Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[RichardW]

Hopefully I'm proved wrong....

[DHallworth]

Great news on the brakes ...that will surely sort them out ....

If I can get the parts ordered!

I've phoned Peugeot Glasgow no less than 5 times since Tuesday at various times of the day trying to get through to the parts department, in all cases I'm told by the receptionist that nobody is available to take my call. Three of those times they've taken my number and promised a callback from the parts department, but of course no callback.

Please, take my money! I think the next step is to drive over there during the day and sit at the counter until someone will see me.....

They are a nightmare these days, there used to be 8 people there, now due to them making cuts there are 2 and they've been told the phone comes after techs waiting for parts. It's the receptionists in Coventry who answer the phone and email the dealership but they never call back. Usually phoning around 3pm is the best time.

However, Allied Parts in Glasgow now do all their parts and employ most of the old staff, give them a call on 0141 336 1200.

David.

[DHallworth]

It's not legal but I'd plug that and use it as a rear tyre if it were me

[Mandrake]

They are a nightmare these days, there used to be 8 people there, now due to them making cuts there are 2 and they've been told the phone comes after techs waiting for parts. It's the receptionists in Coventry who answer the phone and email the dealership but they never call back. Usually phoning around 3pm is the best time.

The parts department used to be 8 people ? I did finally get the parts ordered on Thursday by driving over there about 2pm in the afternoon. There seemed to be an awful lot of people milling around and walking from place to place looking for something to do for somewhere that has had cutbacks...

The guy said the parts should arrive on Tuesday and he'd call me to let me know - no surprise that I haven't received a phone call yet... rather than go through another round of phone calls just to check if parts that have probably arrived have arrived, I'm just going to wait until Friday afternoon then drive over mid afternoon to see if they're there as it's not far from work.

However, Allied Parts in Glasgow now do all their parts and employ most of the old staff, give them a call on 0141 336 1200.

Oooh oooh, tell me more! Are you saying that I can phone them up as a random member of the public and quote part numbers from PSA service box and get them to order any part from the PSA catalogue including dealer only parts, as these are ?

If I'd known that last week I would have given them a try as I dread dealing with Robins and Day for parts, and usually wait until I really need parts or need several parts before I put myself through the torture and hassle...

Are these the guys you're referring to ?

https://alliedautocare.co.uk/parts/

They mention Peugeot parts but not Citroen parts ?

It's not legal but I'd plug that and use it as a rear tyre if it were me

I'm taking it to Cooper Brothers on Saturday morning for them to have a look (since it's them that fitted the tyre less than two months ago, and the other garage I normally use can't order Vredestein's) but from what you're saying they'll almost certainly say they can't repair it due to the location ? I've resigned myself to yet another new tyre already so if they will puncture repair it I'd consider it a bonus at this point. The main thing is it needs fixing and the car must stay on the road. If it's a new tyre, so be it.

I think I'm also going to swap rear left and right tyres when I get the car back - for some reason that rear left wheel is a puncture magnet, and I'd rather it had punctured a year old tyre instead of the brand new one fitted just over a month ago!

[myglaren]

It has been mentioned somewhere that a commercial vehicle tyre place will plug and vulcanise them.

[DHallworth]

Citroen Glasgow have told me to use Allied for parts as that’s where there stuff comes from. They’ve downgraded their parts and outsourced it so if they don’t stock it it’ll be ordered through Allied anyway.

If they said it’ll be in by Tuesday then it usually is but they don’t phone back any more. Another reason I’m gradually reducing my PSA fleet tbh.

Buying parts has become stressful now and having to wait 2 weeks for a set of wiper motors for a C5 really wound me up.

David.

[RichardW]

It has been mentioned somewhere that a commercial vehicle tyre place will plug and vulcanise them.

Prompted me to do a bit of digging.... repairs to the central 75% are 'minor' and therefore permissible by cold plugging (which is what most tyre places will offer). Repairs outside this area are 'major' and need to be hot vulcanised - there are companies that offer this, particularly commercial outfits as only this method is allowed for industrial tyres. There is an outfit in Glasgow - might be worth sending your pic to them to see what they say: http://www.dandrtyres.com/tyre-vulcanising

[myglaren]

Hope they can fix it for you Simon.

