Zel's Fleet Blog...Rover, Renault, Peugeot, Trabant, Invacar & Sinclair C5

[Zelandeth]

Sensible... you've bought a breakdown truck?

Shush you!

-- -- --

It has been confirmed that there are vehicular collection capers on the horizon. Exact logistics are still being figured out, but there is definitely another vehicle inbound.

A pair of VW T4 drop links have been ordered for the Renault, so we can have a look at them and see if they look like viable replacements. Hopefully get them picked up at the start of next week.

Didn't get a photo as I was driving and there was nowhere safe to pull over at the time, but TPA ticked over 15K miles during the trip. For which this was definitely the right car for the job given that once again due to the utterly stupid traffic on seemingly all the roads around here a round trip of just under 40 miles managed to take very nearly two hours.

She could really do with a wash! There are a lot of splattered bugs on here now.



Being covered in greasy handprints from in the garage and me perpetually using the engine cover as a workbench doesn't help either.

Can you spot the difference here compared to earlier photos of the Rover?



Maybe from here?



Yep, sorted the mirrors so they actually stay where you put them now (or at least I hope so, haven't been out of town yet since securing them).

Passenger side one is still kinda pointless - I do wonder if it's got the correct arm fitted as it's pretty much totally hidden behind the bonnet unless you lift yourself up from the seat a bit.





Though equally I do know the springs in the seat are a bit tired.

Will make parking a lot less stressful at least. This honestly took about ten minutes to sort so I'm kind of kicking myself for not doing it sooner now. Parking without mirrors on this is really awkward as while leaning around enough to look over my shoulder I physically cannot turn the steering at parking speeds - you need both hands on the wheel!

[Dick]

Sensible... you've bought a breakdown truck?

Shush you!

-- -- --

[Zelandeth]

Just to confuse everyone, this arrived on my driveway this morning.



Which is absolutely not the car I've bought. However the seller of the car I HAVE bought had bought it, and the seller of this lived a five minute drive away from me - so I offered to deliver it, saving both of us having to find a second driver.

I'm really not a BMW fan, but I liked that more than I expected. Actually surprisingly comfortable despite the taught suspension (and on a car like that I absolutely don't begrudge it!), and astonishingly refined at speed with the top up. Made a lovely noise too, that I can't deny. I rather doubt the exhaust was standard...not a boy racer drone either, a proper and utterly addictive old school howl. Only when on the throttle though, cruising at 60 or 70 the exhaust was totally silent so it wouldn't become wearing on a long trip. Fun or not though, it wouldn't be something I could justify on fleet at the moment as it wouldn't fill any role. Plus I just always feel whenever I'm driving a BMW that everyone else on the road automatically assumes I'm going to behave like an ass, and as such you're never going to get anyone be helpful to you.

It also had the same issue as virtually every German car I've driven in that the seatbelt spent the entire trip trying to saw its way through the side of my neck. No adjustment for that on this either as the shoulder buckle was integrated into the seat

What I have bought though is this.



I've been keeping my eyes open for a Berlingo/Partner for a year or so now. I missed this one on another forum a couple of weeks ago, however the guy who bought it got in touch with me when they'd spotted the Z4 so offered me the chance to buy it for what it owed him. Given what they were asking I said yes.

This one seems pretty well kitted out, not sure if being a special edition which seems to have at least got is fancy graphics on the sides has anything to do with that. Oh...and impact protection on all the lights for some reason...because ADVENTURE maybe?









The option I was most excited to see ticked - and working is visible here.



Yep, this one has air conditioning. Which is allegedly a vanishingly rare option for them to have been specified with. Certainly none of the others of this generation I've looked at have had it fitted.

Part of the treatment this edition seems to have been given was colour coding a lot of interior bits silver. Including the instrument panel.



Not totally sure what PSA were thinking there. Visibility varies depending on the ambient lighting from "okay" to "I can't see a thing." I pity anyone who needs to actually read the Km/h markers on the speedometer. They're basically invisible unless you're in full shadow.



A distinctly odd choice I think.

The silver treatment also extended to the interior door pulls, which haven't stood up to the test of time all that well. These will both need to be re painted.



Is my memory playing tricks on me, or do I spy Citroen ZX door handles there? Both interior and exterior.

She needs a little love here and there and a really good deep clean, but for the price paid seems to be in pretty good shape. Especially bearing in mind that these are vehicles which tend to have to work pretty hard to earn their keep.







