The cursed Rallye

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bitwrx

Original Poster:

1,351 posts

203 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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You know what they say. Never buy the first one you look at.

It all looked so good: owned by a main dealer mechanic, 86k miles. Shiny, red and unadulterated. What could possibly go wrong?



Where it all started
I'd been running two cars for most of the time I'd had my licence. An awesome little Mini that only came out for summer, supported by a little 106 Graduate and then a 306 LX for the hard work. This had been going on since 2003 and both Peugeots been reliable enough for me to give the Mini the workshop time it deserved. But with demands of work increasing, and a permanent move away from the family home (and workshop), I started to think that two cars may be as unsustainable as it was unnecessary. So the decision was made to consolidate the fun aspects of the Mini and the practicality of a modern hatchback into one single car.

I'd always liked Peugeots, and had wanted a 106 Rallye since I knew they existed. But having run the Graduate for four years, I knew a 106 was just a little bit too little for an everyday car. I'd initially thought my 306 was a bit of a hog (because it was), but as its reliability increased along with the length of the list of replacement parts, I became quite fond of it, eventually concluding that the 306 was in fact a decent car.

So I started looking up 306 Rallyes - best of both worlds. Fast, nice handling, easy to fix (more on that later), and low on tech (so nothing expensive to go wrong).

The sale

I'd seen a few come up on the forum at 306gti6.com, but had not really had the time or inclination to go and look at any. Then one came up in St Austell, a mere 154 miles from my home in Bristol. I had a bit of spare time, and as I went to uni in Exeter and had spent 6 months weekly commuting from Bristol to Plymouth, I knew some half decent roads on the way down. The seller was starting to get twitchy and had dropped a grand off the (frankly unrealistic) asking price. Things were looking good. Contact was made and off I toddled one Sunday in Feb 2013 (possibly the 3rd (as in Sunday 3rd of Feb, not 3rd Sunday in Feb)) to have a look.

An uneventful journey was followed by a detailed examination of the car. But if I'm brutally honest, I'd bought it as soon as I saw it on the drive of the sellers house. There were a few things wrong with it (K&N was hanging off a bit, passenger window didn't wind down very well, tyres were ste, not much service history) but on the whole it seemed OK. Drove OK, no rust, no stupid mods. All in all a nice little car.

I mentioned the defects to the seller and offered what I though it was worth (plus a bit because it well was below his asking price), but he didn't bite. In the end the promise of a quickly completed sale had him knock a whole £100 off, and it was mine for £2.5k. I knew at the time that this was a bit much (at least 20% too much), but as it seemed like a nice car and the difference was only a couple of monthly payments on a Kia or Golf (or some other such tripe wink ), I didn't let myself get worked up about it.

First drive
I picked it up a week later, after getting a train down from Bristol on the Friday afternoon. The trip back was memorable, but not all good. I took the A38 past Plymouth so I could head up the Teign valley and out onto the moor a bit for a run out. Not exactly a direct route but well worth it and a road I'd taken many times in the Mini, so good for a comparison.


I'd never really driven a quick car before. I was held up in traffic from St Austell to Plym, but even so, I could tell it had a bit of poke. The Rallye has twice as much power as the Mini (which started to run out of steam at about 85), so A-road overtakes were pifflingly easy. Even with the crappy tyres on, the pace at which it went round corners was something else. It didn't seem that fast compared to the Mini due to the size of the car, the relative comfort, and the height of the driver's seat above the ground, but bugger I did it cover the ground. Back on the main road, I didn't have the guts (stupidity?) to do a VMax run, but can well believe the quoted top speed of 130Mph. Either way, I managed not to have any hiccups, despite my exuberance and the quality of the tyreswink.

So at this stage it looked like a decent buy.

