RE: SOTW: Peugeot 406 Coupe
Discussion
Near the bottom of the page is the fake engine kit;
http://www.extreme-sportscars.com/360/kits.html
Nice. I might get one for my wheelbarrow/lawnmower/supermarket trolley.
http://www.extreme-sportscars.com/360/kits.html
Nice. I might get one for my wheelbarrow/lawnmower/supermarket trolley.
As usual a fair bit of crap spouted on PH...
Anyway manual is the way to go, much, much quicker than the auto. Its very easy to get another 20BHp out of these with removing a couple of the 4 cats and opening up the restrictions in the exhaust and inlet. Doing a HDi replacement would be a major pain - its a multiplex car with a different ecu system.
I have one on 135k (D9 v6) and its quick, reliable, very cheap and does decent mpg (solid 30 mpg mixed).
New dampers and engine mounts make a huge difference, cambelt and tensioners are a must, not hard to fit but do cost around £200 in parts. Clutch should be single mass, so around £120 for a Peugeot original. Seem very sensitive to tyre type - best so far have been Pilot Sport 3s in 205 55 R16.
On Bilstein B4s mine is easily as quick point to point as my impreza classic turbo and v70 T5. Very good turn in, LOOS on demands if you turn off the ESP and enough grip to get you into trouble, but not so much as you can't kick the tail out. Very, very impressive over rutted and broken tarmac on standard springs. The biggest thing I find is a lack of steering feel over say a 306. Could be the subframe being on rubber - i'm looking into it.
Finally parts are dead cheap (dedicated breakers) and the coupe forum is very good indeed
Anyway manual is the way to go, much, much quicker than the auto. Its very easy to get another 20BHp out of these with removing a couple of the 4 cats and opening up the restrictions in the exhaust and inlet. Doing a HDi replacement would be a major pain - its a multiplex car with a different ecu system.
I have one on 135k (D9 v6) and its quick, reliable, very cheap and does decent mpg (solid 30 mpg mixed).
New dampers and engine mounts make a huge difference, cambelt and tensioners are a must, not hard to fit but do cost around £200 in parts. Clutch should be single mass, so around £120 for a Peugeot original. Seem very sensitive to tyre type - best so far have been Pilot Sport 3s in 205 55 R16.
On Bilstein B4s mine is easily as quick point to point as my impreza classic turbo and v70 T5. Very good turn in, LOOS on demands if you turn off the ESP and enough grip to get you into trouble, but not so much as you can't kick the tail out. Very, very impressive over rutted and broken tarmac on standard springs. The biggest thing I find is a lack of steering feel over say a 306. Could be the subframe being on rubber - i'm looking into it.
Finally parts are dead cheap (dedicated breakers) and the coupe forum is very good indeed
Not for me, I'm afraid - lacks any form of wow factor once you look beyond the frock and the V6 badge. To my mind there are better handlers, better engines, better lookers and better engineering amongst its contemporary competitors. The design has aged well but that apart, the 406 is sort of average in every regard.
Had a '98 V6 about 6 years ago and I've always been quite fond of these since, they often get quite a bit of stick, which I think is mostly unjustified, probably from people who haven't owned one or had a bad ownership experience.
They ride very well and actually handle much better than most people give them credit for, after all they are from the era when Peugeot knew how to make their cars handle properly. Certainly not the car for blasting down on B road as they do feel quite large, but on fast A roads they are very competent and stable at speed.
Also screwed together very well (Disclaimer - for a french car), although a few little things didn't work quite right, e.g. heated seats (believe this is very common) and dodgey speakers.
I only sold it as my car had a lpg system installed which was very tired and became almost unusable, requiring most of the system to be replaced, therefore could only run it on petrol and couldn't afford the 20mpg consumption at the time.
I've been tempted to buy another one more recently as a runabout now that I can afford to have no interest in a cars fuel consumption.
