Peugeot 607 “The overtime car”
Discussion
I’m going to pack in doing car track days for a bit. I enjoy them but it’s much harder on the car than I expected compared to tracking a bike. I’ll don’t think I’ll get a car to the right level on track that I’d be happy driving on the road and I don’t have the space to keep a track car that won’t move either.
I’m considering getting back into bike trackdays as although they’re more hassle, they’re more fun. I’ve now got a tow car too!
I’m considering getting back into bike trackdays as although they’re more hassle, they’re more fun. I’ve now got a tow car too!
I opted to use wynns diesel egr extreme cleaner on the egr. It’s a bit of weird thing to use as you stand there for ages spraying it in the intake. Part of the instructions are to leave the car idling 10 minutes so I gave the engine bay a bit of a clean whilst I waited.
The results are positive. It certainly feels more responsive and is less hesitant when cold. I went out for a drive in it earlier and it felt good. Returned 49mpg compared to the 42mpg I was getting on the last tank.
Unfortunately the air con is leaking which I suspected when I got it regassed. Kwik fit reckoned it was all fine but clearly not. I’ll use the local air con guy I’ve used before to get it sorted as he really does know his stuff.
It’s booked in for a wheel alignment on Wednesday and I’m going to get the wheels balanced whilst I’m there as every so often the steering vibrates.
The results are positive. It certainly feels more responsive and is less hesitant when cold. I went out for a drive in it earlier and it felt good. Returned 49mpg compared to the 42mpg I was getting on the last tank.
Unfortunately the air con is leaking which I suspected when I got it regassed. Kwik fit reckoned it was all fine but clearly not. I’ll use the local air con guy I’ve used before to get it sorted as he really does know his stuff.
It’s booked in for a wheel alignment on Wednesday and I’m going to get the wheels balanced whilst I’m there as every so often the steering vibrates.
Edited by SAS Tom on Saturday 17th August 22:45
Not a great weekend for the car, after finding that the air con was knackered again on Friday, the interior fan stopped altogether. Fortunately it’s a well known issue on Peugeot’s it seems and will most likely be the motor resistor. I’ve ordered a replacement which is due today at £27 including next day delivery. I thought I’d give the local Peugeot dealer a chance as I’d have paid a bit of a premium if they had one in stock. They didn’t but they could get me one for £156! Mental!
The windscreen washer fluid bottle is still leaking. It appears to be leaking from the hole for the filler funnel and from the headlight washer hose. I think I’m going to try and use sealant around the filler funnel as that should solve any issues. The headlight washer hose looks like a piece of hosepipe cut to length so I’m going to buy some appropriate hose from the motor factors which should seal better. Once I’ve done that I’m going to unplug the motor for the headlight washers as they go through absolutely loads of water and make no difference to anything.
To be fair although these issues are a bit annoying they’re hardly disastrous and so far everything that I’ve wanted to fix has been cheap so I think I’m still doing alright.
In summary, french car lives up to its reputation.
The windscreen washer fluid bottle is still leaking. It appears to be leaking from the hole for the filler funnel and from the headlight washer hose. I think I’m going to try and use sealant around the filler funnel as that should solve any issues. The headlight washer hose looks like a piece of hosepipe cut to length so I’m going to buy some appropriate hose from the motor factors which should seal better. Once I’ve done that I’m going to unplug the motor for the headlight washers as they go through absolutely loads of water and make no difference to anything.
To be fair although these issues are a bit annoying they’re hardly disastrous and so far everything that I’ve wanted to fix has been cheap so I think I’m still doing alright.
In summary, french car lives up to its reputation.
Some progress today. The heater resistor turned up. I have to admit I wasn’t confident this would fix the problem, I just had in my mind that it was going to be some sort of wiring problem that took ages to find.
It worked! 5 minutes to change, it’s just underneath the glovebox and easily accessible.
Old original one from 2006;
New one fitted;
I can live with things like this going wrong if they’re such cheap and easy fixes.
It worked! 5 minutes to change, it’s just underneath the glovebox and easily accessible.
Old original one from 2006;
New one fitted;
I can live with things like this going wrong if they’re such cheap and easy fixes.
SAS Tom said:
It worked! 5 minutes to change, it’s just underneath the glovebox and easily accessible.
Great that it's in a nice serviceable place. My Giulietta has it near the pedals and need to squeeze my hand through a crevice. Your thread is really tempting me to join the french barge club
So today has had its highs and lows! Went to get the car aligned. Sometimes it felt like it was going straight then others the steering would be off centre to keep it going straight. The alignment showed the issue was the rear toe. The rear left was at 9 minutes toe in and the rear right was at 18 minutes toe in. This was concerning as the bolt to adjust the toe looked pretty crusty. Fortunately it turned out to be solid and even adjusted easily. For some reason the standard setting have the rear toe in at 15 minutes presumably for stability. I decided to set it to 9 minutes to hopefully aid turn in a bit. It’s never going to be touring car but changing the alignment on the Skoda made a bigger difference than I expected.
The car now drives straight and doesn’t react to different road surfaces like it did before.