Unfortunately the other memorable bit of the trip left a distinctly bitter taste. After chomping on my takeaway pizza (not bitter-tasting) in Bovey Tracey, I noticed that the blower wouldn't clear the windscreen of condensation. I also noticed a funny smell in the air, but couldn't place it. So I wiped the screen and cracked on home. Only past Bridgewater did I manage to place the smell - old festy antifreeze, most likely coming from a popped heater matrix in the dash. Gave the windscreen a quick lick (via finger), and sure enough, that bitter ethlyene-glycol 'orribleness. Bugger.

What causes heater matrixes (matrices?) to pop, I hear you ask? Well, shoddy French engineering is what many people may say, but not I. I would say pressurised coolant. And what causes pressurised coolant? That's right, shoddy French engineering. (Specifically the design and specification of the head gasket seal.)

Mechanical interlude
The XU engines have been around for ever. I won't pretend to know what car this block went in first, but it's safe to say that it was before the invention of the wheel. I think I'm right in saying the block is very similar to that in the venerable 205 GTi. By the time it had made it into the XU10J4RS engine of the Rallye/GTi-6, they had raised the bore from 83mm to 86mm, compression ratio from 9.8:1 to 10.8:1, whacked a chunky 16V head on it, and tuned it to within an inch of its life to extract a further soixante-deux cheveaux. Impressive, but hardly a recipe for robustness.

The internet would have me believe that the other major flaw is the material that makes up the three layer mild steel head gasket. All steel gasket, good. Mild steel, bad. Apparently the gasket corrodes, and the corroded surface fails to maintain the pressure boundary between the cylinder and coolant.

Either way, it turns out popped heater matrixes and failed HGs aren't exactly uncommon on this engine. I should have known.

Home again
By the time I got home I didn't really know what to think. It was obviously a great car, but I was fairly sure it was in need of some pretty serious work.

The good news was that it hadn't boiled. The bad news was that in my bid to reduce car numbers and get something that was both reliable and fast, I had spanked £2500 on something that looked like it was only one of those things... and had increased car numbers to boot.

I ended up shifting the old 306 via the garage in the village where I grew up for a grand total of £700, but had to keep the Mini until the Rallye was reliable. Because of the leaking coolant and possible duff HG, the only driving I could do in the car was to do diagnostic runs to see if coolant really was leaking and the system really was pressurising. It really was, and it really was.

All in all, Feb 2013 was not my finest car month.

TBC...

Edit for speeling. I hate bad spelling.

Edited by bitwrx on Tuesday 22 April 20:02

Leon19841

63 posts

119 months

Monday 21st April 2014
quotequote all
hmmmm not the best. I also had a soft spot for 306 GTI-6 and Rallye's. I was a VAG man though and had a MK3 golf with a 2.0 ABF engine which really was bullet proof but that was about all that was better than the 306! A mate had one, and the lift off oversteer was so much fun.

Hope you get it sorted and can enjoy the car a bit.

Nikko 40691

694 posts

189 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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C'mon pull your finger out and get part 2 up!

bitwrx

Original Poster:

1,351 posts

203 months

Monday 21st April 2014
quotequote all
Nikko 40691 said:
C'mon pull your finger out and get part 2 up!
There'll be a few parts yet. More tomorrow.

Tc24

527 posts

138 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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Looks great in the pics, but looks can be deceiving smile

Having also been victim of French warm hatch reliability, I look forward to reading part 2.

MarvGTI

427 posts

124 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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Great write up !

menoy

142 posts

133 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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MarvGTI said:
Great write up !
Second that!

Bit early to say cursed though, that's just one bug (although a serious one) you've found. Come back after the next ten and you're entitled to the adjective wink

bitwrx

Original Poster:

1,351 posts

203 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
quotequote all
I kind of glossed over how I found out for sure that the coolant was pressurising. Despite the fact that I definitely write too much, it probably deserves a bit of explanation.

I was certain the heater matrix had gone, but I just didn't want to believe that the HG was dead (or worse, cracked head or block!). And when I started looking into how to do the head, I thought I'd better make double trouble sure I'd diagnosed it right.

Cue some imaginative use of various household items...

Quick trip to the local home brew shop, and Sealey dealer to get some indicator solution gave rise to this contraption.