They ride very well and actually handle much better than most people give them credit for, after all they are from the era when Peugeot knew how to make their cars handle properly. Certainly not the car for blasting down on B road as they do feel quite large, but on fast A roads they are very competent and stable at speed.
Also screwed together very well (Disclaimer - for a french car), although a few little things didn't work quite right, e.g. heated seats (believe this is very common) and dodgey speakers.
I only sold it as my car had a lpg system installed which was very tired and became almost unusable, requiring most of the system to be replaced, therefore could only run it on petrol and couldn't afford the 20mpg consumption at the time.
I've been tempted to buy another one more recently as a runabout now that I can afford to have no interest in a cars fuel consumption.
forzaminardi said:
When released, I thought this car was, alongside the Alfa GTV and Fiat Coupe and a certain girl in my class, one of the most beautiful things in the World.
Ah, I think we've all been there.... <gazes wistfully in to the middle distance>Sorry, not 'been there'. I'm sure I wasn't even at the same school as you. What I mean is, er.... oh, never mind.
Could do a lot worse.
.."or you can take a Shedman’s chance and leave it, reasoning that if it does go pop you could swop in an HDI lump for less money that the cost of the belt job."
Yeah, right. I'll just do that in my lunch hour then....
Not really my kind of thing anyway, but a lot prettier than the car that replaced it with its awful front bumper/overhang. <shudder>
Yeah, right. I'll just do that in my lunch hour then....
Not really my kind of thing anyway, but a lot prettier than the car that replaced it with its awful front bumper/overhang. <shudder>
I am not much of a fan of the lighter shades like the Hyperion Blue shown in the photo - the Coupe does look really nice in red (either Scarlet or Diablo), blue (Polaris or Aegean), or black (Granite). The leather interiors came in black, red, or tan (the rarest Settant'Anni special editions had gorgeous white leather), and the lower-spec cars had cloth trim, which is a shame - it really doesn't suit the car very well.
I have a 2.2 litre petrol example in Scarlet Red with black leather. 160 HP, 158 ft/lbs of torque. Doesn't sound much, but she does shift pretty well.
This is my beast (sorry about the photo quality, this was taken with the rather poor camera on my old phone):
I stuck 19in wheels on it (they were a bargain at £240 including tyres and delivery), some new JBL GTO rear 6x9 speakers, and a stainless steel exhaust system (the old one was blowing). Everything else is stock. Adding 19in rims has made the ride a bit firmer, but it's not bone-shattering or awful in any way. The exhaust gives the 4 cylinder engine a nice snarl, but it's not chavvy - it growls under hard acceleration, burbles nicely at idle, but when cruising it's nice and quiet.
Sure, these aren't full red-blooded sports cars - but they do look gorgeous, especially in the flesh - and they do drive really well for a big car. They're big, comfortable cruisers, but have the ability to put a big smile on your face down some nice twisty country roads. I would be more inclined to class them as grand tourers rather than sports cars or executive runabouts.
As for the infamous Peugeot reliability issues - seriously, that's a non-issue - forget it. These are not unreliable cars, they are not shoddily-built, and they don't go on fire at the drop of a hat. They have no more problems than any other car. Remember that the 406 was basically their flagship model at the time (the 605 and 607 were niche luxury cars that weren't intended to sell as many), so these were some of the most reliable cars from the Peugeot stable. You'll get the odd thing failing (anti-roll bar droplinks are a common part to fail, but they're cheap and easy to replace, and the mild steel exhausts do rust away - just like on many other cars) but catastrophic failures are almost always the result of poor / neglected maintenance (i.e. letting the cambelt change interval lapse and having the belt snap as a result).
I've had mine since November 2010. The only electrical issue I've had was that one of the seat heaters failed (but being honest, it was broken when I bought it). One of the fuel injectors failed recently - but my car is 11 years old this month and this kind of thing is to be expected with age. Not an expensive part to replace, and once it had been swapped out, all was good. I did have a braking issue, but this was entirely due to one garage's incompetence when I put it in to get the pads & discs changed (seriously, one of the front brake calipers came apart while I was driving it - the bolts were only in finger-tight ...) Other than that, the car has been reliable and a joy to own & drive.
