On some vehicles this leads to *limp home mode*. Our Fiesta is 2009 Mk5 and has nothing on the dashboard to tell you what is going on but after a few miles at 2500r/m there is a drop off in torque while excess fuel is used to burn off the filter carbon. It stays in this mode until the ignition is turned off which I have learned how to do on the move:-) Angela is aiming for an electric shopper so there will be a low mileage Mk5 hatchback on the market next year. (Overdue on age for a cam belt change).

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[Dave Liquorice]

SWMBO'd has a had a couple of springs break but not in the open coily bit which would be noticeable, one hopes. Just the end 4" or so so meaning the spring was still held in the dished plate. Presumably slightly softer on that corner, she didn't notice and I don't drive her car.

[Andrew]

I bought a cheapo trade Mk 1 Petrol Astra estate in 1990 for £800. It had 96K on the clock, the oil on the dipstck was black so not changed for a long time. Oil was leaking from the front camshaft bearing and getting onto the belt too. It needed 1/2 litre of oil for every 2 tanks of petrol.

I kept that car for 6 years and got it up to 136K, and apart from doing stuff to get it through an MOT spent nothing on it.

Probably had the original cambelt, now effectively 'in oil'.

It was still going strong and had some MOT left when I gave it to the blokes at the local amenity tip.

Plenty of VW chain cam engines have been wrecked when the chain breaks which is feature of VW's cost-cutting exercises. See Honest Johns wbsite.

[NY]

I've been lucky that none of the cars I've had (and my Pug 306 did about

160,000 before I sold it and my Pug 308 has done 190,000 so far) have developed oil leaks - either external onto the ground or internal into the cambelt area. Oil consumption between services has been negligible - and I do check every month or so, after the car has been sitting idle overnight.

I hadn't realised that any engines still had a timing chain rather than a timing belt (I thought the latter was quieter) - until I asked the garage when my wife's Honda CRV needed a new belt, since it was coming up to

100,000 miles, and they said "no need - it's got a chain". I presume that replacement of the chain is programmed to happen at around a certain mileage and that all garages (incl non-Honda) will know when to do it.

I've seen the effect of a valve through a piston. My first boss, back in

1986, kept a piston (cleaned of oil, and minus its conn rod) on his desk. It was from a Rover SD which he used to own which suffered a timing belt/chain failure at 70 (and the rest!) mph on the motorway. He said he owes his life to his quick reactions in getting the clutch down fast when the driving wheels locked because the engine had seized. He said it was only because he saw the rev counter drop instantly to zero that he thought "engine seized - isolate the transmission"; without a rev counter it might have taken him and extra few fatal seconds to realise why the car was skidding. The piston was fractured diametrically, almost from top to bottom, and had a very neat circular hole punched in the top.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Think the vast majority of all engines are interference types these days.

It's nothing new - plenty much older engines would have the valves hitting the pistons if the cam drive failed.

You'd be safe enough with a side valve, though. ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News]

BMW had a short experiment with belts in the 80s, and went back to chains when they went DOHC/4 valve in the 90s.

[The Natural Philosopher]

actually slightly harder. The shorter a spring is, all other things being equal, the more force needed to compress it a given distance Cutting springs lowers and stiffens car suspension..

[The Natural Philosopher]

Many simply do not ever need replacing. They go one, rattling a bit and with worn sprockets and less than optimal timing, for hundreds of thousands of miles.

Especially in low revving diesels.