Jam it in the radiator with the engine cold, run the car up at fast idle, and as the engine heats up the gas from the cooling system bubbles up through the tube turning the solution yellow. Yellow = acidic = carbon dioxide, which is a product of combustion, which must've come from the combustion chamber... or so I understand it.

So, certain that I had a duff HG, I started amassing the required bits, including a fancy stainless HG, special bolts, new heater matrix, upper engine mount (while I was there), timing belt, idler pulley, adjuster pulley, water pump. All in all, farking expensive. (The first time I'd really noticed how cheap Mini bits are!)

Getting the head undone wasn't hard. A few grazed knuckles doing the cam belt, but nothing serious. Getting it off the car was a bh. Turned out I needed to drop the whole engine and box down off their mounts so that the manifold could get up past the block. Alternative was to use every extension I had to go up from below the subframe to take all twelfty six of the exhaust manifold studs out of the head. (By the by, the manifold is a work of art. Can't believe they put that much effort into a manifold on a tinny little hatchback!)


To be honest, the head was such a bugger to get off, I thought I'd cocked it up more than once by letting the valves hit on the face of the block. Had visions of getting it all back together only to find I'd bent a valve stem (should have taken the camshafts out before hand).

Once I'd got the head off I managed to discern that it had never been skimmed, so was still in spec for the standard HG thickness. I took it to my local engine people at Slark Race Engineering, who took the tiniest feather off for what I thought the thoroughly reasonable sum of £40 and a cake.

It went back together OK from what I remember (camshafts left out, so no banged valves). I didn't really read what the procedure was for putting the cambelt back on ('cos I is leet at mechanics, innit), but reckoned I had it right.

With some trepidation, I fired it up. It was rattly and lumpy and horrible. I was heartbroken. Absolutely fking fuming with myself... and anyone else who happened to be standing close by. (Sorry dad. And mum. And bro. And his girlfriend.)

French hatch folklore interlude
I've since spent a bit more time immersed in the GTi-6 forum (mostly the for sale bits) and all the adverts will say the head is a 'non-tapper', or a 'tapper, but been like that for ages'. What this means is that the engine has had a valve/piston interface moment, and has a few bent valve stems that could go bang at any time. The fact that most people feel the need to mention that theirs isn't knackered tells you all you need to know about how common it is... Or at least, is perceived to be.

Remeber what I said about the J4RS version of this engine being pushed quite far? Well one aspect of that is having very little clearance between valve and piston (max lift of 1.4 odd mm at TDC). One tooth out when refitting the belt, and you'll have a 'tapper'. Oh, and it turns out that the rubber bit in the crankshaft pulley can break down, which puts the timing marks out and if you didn't know that when you take the engine apart, there is no way to check until you fire it up (unless you can be arsed getting a dial indicator out).

Consequently, it's pretty easy to completely bork an engine... especially if you don't pay close attention to the cambelt fitting procedure.

Back to it
£2978.41 now (and four days work), and I all I had was a car with a brand new head gasket but what I thought was a soon to be fooked engine. I was convinced it was now a 'tapper'. So I thought I'd do my head gasket testing procedures (well practiced by now) to see if I'd at least got that bit right. Ran it up on fast idle and it seemed to get quieter... as the hydraulic tappets filled with oil. The cooling system didn't pump up either.Result. smile

So with everything back together I headed back from my parents' place to Bristol. First thing I noticed was that it was sloooooow. There's a big long straight just up from home, previously used by Evo and Top Gear for various bits of filming/photoshooting. I knew how fast a 405 GLX would go up this road. And how fast a 205 XS would do. The Rallye beat neither. My guess is at least 25% down on power.

Gave it a few weeks to let my knuckles recover (during which time the O/S rear brake caliper needed replacing), and tackled the heater matrix. This is 12 hours labour at a Peugeot dealer for a part that costs £47. It's a big job, so I made sure I had to do it only once.