Interestingly, the 406 Coupe wasn't just designed by Pininfarina, they were all built at the Pininfarina plant in San Giorgio Canavese:
http://www.lospiffero.com/images/galleries/pininfa...
Just under 110,000 were built between 1997 and 2004 and you know by now that unwarranted badge-snobbery has resulted in many of those having been taken off the roads, so they're becoming increasingly rare. The spec lists are high, and the prices are low. If you're humming and hawing about buying one, just go for it. If you're after a 2.2 petrol though, move fast - there only ever were 3,600 of them ever made.
I have a 2.2 litre petrol example in Scarlet Red with black leather. 160 HP, 158 ft/lbs of torque. Doesn't sound much, but she does shift pretty well.
This is my beast (sorry about the photo quality, this was taken with the rather poor camera on my old phone):
I stuck 19in wheels on it (they were a bargain at £240 including tyres and delivery), some new JBL GTO rear 6x9 speakers, and a stainless steel exhaust system (the old one was blowing). Everything else is stock. Adding 19in rims has made the ride a bit firmer, but it's not bone-shattering or awful in any way. The exhaust gives the 4 cylinder engine a nice snarl, but it's not chavvy - it growls under hard acceleration, burbles nicely at idle, but when cruising it's nice and quiet.
Sure, these aren't full red-blooded sports cars - but they do look gorgeous, especially in the flesh - and they do drive really well for a big car. They're big, comfortable cruisers, but have the ability to put a big smile on your face down some nice twisty country roads. I would be more inclined to class them as grand tourers rather than sports cars or executive runabouts.
As for the infamous Peugeot reliability issues - seriously, that's a non-issue - forget it. These are not unreliable cars, they are not shoddily-built, and they don't go on fire at the drop of a hat. They have no more problems than any other car. Remember that the 406 was basically their flagship model at the time (the 605 and 607 were niche luxury cars that weren't intended to sell as many), so these were some of the most reliable cars from the Peugeot stable. You'll get the odd thing failing (anti-roll bar droplinks are a common part to fail, but they're cheap and easy to replace, and the mild steel exhausts do rust away - just like on many other cars) but catastrophic failures are almost always the result of poor / neglected maintenance (i.e. letting the cambelt change interval lapse and having the belt snap as a result).
I've had mine since November 2010. The only electrical issue I've had was that one of the seat heaters failed (but being honest, it was broken when I bought it). One of the fuel injectors failed recently - but my car is 11 years old this month and this kind of thing is to be expected with age. Not an expensive part to replace, and once it had been swapped out, all was good. I did have a braking issue, but this was entirely due to one garage's incompetence when I put it in to get the pads & discs changed (seriously, one of the front brake calipers came apart while I was driving it - the bolts were only in finger-tight ...) Other than that, the car has been reliable and a joy to own & drive.
Interestingly, the 406 Coupe wasn't just designed by Pininfarina, they were all built at the Pininfarina plant in San Giorgio Canavese:
http://www.lospiffero.com/images/galleries/pininfa...
Just under 110,000 were built between 1997 and 2004 and you know by now that unwarranted badge-snobbery has resulted in many of those having been taken off the roads, so they're becoming increasingly rare. The spec lists are high, and the prices are low. If you're humming and hawing about buying one, just go for it. If you're after a 2.2 petrol though, move fast - there only ever were 3,600 of them ever made.