[white exec]

My local (ATS) tyre depot here will plug, internal patch and hot-vulcanize all nail type punctured tyres as a matter of course, and for €10 all-in.

[Mandrake]

I've ended up opting for a new tyre.

I took it in for them to have a look a couple of weekends ago but was a bit late getting there so there was a full waiting room and an over 2 hour wait for the car to be seen. The guy I was speaking to did come out to look at the car in the car park immediately though and agreed it was very marginal in location. He said they were willing to have a go, but admitted that if they got the tyre off the rim and weren't able to repair it due to the location I'd be stuck without a tyre for the wheel.

I'd then be in the situation where I'd either have to accept buying some random 175/55/15 tyre they had in stock that didn't match my all seasons and which I didn't want, or leave the car there stranded in their open car park for a week while a tyre was ordered in, get a taxi home, then drive the Xantia for a week at petrol prices that cost more than a new tyre! (Then have to deal with getting back there without the Xantia to collect it, in a one driver family)

None of which I was willing to do when I rely so heavily on the car. If I had a spare wheel I could have put on the car I would have said sure have a go, then I could have just driven on the spare for a week if they were unable to repair it on the day and had to order a tyre in, no biggie. But with no spare wheel available my options are severely limited. I sometimes wonder if it would be worth having a spare wheel with cheap tyre on it even if I don't carry it in the car all the time due to lack of room. Worth considering for situations like these, although with different size front and rear wheels it would have to be a narrower front as I know for sure the rear wheels can't be fitted to the front due to a pip on the hub that prevents this but a front wheel may fit on the rear like a space saver...

The new tyre came in last Friday but I've been sick as a dog for the last week such that I haven't been able to go in to have it fitted yet! I've been battling with the worst flu in years for a week now (mostly over it now thankfully, just the coughing left to go) and as a double whammy in the middle of all that suffered a serious case of food poisoning last Thursday as well which left me crippled all Thursday night and Friday.

I should be OK to get it fitted on Saturday though, so that will hopefully be the end of punctures for now!

In other news... BLACK ICE!

We had our first real ice of the winter and it was a doozy. No real ice to be seen anywhere around our house but at Joshua's Gran's it was a complete nightmare - worst I've ever seen in the time I've lived over here, both the road and pavement was pure black ice and literally like a skating rink.

She lives in a terrace on a reasonably steep street inside a small network of streets, the outer "ring" of this network of streets that the busses follow is gritted but none of the inner ones are so its always a bit touch and go at times in the winter. (Hence the All Season tyres!) Last winter it was slippery but manageable, and mainly just heavy snowfall but the ice this morning was something else.

I cheerfully turned the corner from the outer ring to one of the un-gritted inner streets and promptly felt the rear of the car completely let go and do an arse sideways slide towards the pavement... I backed off the power and did a bit of counter-steering to get it straight and crept slowly and carefully up the hill with a very gentle throttle shimmying from side to side with lots of traction control activity. It was completely invisible black ice all over the road and pavement, living up to it's name!

When I got to the house I pulled up two wheels onto the pavement as I normally do, intending to minimise the distance to carry Joshua from the car to the gate on a slippery pavement, pulled the handbrake on, put the car in park and released the foot brake.... and promptly started sliding backwards down the hill with the handbrake active on the rear wheels.

Despite the rear wheels where the handbrake and parking brake both operate being the larger of the two sets of tyres and having a weight bias on it, it apparently still didn't have enough grip on what turned out to be pure ice to stop the car sliding back down the hill. And that's on good tyres with three peak and mountain snowflake rating. Applying the foot brake stopped the movement so that little extra bit of grip from the front foot brake was seemingly just enough to stop it sliding.

So I gingerly reversed back out and pulled up beside the pavement hoping the road was marginally less icy, which it was and was able to park with the handbrake without sliding down the hill... Never in my time in Scotland in either car have I been in a situation where the car would start sliding down a hill from stationary with the handbrake on when I released the foot brake. Ouch.

