RE: Shed of the Week: Peugeot 406 Coupe

RE: Shed of the Week: Peugeot 406 Coupe

Author
Discussion

TheTyreAbuser

170 posts

97 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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Damn, shed knocking it out of the park again.

If I didn't already have my GTV shed I'd actually be going to pick this up. Always wanted a V6 manual coupe but they're becoming rarer, and this looks to be a very decent/serviceable one for the price.

I don't think I'll ever get to scratch that itch, but I'm glad it's not just me who appreciates these things.

dhutch

14,198 posts

196 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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Very nice cars to sit in, never owned one but knew people that did.

brightbluesmurf

78 posts

73 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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I wish Peugeot would partner with Pininfarina on their new cars the 406 Coupe and 306 were just to fabulous design examples.

Trophy Husband

3,924 posts

106 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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How beautiful is this?

Now I want one.


Pebbles167

3,417 posts

151 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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I have a 210bhp V6 coupe that I use as a track car. It's no hot hatch, but stripped out, on stiffer springs and with some track tyres, it's pretty quick and handles nicely. Not much understeer like you'd expect.

Sounds pretty decent too! Looking forward to fitting a new exhaust.





Pebbles167

3,417 posts

151 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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Edited by Pebbles167 on Friday 8th February 13:28

only1ian

684 posts

193 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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Come on Simon do your duty!

mrbarnett

1,090 posts

92 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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I was in the market for a cheap coupe after I finished university and seriously considered one of these. In the end, the right one wasn't available at the time and I ended up buying a Ford Cougar.

I don't regret owning the Cougar, but I do regret not owning the 406 Coupe - from an era of fabulous looking coupes, this is still one of the most beautiful saloon-based cars ever produced.

PhillipM

6,515 posts

188 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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I think if you've got unbrakedisc shaped brake discs on one of these you need to stop sitting at traffic lights with your foot on the brakes - they have Brembo's, decent OE pads and fairly huge discs for the time.

GrandAndrew

871 posts

149 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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Trophy Husband said:
How beautiful is this?

Now I want one.

I know a guy who has one of these with about 20,000 miles on it. In fact, we sold it to him. It was originally destined to be my Mum's car but she wouldn't have it as it was automatic.

turboteeth

350 posts

161 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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Such a shame there was an advisory on last month's MOT though...how much would the bonnety cost to fix?
Lovely car - interior looks ace.

406highlander

182 posts

132 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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I had one of these beautiful cars for over 7 years. Mine had the relatively rare 2230cc EW12 J4 petrol engine (160HP), which was pretty peppy. They only made around 3,600 of them with that engine choice. Mine was also Scarlet Red, which was one of the rarer colour choices for the car. It had the black leather interior, which was comfortable and spacious; the rear seats would seat two full-sized adult human beings in comfort. It gave decent fuel economy around town, but not brilliant on motorway cruises - similar to that of the V6.

In terms of parts commonality, the engine, running gear, switch gear, dashboard, and rear brakes were compatible between the Coupe and the saloon/estate models. The bodywork was *all* unique to the Coupe, as were the seats. Pininfarina designed the bodywork, the seats, and the 6-spoke "Starfish" alloys fitted to the Coupe shown in the article. The wheels were built by BBS, and the seats were built by Recaro. The cars were also all built by Pininfarina in their San Giorgio Canavese factory near Turin. The bodywork is galvanised, so if you find the body shell is rusting, it's likely been in an accident and then repaired. The sills can get rusty though.

The SE model has a nice 10-speaker JBL audio system, with an amplifier in the boot. The SE model also has pop-out headlamp washer jets. The SE model also sports a sat-nav system, but it's ste - the data is loaded via CDROM drive in the boot, but the drive has a tendency to st itself and stop reading the discs, the screen up-front fails over time, and the screen is only big enough to display a small symbol to give you driving directions (it does give spoken instructions though). Unfortunately Navteq stopped releasing updates for that system ages ago so it's pointless; I always just stuck my phone to the windscreen and used Google Maps. The car has a decent cruise control system, which is nice and handy.

Going on long drives in this thing was always brilliant; it's absolutely designed to be comfortable over long trips. It's not a sports car, it's a Gran Turismo.

For those who were keen for that sort of thing, there's a 2.2 litre turbodiesel version which produces 136 HP by default, but with some minor fettling can produce over 200 HP and a small mountain of torque. Note though that nowadays that fettling may possibly be classed as "illegal" and "MOT failure".

There were two versions of the V6 - the earlier ES9J4 model produced 194 HP, and then PSA asked Porsche to tune the engine up, which resulted in the newer ES9J4S model, which produces 210 HP. The newer V6 lump appeared in cars from around 2000, just before the switch to fully-multiplexed wiring. Cars with the ES9J4S engine had two sets of catalytic converters - one lambda-monitored set of pre-cats, and one set of normal cats. Some owners chose to remove the second (unmonitored) set of cats, which improves performance. Cars with this modification still continued to pass the emissions test, because the pre-cats were able to clean exhaust gases enough to pass. Current MOT rules almost certainly prohibit this though.

The 406 Coupe Club forum is a great community resource for those interested in buying, driving, maintaining, and modifying these beautiful cars. Would recommend current and prospective owners check them out.

I sold mine for £700 around 18 months ago and am still gutted that I couldn't keep it as well as my current car (E60 LCI BMW 525i M-Sport).

Gandahar

9,600 posts

127 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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Saw a dark green one down at Tesco's the other day cleaned and polished and it looked fantastic.

I think design has gone wrong since those days. Even the first Tigra and Calibra look unfussy and stylish without trying too hard.



Gandahar

9,600 posts

127 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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Maybe it's because they haven't got some huge goppin great grill stuck on the front so look like they cut through the wind to the eye?

was8v

1,927 posts

194 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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Pebbles167 said:
This looks like something far more exotic lowered on those wheels. What suspension are you running?

rallycross

12,744 posts

236 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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Was and still is a beautiful looking coupe.
They also drive really nicely - as does the next gen 407 v6 petrol but never looked as good as this model.

slipstream 1985

12,125 posts

178 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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Escort Si-130 said:
I wanted one back in the 90's in that blue colour.
like my old one?



WJNB

2,637 posts

160 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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A lovely looking machine & a fine left-field choice, so refreshing from a predictable BMW.
Ignored by the badge snobs of course.
I did have a loan saloon barely a year old with a rattily gutless engine & it was horrible to drive

HumanSteamroller

114 posts

76 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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was8v said:
Pebbles167 said:
This looks like something far more exotic lowered on those wheels. What suspension are you running?
Agreed. Very purposeful. I don't normally like coloured wheels or overly "slammed" cars but this one is just seems right to me, and the angle of the photo helps too I think.

SCEtoAUX

4,119 posts

80 months

Friday 8th February 2019
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Beautiful car.