turbo-ww said:
GranCab said:
This a particularly unsuccessful attempt at a Ferrgeot 430/406 ... but I think it blends in well with the 1960's Wimpey Housing Estate setting
... it looks like it's held together with duct tape
My Eyes!!! ... it looks like it's held together with duct tape
Edited by GranCab on Friday 8th March 12:07
Just been given a 406 2.0T Executive with same seats as this SOTW. I tell you what it's a nice cruiser and will leave most modern cars feeling uncomfortable with their Uber hard setup. This thing wallows along nicely. Just someone help me remove the darn annoying PIN keypad entry everytime I get in !!!1
406highlander said:
I am not much of a fan of the lighter shades like the Hyperion Blue shown in the photo - the Coupe does look really nice in red (either Scarlet or Diablo), blue (Polaris or Aegean), or black (Granite). The leather interiors came in black, red, or tan (the rarest Settant'Anni special editions had gorgeous white leather), and the lower-spec cars had cloth trim, which is a shame - it really doesn't suit the car very well.
I have a 2.2 litre petrol example in Scarlet Red with black leather. 160 HP, 158 ft/lbs of torque. Doesn't sound much, but she does shift pretty well.
This is my beast (sorry about the photo quality, this was taken with the rather poor camera on my old phone):
I stuck 19in wheels on it (they were a bargain at £240 including tyres and delivery), some new JBL GTO rear 6x9 speakers, and a stainless steel exhaust system (the old one was blowing). Everything else is stock. Adding 19in rims has made the ride a bit firmer, but it's not bone-shattering or awful in any way. The exhaust gives the 4 cylinder engine a nice snarl, but it's not chavvy - it growls under hard acceleration, burbles nicely at idle, but when cruising it's nice and quiet.
Sure, these aren't full red-blooded sports cars - but they do look gorgeous, especially in the flesh - and they do drive really well for a big car. They're big, comfortable cruisers, but have the ability to put a big smile on your face down some nice twisty country roads. I would be more inclined to class them as grand tourers rather than sports cars or executive runabouts.
As for the infamous Peugeot reliability issues - seriously, that's a non-issue - forget it. These are not unreliable cars, they are not shoddily-built, and they don't go on fire at the drop of a hat. They have no more problems than any other car. Remember that the 406 was basically their flagship model at the time (the 605 and 607 were niche luxury cars that weren't intended to sell as many), so these were some of the most reliable cars from the Peugeot stable. You'll get the odd thing failing (anti-roll bar droplinks are a common part to fail, but they're cheap and easy to replace, and the mild steel exhausts do rust away - just like on many other cars) but catastrophic failures are almost always the result of poor / neglected maintenance (i.e. letting the cambelt change interval lapse and having the belt snap as a result).
I've had mine since November 2010. The only electrical issue I've had was that one of the seat heaters failed (but being honest, it was broken when I bought it). One of the fuel injectors failed recently - but my car is 11 years old this month and this kind of thing is to be expected with age. Not an expensive part to replace, and once it had been swapped out, all was good. I did have a braking issue, but this was entirely due to one garage's incompetence when I put it in to get the pads & discs changed (seriously, one of the front brake calipers came apart while I was driving it - the bolts were only in finger-tight ...) Other than that, the car has been reliable and a joy to own & drive.
Interestingly, the 406 Coupe wasn't just designed by Pininfarina, they were all built at the Pininfarina plant in San Giorgio Canavese:
http://www.lospiffero.com/images/galleries/pininfa...
Just under 110,000 were built between 1997 and 2004 and you know by now that unwarranted badge-snobbery has resulted in many of those having been taken off the roads, so they're becoming increasingly rare. The spec lists are high, and the prices are low. If you're humming and hawing about buying one, just go for it. If you're after a 2.2 petrol though, move fast - there only ever were 3,600 of them ever made.
Never knew the 2.2 exsisted some pug fan I am! lolI have a 2.2 litre petrol example in Scarlet Red with black leather. 160 HP, 158 ft/lbs of torque. Doesn't sound much, but she does shift pretty well.
This is my beast (sorry about the photo quality, this was taken with the rather poor camera on my old phone):
I stuck 19in wheels on it (they were a bargain at £240 including tyres and delivery), some new JBL GTO rear 6x9 speakers, and a stainless steel exhaust system (the old one was blowing). Everything else is stock. Adding 19in rims has made the ride a bit firmer, but it's not bone-shattering or awful in any way. The exhaust gives the 4 cylinder engine a nice snarl, but it's not chavvy - it growls under hard acceleration, burbles nicely at idle, but when cruising it's nice and quiet.
