At the beginning of the year we had a 2.7-litre diesel 407 Coupe in silver. Now we've got the big petrol version for them as wants to cock a snook at the chauffered bods who want to make the current decade the last one ever for new cars that run on pure petrol or indeed pure diesel.
These 407 Coupes are a lot tougher to photograph than the 406s, thanks in the main to the gopping front overhang, but it's amazing the difference colour can make to a car. The motoring equivalent of Mrs Shed's mighty hooter was all too obvious on that silver car, but in profile at least it really seems to shrink when it's in black. It still looks weird from some angles though. You'd swear that the snapper for this ad used a fisheye lens for the header pic but no, it really does look like that.
The vendors of this 65,000-mile 3.0 (technically a 2.9) specialise in much more expensive cars than this. It was presumably taken in as a part-ex and will as we speak be sat round the back surrounded by posh German tackle feeling sorry for itself. If they're keen to get rid you should be able to hit them up with a dirty cash offer, using the non-opening tailgate as leverage. Once bought, you would need about 50p to sort out what is a common and almost certainly easily resolvable problem.
All the smart betting is on it being a broken wire in the rubber concertina shroud in the top left of the boot, rather than a more expensive microswitch issue in the '0' button of the 407 badge. If the Coupe is like the saloon, which it is when you think about it, you should be able to access the lock from the inside, pop the lid with a thin screwdriver, find that it is indeed a broken wire, solder in a new section, et voila, Robert est votre oncle.
Then what have you got? A rather swish Pepe Le Pew-style Gallic cruiser with a sweet equipment list including parking aids, climate control, heated leather seating and a JBL sound system. It's a 6-speed auto, so you won't be experiencing the 208hp maximum output very often because it doesn't arrive until 6,000rpm. This engine is more of an ambler than a gambler.
Throw in the 1,640kg weight and you'll soon understand why its 0-62 time is only 8.7secs, the official combined fuel consumption only 27mpg and the urban figure just under 19mpg. Mid-30s should be perfectly achievable in lounge mode though, reducing your running costs, but the near-fifty quid a month road tax is as fixed as a crocodile's stare and these V6s do go through tyres at a fair rate.
The MOT on this one runs out next February, but the good news is that it passed the retest this February after both front CV boots and the nearside ball joint had been replaced, so you won't have to do them. The offside ball joint will inevitably need doing at some point too as these heavily-V6ed 407s do munch through these.
Thanks to the village postmistress and a handy bush behind the footy ground stand, Shed is no stranger to munching or offside BJs. He knows that a rattly 407 lower ball joint needs looking at sharpish. If the inner ballrace bit of the three-toed component is literally gone, which can happen if you leave it rattling for long enough, the stubby bit that's an integral part of the hub will be flopping around inside a much too big cup (add your own jokes here), messing up the steering and making quite a racket. If that's happened you'll have to get a complete new (or used, if you can find one) hub assembly.
Electrics can be a bit rancid on these - sensors, computer, windows, horn - and the flaps covering the headlamp washer nozzles have a habit of flying south for the winter. These flaps are body-coloured which is a pain if you want the replacements to blend in. Despite all that, a lot of owners have reported generally good core reliability. When all is as it should be, this is an old-school sofa of a car that will waft you to a distant destination in a very relaxing fashion and any concerns about body-coloured flaps will seem quite trivial.
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