While I was there I disassembled every bit of the cabin ventilation system and washed it. Twice. In hot water. With much Fairy liquid. I fking hate the smell of ethylene-glycol (or whatever it is they put in it to smell and taste so bitter).

In the end it took two days, but wasn't actually that difficult. Top tip: getting the old matrix out through the bulkhead is really easy, but only if you twist it in just the right way. With it just hanging there, push it to the off side and the pipes will just pop through the grommet. You have no idea how long it took me to figure that out.

So back to the lack of power. Did a bit more reading, a bit more thinking, a bit of compression testing (even, but lower than expected), some more reading and thinking and went back three weeks later to time the bd up properly, still half convinced I'd bent a valve. It was back to normal. Things were looking up.

So just the tyres, passenger window, shabby filter and a few other little things to sort out.

Doe
A deer. A prancing mother fking suicidal death wish bonnet ruining hole of a deer. It came off worse, but just a fortnight after I got my chevaux back, the Rallye was off the road.





That's when I decided it was cursed.

Total damage was:
  • Bonnet
  • Headlights
  • Slam panel
  • Radiator
  • Fan
  • Fan shroud
  • Grille
  • Headlight 'hockey sticks'
  • Bumper
  • Bonnet stripes
I don't want to go into too much detail about how I got it fixed (a series of bad decisions), but it will suffice to say the total spend went up to something over £4k, and it didn't even go back straight. Really disappointed with the bodyshop who, as far as I can tell, didn't even try to get the panels to line up straight. It looked rough.

I did take the opportunity to upgrade to a fabled Nissens rad though (Nissens part number 61252A in case anyone needs it).

Tyring business
The standard Cyclone alloy on these things looks OK, but only if you use the correct profile tyres - 195/55R15.

I guess in 1999 there were plenty of suitable tyres, apart from the standard Pirelli P6000 items. Nowadays 195/55R15 is the reserve of the family man's car - Picassos and the like - so choice of tyres that don't have "Energy" or "Efficient" in the name is limited. The Pirellis on the rear have an awful reputation, but not as bad as the Runways I had up front. They were first to go.

Pug mythology says Michelin Pilot Exalto 2 are the tyres to have, but they went out of production about the time I bought the car. The new received wisdom was to go to 195/50 or 205/50 Michelin Pilot Sport 3s. But 195/50s look ste, and 205 sounds too wide for a 6" rim. And besides, this is a road car. If I wanted a track car with stiff and low sidewalled tyres, I'd buy a track car. I want a car that handles nicely on roads, and that includes ride comfort. Now I know that everything is a comprimise, and I know from the Mini that low and stiff is great fun, but only in small doses. This was my only car (or would be if anyone wanted to buy the Mini, which by this time was up for sale), so it needed to retain acceptable levels of comfort.

Determined to plough my own furrow I eventually settled on a Bridgestone Potenza Adrenaline RE002 (where do they get these names from?), and had two fitted at my local F1 Autocentre. Good looking tyres I thought, and despite turning up first thing on a Saturday (prime time for a tyre fitter with a hangover to be operating sub-optimally), the rims went back on without a scratch...



But they did wobble like fk, which really overshadowed the vast improvement in ride quality and grip over the Runways.

This is when I learned about centreless wheels. Turns out very few places have the kit (or the inclination to set up the kit) to balance wheels without a hole in the middle. My will to have a nice car was flagging a bit by this stage, so I just put up with it, and got on with my summer.

So that takes us up to Aug 2013. A decent cricket season, and the amount of hassle I'd had with the car meant I'd barely driven it for fun, and done just 4500 miles in total.

Cursed, I tells ya. Little did I know.


Edited by bitwrx on Tuesday 22 April 23:14

menoy

142 posts

133 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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Bfuriouss... guess I spoke too soon. This is becoming all too familiar...

scarebus

858 posts

170 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
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I just love the way you share the story with us, we feel your pain!

Doe a censored deer......

Richair

1,021 posts

196 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
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I remember where this story is headed from your posts in the French Bred forum frown

I think we've all owned bad luck cars, but you've had rotten luck with this one! Such a nice car too...