Quite surprised to see the fold out load cover still present. They've usually long since vanished by this age.



The engine bay deeeeeefinitely has an appointment with some degreaser and elbow grease in its future.



Aside from some bodged on wiring for an aftermarket horn (currently run to a button on the steering column) at a glance it seems free of hackery though. Just needs a clean. Guessing the horn issue is likely to be a clock spring problem, so we should be able to hopefully get rid of that in due course. Especially given the quality of the routing of the wiring to the engine bay...



...and the positive feed they've run from the battery being green/yellow household earth wire. That is going to drive my OCD mad now I've noticed that.

Drives really nicely though. Clutch is a bit heavy, but I'm used enough to diesel PSA products to know that's par for the course. General refinement and ride quality are streets ahead of the Caddy, as you'd kind of expect. Aside from being a newer design, it's something that was designed from the ground up to be what it is rather than a small hatchback that someone welded a box onto the back of. It's miraculous really that the Caddy drives even half as well as it does, but it does have shortcomings, particularly in the road noise and suspension refinement departments.

I need to double check, but could we be as lucky as that adding cruise control to this is as simple as plugging the stalk in and activating it via Diagbox...

I'll need to start a shopping list.

[] This wonderfully painted front wing. I suspect finding a replacement would be cheaper than getting the paint properly sorted. Hopefully someone can make up the bit of graphics for me by copying from the other side.



[] Driver's B pillar trim has a couple of holes in I assume for some long gone hands free kit.



[] Couple of the wheel trims have definitely seen better days.

[] missing cover on front nearside seat belt.



[] Trim on inside of tailgate seems to have a few broken clips so rattles. Not sure if the broken bits are actually on the trim or clips that can be replaced. Need to investigate first.

[] Small crack in the cap on the gear knob.



[] Passenger headlight looks to have started to lose some of its silvering.

[] Guess if I'm already parts shopping it couldn't hurt to see if I could find a front bumper without a scuff on the nearside corner. Not holding my breath though.

[] If I could find the genuine dog guard at a sensible price I'd probably grab it.

Aside from wanting to get that wing sorted sharpish all pretty low priority stuff. That's quite an obvious cosmetic issue which really draws the eye though so I'd like to try to do something about it sooner than later.

Mechanically I still need to properly go over things, but it's just had a set of front brake discs and pads, and an oil service. Timing belt wasn't done massively long ago either. There IS a belt whining a bit at higher revs so I need to pin down where that's coming from and put a stop to it before it gets worse. The gear shift feels like it could do with a bit of lubrication but isn't really that bad.

It will be interesting to see how different the car looks in a couple of weeks!

Edit: I'm shocked. Not a single dash light out!







I really need to clean that instrument panel...

[gazza82]

That dash is very similar to the 206 dash esp the higher end CCs (apart from the low rev counter max!)

My daughter had a 2.0l CC and hat was a pain to read the dash with the roof down as well. Luckily it was never taken across the Channel so the Km/h markers weren't needed.

Peugeot electrics do have a bit to be desired ... not our Gallic friend's strong point. Had to de-rust relay sockets just behind the rad several times. I mean who wold have thought that putting an exposed pair of relays just behind a rad would suffer with corrosion from damp

[Zelandeth]

That dash is very similar to the 206 dash esp the higher end CCs (apart from the low rev counter max!)

My daughter had a 2.0l CC and hat was a pain to read the dash with the roof down as well. Luckily it was never taken across the Channel so the Km/h markers weren't needed.

Peugeot electrics do have a bit to be desired ... not our Gallic friend's strong point. Had to de-rust relay sockets just behind the rad several times. I mean who wold have thought that putting an exposed pair of relays just behind a rad would suffer with corrosion from damp

There's a decent amount of parts bin raiding going on here. As you've spotted the instruments are straight out of the 206. Steering wheel and stalks too. Door handles on the front (interior and exterior) are off the 3-door ZX. Working from very hazy memories there, but I think the heater controls maybe are too, if not they're very similar.

I've never to be honest had any huge issues with electrical problems on French cars, certainly no more than any other bunch of cars. They have their quirks, but so do any car and so long as you learn them and how to deal with them shouldn't cause massive headaches. Probably the single car I had the most electrical maladies on was my much loved Saab 900. Including but not limited to a giant earthing point right beside the radiator which basically every system on the front of the car ran to. There was always something electrical on that car playing up. PSA stuff is does have its issues but generally they're well documented.