Sure, these aren't full red-blooded sports cars - but they do look gorgeous, especially in the flesh - and they do drive really well for a big car. They're big, comfortable cruisers, but have the ability to put a big smile on your face down some nice twisty country roads. I would be more inclined to class them as grand tourers rather than sports cars or executive runabouts.
As for the infamous Peugeot reliability issues - seriously, that's a non-issue - forget it. These are not unreliable cars, they are not shoddily-built, and they don't go on fire at the drop of a hat. They have no more problems than any other car. Remember that the 406 was basically their flagship model at the time (the 605 and 607 were niche luxury cars that weren't intended to sell as many), so these were some of the most reliable cars from the Peugeot stable. You'll get the odd thing failing (anti-roll bar droplinks are a common part to fail, but they're cheap and easy to replace, and the mild steel exhausts do rust away - just like on many other cars) but catastrophic failures are almost always the result of poor / neglected maintenance (i.e. letting the cambelt change interval lapse and having the belt snap as a result).
I've had mine since November 2010. The only electrical issue I've had was that one of the seat heaters failed (but being honest, it was broken when I bought it). One of the fuel injectors failed recently - but my car is 11 years old this month and this kind of thing is to be expected with age. Not an expensive part to replace, and once it had been swapped out, all was good. I did have a braking issue, but this was entirely due to one garage's incompetence when I put it in to get the pads & discs changed (seriously, one of the front brake calipers came apart while I was driving it - the bolts were only in finger-tight ...) Other than that, the car has been reliable and a joy to own & drive.
Interestingly, the 406 Coupe wasn't just designed by Pininfarina, they were all built at the Pininfarina plant in San Giorgio Canavese:
http://www.lospiffero.com/images/galleries/pininfa...
Just under 110,000 were built between 1997 and 2004 and you know by now that unwarranted badge-snobbery has resulted in many of those having been taken off the roads, so they're becoming increasingly rare. The spec lists are high, and the prices are low. If you're humming and hawing about buying one, just go for it. If you're after a 2.2 petrol though, move fast - there only ever were 3,600 of them ever made.
Whats the real world day to day mpg like?
Always wanted one but don't think i'd stomach the thirsty v6 and can't live with owning a diesel!
petrolsniffer said:
Never knew the 2.2 exsisted some pug fan I am! lol
Whats the real world day to day mpg like?
Always wanted one but don't think i'd stomach the thirsty v6 and can't live with owning a diesel!
2.2's pretty good on fuel even in my 607. 35mpg is not impossible in mixed conditions, higher 30s if all motorway. In town it struggles admittedly, down to low 20s. Don't know how much heavier the 607 is though than a 406 Coop at 1550-odd kg.Whats the real world day to day mpg like?
Always wanted one but don't think i'd stomach the thirsty v6 and can't live with owning a diesel!
EDIT to add - and yes, want. Great shed... hard to get hold of a good'un nowadays, hence why I'm in the big 6.
I had a 3.0 V6 SE. Very nice car.
I "destroyed" it by putting 40K miles on it in a year. Stood up to that surprisingly well. In the end I changed it because handling wise it's something of a pudding. Very safe, but heavy and therefore somewhat dull.
I'd have a shed one in preference to a great many cars - including the Vectra I have at the moment!
Subsequent Peugeots just haven't been the same. Never wanted another Pug since.
I "destroyed" it by putting 40K miles on it in a year. Stood up to that surprisingly well. In the end I changed it because handling wise it's something of a pudding. Very safe, but heavy and therefore somewhat dull.
I'd have a shed one in preference to a great many cars - including the Vectra I have at the moment!
Subsequent Peugeots just haven't been the same. Never wanted another Pug since.
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