Since I got the car I’ve been wondering why the stereo sounds crap given it’s meant to be a decent JBL system. The screen has a million different menus and I couldn’t find the one for the settings until today. For some reason the previous owner was a bit of a nutcase and set the front speakers all the way to the right and rear speakers all the way to the left. No idea why but it’s made a massive improvement setting it all back to the middle.
Next was disaster. I got in the car to leave work and the car decides to flash up abs/esp errors. Like any normal person who buys an old french car for not a lot of money I shat my pants. Could this kill the car? Is it going to be expensive? How will I even find out what it is? Maybe it really isn’t a good idea to replace a 3 year old completely reliable car with an old french barge?
Luckily google came to the rescue. Something you can always rely on with an old french car is that many other people have had the same problem as you! Turns out the alignment means the steering angle sensor needs to be recalibrated. This can be done with a Lexia cable and Peugeot planet which I don’t have. eBay to the rescue and it’s on its way, hopefully arriving on Friday. Panic over. Well, unless it is a different fault but we’ll find out soon enough!
The car now drives straight and doesn’t react to different road surfaces like it did before.
Since I got the car I’ve been wondering why the stereo sounds crap given it’s meant to be a decent JBL system. The screen has a million different menus and I couldn’t find the one for the settings until today. For some reason the previous owner was a bit of a nutcase and set the front speakers all the way to the right and rear speakers all the way to the left. No idea why but it’s made a massive improvement setting it all back to the middle.
Next was disaster. I got in the car to leave work and the car decides to flash up abs/esp errors. Like any normal person who buys an old french car for not a lot of money I shat my pants. Could this kill the car? Is it going to be expensive? How will I even find out what it is? Maybe it really isn’t a good idea to replace a 3 year old completely reliable car with an old french barge?
Luckily google came to the rescue. Something you can always rely on with an old french car is that many other people have had the same problem as you! Turns out the alignment means the steering angle sensor needs to be recalibrated. This can be done with a Lexia cable and Peugeot planet which I don’t have. eBay to the rescue and it’s on its way, hopefully arriving on Friday. Panic over. Well, unless it is a different fault but we’ll find out soon enough!
ABS will not cost you the earth. The Peugeot system is based on a small ABS sensor and a toothed ABS reluctor ring (speed ring) on each wheel. The rings get crusty and need replacing after a certain amount of time.
The rear rings are officially part of the rear wheel hub bearings, and the fronts are officially part of the driveshafts - i.e. going through Peugeot (and even most independent garages), you'll have to replace the hubs and the driveshafts to replace the ABS rings - though it *is* possible to find replacement rings on eBay for a lot less. When I had my 406 Coupe, I learned that there were two different parts for each ABS ring, depending on whether or not the car also had ESP. The two parts had different numbers of teeth; if you got the wrong number, it just won't work. Not sure if the 607 will have that issue (maybe all of them had both ESP and ABS? I dunno), but worth checking out. I'm not mechanically capable at all, and just had my local independent change out the drive shafts and the rear wheel hub bearings. No problems after that, at all.
The sensors are not too costly either, and they should be a straight up plug-and-play swap. Check out Peugeot ServiceBox for the ABS sensor part numbers for your car.
EDIT: just re-read your last paragraph. Peugeot Planet (PP2000) is a good bit of diag software - BUT - it's old as balls and needs to run on a Windows XP machine. I had a spare Asus netbook from ages back, and just stuck XP on it for that purpose. Never actually had to use it before I sold the car though.
The rear rings are officially part of the rear wheel hub bearings, and the fronts are officially part of the driveshafts - i.e. going through Peugeot (and even most independent garages), you'll have to replace the hubs and the driveshafts to replace the ABS rings - though it *is* possible to find replacement rings on eBay for a lot less. When I had my 406 Coupe, I learned that there were two different parts for each ABS ring, depending on whether or not the car also had ESP. The two parts had different numbers of teeth; if you got the wrong number, it just won't work. Not sure if the 607 will have that issue (maybe all of them had both ESP and ABS? I dunno), but worth checking out. I'm not mechanically capable at all, and just had my local independent change out the drive shafts and the rear wheel hub bearings. No problems after that, at all.
The sensors are not too costly either, and they should be a straight up plug-and-play swap. Check out Peugeot ServiceBox for the ABS sensor part numbers for your car.
EDIT: just re-read your last paragraph. Peugeot Planet (PP2000) is a good bit of diag software - BUT - it's old as balls and needs to run on a Windows XP machine. I had a spare Asus netbook from ages back, and just stuck XP on it for that purpose. Never actually had to use it before I sold the car though.
Edited by 406highlander on Thursday 22 August 09:13
406 highlander, I’ve bought a laptop and all the kit from a seller on eBay. It’s probably a more expensive way of doing things but I don’t have any kind of computer at home anyway so it’s not a disaster.
Nick, it’s executive trim level. Honestly I’m not sure what the differences between trim levels are.
Nick, it’s executive trim level. Honestly I’m not sure what the differences between trim levels are.
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