A well documented issue with this apparently is the connection between the steering wheel and the column. These don't use a clock spring, but a slip ring arrangement which apparently is quite prone to failure and is a pig to fix. So the button isn't an unusual fix. The horn is (as I suspected might be the case on something this modern) actually switched through the body control ECU rather than just a direct connection, so that's why we have a second one bolted on randomly in the engine bay with its own power supply. We may well keep a similar setup, but it will be done more tidily and won't have a an earth wire as the positive supply! Even the signal from the wheel itself isn't fed into the ECU directly - that actually comes from the unit incorporating the stalks etc (COM2000), it's all rather complicated. I mean...it's pretty standard these days, but was pretty complicated by the standards of the early 00s.

I will definitely be needing to get myself set up with the necessary diagnostic hardware and software for this car I think if it's to stick around. Which based on first impressions on how nicely it drives I'd not at all be surprised by. I mean there has to be a reason these cars have such a following. Or indeed several reasons I can see so far.

[Dick]

Those little vans are popular here.. am I right in thinking it has the same engine as my 2015 ford galaxy?

[Zelandeth]

Those little vans are popular here.. am I right in thinking it has the same engine as my 2015 ford galaxy?

Wouldn't surprise me. I know the DW series engines were used by quite a few other makers, Ford definitely being one of them. Only vehicle I've ever touched with one in was a Transit Connect, but wouldn't surprise me if they were used in the Galaxy too - though I'd have thought in 2.0 form, Galaxy would be a lot of car for a little 1.6 to haul around.

Have to admit that this feels a lot more perky than I'd expected it to. I know I've been using a 1.9SDI Caddy as my daily for the last couple of years which isn't quick by anyone's standards, but this absolutely doesn't feel at all sluggish.

Cruise is definitely something I'd like to add though. Between the quite high up seating position and levels of refinement it would be very easy to have your speed drift upwards, especially on the motorway.

I can see why they've got a strong following. They're roomy, comfortable, by all accounts economical (to be confirmed, haven't had to fill up yet), and very versatile vehicles. A lot more actually rewarding to drive than I had expected given the type of vehicle too.

[gazza82]

I remember when my 206s airbag light came on. It was traced to the steering column (forgot the correct term for the electronics).

Popped into my local Peugeot dealer who sold me one for around £30. Got it home, removed the steering wheel and it was the wrong part. Took it back next day and the correct replacement was over £100. The difference was my car was CANBus equipped! (They did a deal on the price so it cost around £60!).


The fun with PSA cars is they didn't use a true EOBD system but it was a slight hybrid meaning standard EOBD diagnostics systems don't always produce the correct fault code. I ended up buying a Sealey PSA specific unit as we had two Peugeots in the family. My 2002 1.4 Hdi and my daughter's 2001 206CC. This was the only thing that gave my the true codes. It also worked on my Clio 1.5 dCi.

[gazza82]

I remember when my 206s airbag light came on. It was traced to the steering column (forgot the correct term for the electronics).

Remembered the term: Squib!

[Zelandeth]

I remember when my 206s airbag light came on. It was traced to the steering column (forgot the correct term for the electronics).

Popped into my local Peugeot dealer who sold me one for around £30. Got it home, removed the steering wheel and it was the wrong part. Took it back next day and the correct replacement was over £100. The difference was my car was CANBus equipped! (They did a deal on the price so it cost around £60!).


The fun with PSA cars is they didn't use a true EOBD system but it was a slight hybrid meaning standard EOBD diagnostics systems don't always produce the correct fault code. I ended up buying a Sealey PSA specific unit as we had two Peugeots in the family. My 2002 1.4 Hdi and my daughter's 2001 206CC. This was the only thing that gave my the true codes. It also worked on my Clio 1.5 dCi.

Yeah, PSA have used (like Mercedes) a system which is technically OBD2 compatible but not quite since the 90s. Standard code readers etc will only give very limited functionality, but you need Lexia/Diagbox/Peugeot Planet to get into the more detailed diagnostics and such. Having had several Xantias and a couple of 306s thankfully that's not a real surprise.

This being new enough to have fully multiplexed electronics though and a couple of generations newer emissions control systems than anything I've owned before means that I'm far more likely to need that kit at some point.