LaurasOtherHalf

21,429 posts

195 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
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It's writing like this that makes me love the RC forum thumbup

No higher compliment than that it just sounds like a chat in the pub

rix

2,769 posts

189 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
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Glad to have found this story mid way through... Bookmarked for my entertainment! smile

storminnorman

2,357 posts

151 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
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Great writeup.

You really did get unlucky with the deer, I ploughed into one at NSL in the HDi and got away with a slightly broken bumper and wonky fog light. Over a year later it's still connected to the car.

bitwrx

Original Poster:

1,351 posts

203 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
quotequote all
storminnorman said:
Great writeup.

You really did get unlucky with the deer, I ploughed into one at NSL in the HDi and got away with a slightly broken bumper and wonky fog light. Over a year later it's still connected to the car.
Surprised it's managed to cling on, what with those silly little hooves and spindly legs it's got. wink

I hit a muntjac with the LX not long before this. It cracked the bumper, but nothing a couple of zippies didn't fix.

Couldn't believe the amount of damage with this one, especially as it was only a junior deer. Headlights looked fine, but could be removed without so much as opening the bonnet.
Was doing less than NSL as well!

Really lucky I it it square in the middle though. Managed to keep both wings unmarked.

ETA, thanks for the kind comments all. Hopefully the updates should get a little shorter as we catch up to the present.

Too late for another tonight, but I'll get the next one up as soon as I can.

Edited by bitwrx on Wednesday 23 April 23:00


Edited by bitwrx on Wednesday 23 April 23:03

MarvGTI

427 posts

124 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
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Aye please update soon, I like your writing style very much (despite the subject)

bitwrx

Original Poster:

1,351 posts

203 months

Monday 5th May 2014
quotequote all
Black Friday
August 16th 2013.
No point dwelling on it because, as Richair said, I've covered some of this ground before. In summary:







Yowzers.

It looked like a truck had put its wheelnuts through the tyre, rim, and wheelarch, and given the bumper and mirror a bit of a rub as it went past. As you can see, it's only ever such a slight mark, which is probably why the driver didn't notice. Either that or he was a dishonest who cared not one jot for someone else's property. Either way, I was left in need of a car the next day with an extremely flat P6000 and a very bald P6000 to go on as a spare.

Banged the spare on that night (still fuming), and the very next morning, headed down to Brunel Tyres to buy one of their finest Matadors.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to claim off my own insurance. They naturally tried to minimise their loss by offering to write the car off, based on a 'market value' of £700. The assessor at the bodyshop (some bloke who was more interested in the value of the remanining VED than the condition of the car) decided it would be £1400 to repair the rear quarter, rim, and bumper. He didn't notice that the rear axle was no longer parallel to the front.

I managed over the course of a month to get the valuer to agree that the car was worth £1850 (some £650 less than I'd paid for it six months earlier frown ), so I was hopeful that the car may be repaired. Turns out I shouldn't have mentioned the axle to him.

Eventually the car was deemed uneconomical to repair, and is now recorded on the V5 as "substantially repaired and/or accident damaged". I understand that makes it a categorty C write-off. Good news was it passed its identity check, so at least I knew I'd not bought a ringer.

While I waited for the cheque to arrive I thought I'd have a go at figuring out why it wasn't driving straight. With the 6 speed box hampering right-hand lock, these things aren't great town cars at the best of times. Add in three inches of crab and I was finding it difficult to parallel park.
This is the offside rear axle (beam) mount.

This crack should not be there.


As an engineer it was interesting to see how the metal had necked down before undergoing ductile fracture in tension. As the owner of the car it came off, I only really saw that the of a lorry driver must have known he hit it, and was therefore, a .

Anyway, with the a beam mount back on, the old girl at least felt straight, even if she looked a little frayed/gouged around the edges. Point to note (jord924 will corroborate), 306 beams are fking heavy. And fall very hard. Fortunately no crush injuries, but I did manage to use the mass of the beam to fold my thumb back against my forearm. Had to have a sit down for that one. In fact, the only other time I've been in as much pain was when I fed the same thumb to the angle grinder. I have pics, but I won't post them.

