Old Peugeots and surprising build quality...

[Toaster Pilot]

I bought a 1.1 Peugeot 106 on Sunday for £90. It has 11 months MOT and wants a set of front brake pads.

Currently in the process of cleaning/tarting it up a bit and as part of that I'm putting seat covers on the pretty worn out seats (it's done 129k miles, and is 20 years old). Decided to take the seats out to do it because it's an utter pain to fit them properly with the seats in place, in my bitter experience.

Cue utter amazement when each of the Torx bolts that hold the front seats in and the nuts for the rear seats came out without the slightest bit of fuss - nothing rusted, nothing seized, nothing made of chocolate that rounds off at the sight of a spanner! Every time I've removed seats from other cars - mostly VAG and Vauxhall and at least half it's age, it's been a massive struggle.

Body wise it's in great condition, not a spot of rust on it. Paint on the roof is faded and I think it is beyond polishing but apart from that it's absolutely fine.

Why don't they build cars like this any more? Where did French manufacturers go wrong? I'm not the only one that has said in the past that French cars of this era are pretty dependable.

[SuperHangOn]

It seems surprising now but old French cars were often as tough as old boots. Some models like the 504's were legendary in Africa.



Try that in a 307 and see how far you get!


I guess it went wrong when they tried doing electrics and other stuff they didn't really get

[V8forweekends]

Toaster Pilot said:

Why don't they build cars like this any more?

Not enough people care.

Toaster Pilot said:

Where did French manufacturers go wrong?

They spent substantially less on marketing and propaganda than German ones.

[Toaster Pilot]

So is it the "it's 3 years old and needs tyres, best bin it" mentality that has got us to where we are?

(worth noting that this car was so amazingly cheap because of the fact it needs the brakes sorting)

[voicey]

It ended with the X07 models. I've had quite a few 306 and 406 cars and never had any bother with them. My brother still has my old 306 GTi6 that I gave to him rather than sell it. I think it has over 150k on the clock now and is still going strong.

[TurboHatchback]

Old Peugeots are fantastic. The 504, 309, 205, 405, 406, 306 and various others are brilliant. Sadly the 206 and everything after that are frankly rubbish. This is a shame because I like the old cars and would happily buy a Peugeot if they made something good again.

The 208 GTI does seem like a good effort but I'm still not sure it offers anything over the competition.

[ally_f]

V8forweekends said:

They spent substantially less on marketing and propaganda than German ones.

This /\ !!

[TommoAE86]

My first car was a 205 1.8GRD of '91 vintage, ignoring the rose-tinted fun-to-drive bits, it was amazingly well screwed together. Before I became aware of what I should be doing it took 4 years of, quite frankly, abuse and only required bushes/tyres/brakes and maybe 6 tanks of diesel (it was amazing on this)...

I wish the scrappage scheme hadn't killed off such amazing cars

[cirian75]

my 98 306 D-Turbo was solid, rattle free and utterly reliable.

was a huge mistake px'ing it for the MX-5

I could have afforded to keep it, instead I took the £600 px value off the MX-5

[J4CKO]

The French are great a quirky, soft riding, good handling, charming, well built simple cars, the further you go up the ranges the more problems you tend to get, hence why French Exec barges are generally pleasant but a bit rubbish in the reliability stakes, plus they arent are thrustily aggressive as the German stuff, most of which nowadays look like predatory bottom feeding fish, they even have DRLs,

[madjules]

Bought a cheap 406HDi off a minicab company with a very dubious 116k on the clock. Sold it five years later to a minicab company with 198k on the clock. Changed standard service items only. Great car.

[paranoid airbag]

I've had a 2004 renault clio for about five years now. In that time it's needed new tyres... and a new indicator bulb. Possibly brakes as well, I can't remember.

I think Richard Hammond got it right... the core parts of the car are done well, but anything above that isn't. Comment on the role of socialism in all this.

[Engineer1]

voicey said:

It ended with the X07 models. I've had quite a few 306 and 406 cars and never had any bother with them. My brother still has my old 306 GTi6 that I gave to him rather than sell it. I think it has over 150k on the clock now and is still going strong.

The 206 did it I suspect anouncing the factory is closing you are all out of jobs but keep making the cars may have had something to do with it.

[Prince Rupert]

Parents had a 806 people carrier for 14 years / 150,000. Very rarely went wrong and was thoroughly abused family transport through most of that time.

[sjabrown]

Yep, the oldest cars I own are all 205s. Some great solid long lasting vehicles - 106, 205, 305, 404, 405, 504.

[Toaster Pilot]

Prince Rupert said:

Parents had a 806 people carrier for 14 years / 150,000. Very rarely went wrong and was thoroughly abused family transport through most of that time.

Does that have electric sliding doors and all of that stuff? Always assumed they were a money pit.

[CrutyRammers]

TurboHatchback said:

Old Peugeots are fantastic. The 504, 309, 205, 405, 406, 306 and various others are brilliant. Sadly the 206 and everything after that are frankly rubbish. This is a shame because I like the old cars and would happily buy a Peugeot if they made something good again.

Are you taking the mickey?
The most unreliable, falley-apart-y, impossible to work on, left me stranded more times than I care to remember, donkey of a car I ever did own. From memory, on a one-owner, 30,000 miler, and inside of 2 years:

Heater matrix failed and leaked water everywhere. (stranded)
Sunroof failed.
Head rebuild because valve seals failed.
Throttle stuck open (several times)
Clutch cable broke. (stranded)
Radiator pipe broke off. (stranded)
Breather Pipe broke off of rocker cover leading to loss of oil (stranded)
Cam belt came off on start up. (stranded)
Gearbox failed (stranded - at which point it was scrapped).

Went nice when it worked mind. Which wasn't often.

[NPI]

Toaster Pilot said:

Why don't they build cars like this any more?

We had a new 1.1 106XR (XR was the mid-range spec but meant nothing more than it had full interior door trims, not painted metal, etc).

Bought it in 1991 and it cost £7,700. And it only had 3 doors. And flat red paint which faded badly.

I think the problem is that you can buy a new little car now for the same money, or maybe even less, and it would be massively better equipped and have airbags, ABS etc etc. Something has had to give.

[Toaster Pilot]

Wow, I didn't know they cost that much!

This one is a "mardi gras" - no idea what equipment level that is (special edition of some kind I assume) but it has sod all in it

[BFG TERRANO]

I've never been a fan of the French stuff... But. My wife had a 206 1.4HDi on a 02 reg. she bought it as an ex demo for £5500. It took her up to 94,000 trouble free miles and never failed an mot. All it had aside from services were one exhaust a battery and brakes. Without to many mathematics it cost peanuts to run and just sold for £900. That's a loss of about £350 every year of ownership.