Looking back through the history and receipts (yes I am sad enough to keep them all, and write this all down), I notice that I must have already made the decision to keep the car well before I got my insurance settlement. In between the incident and getting the payout, I had the wheels balanced (really nice job for £12.50 each eek by the local main dealer), fitted a HX bypass hose (still not sure about the head gasket), refitted the standard air filter, developed a means of pressure testing the cooling system, made up a super awesome cooling system bleeding header-tank-filler-upper thingy, and generally just expending far too much time, effort and money on a written-off 15 year old French hatchback. But more on that later.

When the cheque did arrive, some quick arithmetic revealed that the £30 odd I spent on the First-Line beam mount, and £50 odd on the Matador came to much less than the £1193 insurance settlement. Back under the £4000 mark.

Parental pity combined with a birthday to reveal a full set of genuine Peugeot rear beam mounts. I don't have the receipt for that one, and I don't want to know. But the guy at the parts counter did shake his head in disbelief that anyone would spend that much on an old 306. And he didn't even know it was a write-off.

So on they went. And this is when I realised all was not as well as I had hoped. The broken beam mount was bolted to the car with two big studs that went up through a box section in the boot floor. As the beam shifted forward under the weight of the y lorry driver's lorry, the mount managed to crinkle the bottom of the box section, so that the mounting surface was no longer the same shape as the mount. I ummed and ahhed quite a bit about this one. Thought about pulling it back down with judicious use of some spot welded bolts, but decided against it on grounds of certain future corrosion. Thought about getting someone else to fix it, but reckoned I had better uses for the remaining insurance money. So I just banged some epoxy metal in there, did it up, and left it over night. Seemed OK in the morning, so put the beam back on and forgot about it. To this day, it's my only bodge. I promise I'll fix it properly one

Ignoring the bodge, changing the rubbers noticeably changed the car. Much quieter, smoother and generally just much nicer. This is when I started thinking what else to spend the insurance money on...

Time for some new tyres. Matadors do not inspire cornering confidence. Two more Bridgestones went on the rear (including the rim with the big gouge in it).

And that's how I left it. I did look around for a bodyshop to make it look right again, but after the experience with the shop that repaired Bambi's effect on the front end, I wanted to be very confident they'd do a decent job. After quite some time and many quotes no one had given me enough confidence. They either seemed a bit too insurancey (replace whole panels), or a bit too cash in hand (don't even take arch liner out). I need a panel beater. A proper old fashioned bodywork repairer. And someone who can colour match a Cherry Red Rallye that has been resprayed at some time in its 15 year life. If anyone knows of a suitable establishment within 100 miles of Bristol, please let me know...

Matt Bird

1,449 posts

204 months

PH Reportery Lad

Monday 5th May 2014
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What a nightmare! If it's any consolation, I loved reading the story and at least yours is still (largely) in one piece. Apparently you are capable of driving a Rallye too, which I am not (God I want that car back!).

Hope your luck turns round, it must do soon! Kudos for doing so much work yourself too, they were not easy tasks. And keep the great updates coming. Now, to the classifieds...

selym

9,539 posts

170 months

Monday 5th May 2014
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Great write-up OP.

TheBALDpuma

5,837 posts

167 months

Monday 5th May 2014
quotequote all
Yeah a great write up. We've all had them, cars that just chomp on your wallet. Mine was a Mk2 Golf driver. I learnt to drive in my mum's 306 1.8 meridian (high spec one I think, half leather, air con etc). They do drive nicely and I can only imagine a rallye is a huge leap ahead of the standard car. Hers is a W reg, been in the family over 10 years and had three people learn to drive in it. I drove it a few months ago when I was visiting to nip to the shops (my 24mpg ST220 was out of fuel, so thought I'd use hers hehe ) and it is still going strong, admittedly with plently of squeks and rattles.