Trying to get Joshua from the car to the gate was a seemingly insurmountable problem at first as the pavement was completely iced and impossible to walk on. In the end we settled for throwing his large thin blanket that goes over him in the car seat onto the ground as a big red carpet between the car and the gate. Sounds daft, but it worked brilliantly. Even though it was lying on top of a sheet of ice it was perfectly steady and safe to walk on. So much so that I'm going to grab another similar spare blanket that we have like that one which is a bit bigger and keep it in the car for just such icy occasions... only problem is this other blanket is cream not red.

On leaving, uphill I saw her neighbour parked on our side facing down towards us waiting to move towards us, in a bit of a panic I realised if they moved off their non-icy overnight spot onto the ice chances are they might get into a skid and hit me so I quickly set off up the hill - with the lightest most gentle throttle you can imagine and chattering traction control system. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to build any momentum but I'd rather try uphill than going downhill as given how slippery coming up had been I think I could have easily got out of control going down. Slowly but surely I gained speed and was able to get up a relatively steep incline. Victory over ice to winter tyres and very smooth low speed traction from an electric motor!

Quite an experience. I've driven on patches of ice before but the road and pavement was basically just all ice with a few small bits like manhole covers that weren't ice. Even with a winter rated tyre, without studs you really have very little traction on ice. I did have just enough to control the car and just enough to get moving very slowly up a steep incline but no more. I'm sure that with summer tyres I'd have been completely stuffed and if I had made it up the hill through momentum I would have slid back down again and crashed.

By comparison, driving on snow is a complete dawdle and almost enjoyable!

[Hell Razor5543]

For walking in slippery conditions I find that these work very well;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Magic-Spiker-O ... ic+spikers

[Zelandeth]

Sounds like what we had in Aberdeen a few years ago. Rained for most of the day, washed every trace of salt away, then dropped substantially below zero in next to no time and flash froze everything.

Took me 45 minutes to walk the 1/4 Mile from work to the flat basically hanging of anything I could grab hold of the whole way. Never seen anything like it before or since.

[Mandrake]

Can never seem to find the time to post lately!

So last Saturday the new tyre was duly fitted so I am back in business. Took it for a test drive and balance at the rear seems perfect (yay) which has not always been the case in the past. Thinking about the fact that I've had three punctures to the rear left tyre I've come to the conclusion that the rear left is the most vulnerable tyre on a RHD car for punctures. Why ?

1) The left tyres often end up driving through the gutter to avoid oncoming trucks, and also often go up on the pavement during parking. I think it's more likely that things like screws or nails will be on the pavement or close to the gutter than they will be to the centre line of the road...

2) In the case of a nail or screw lying on the ground it's very unlikely to puncture the front tyre as the tyre will just drive over it. However it may flick it up into the air and cause it to land on the ground standing on end just at the moment the rear tyre passes, pushing itself directly into the tyre end on. Of course a car in front of you could flick a screw or nail into the air and get your front tyre but that seems less likely than your own front tyre which is always directly ahead of and in line with your rear tyre flicking up a screw into it's path.

Given that I think I'm going to swap the rear tyres to put the new tyre on the hopefully less vulnerable right hand side! If I'd done that last time I would at least have two new tyres at the rear now instead of one new and one old.

In other news, a few weeks ago now before I got sick I replaced both the rear seat handle for the new one, and the front brake caliper slide pins and fitted the "noise reduction kit". I ended up buying a set of four of the top metal only pins to completely eliminate the stupid rubber bush. It had the parts guy scratching his head at first wondering why I wanted four of the same instead of two of each but he took my word for it when I explained what I was up to. New pin on the left, old ones middle and right:

I forgot to measure the old and new pins with the caliper to see if there was much wear, but just trying to rock the pins around in the caliper yoke by hand the new ones seemed a significantly snugger fit so I think there was significant wear on the old pins. I also fitted this noise prevention kit which seems to be two layer shims with a damping layers, probably designed for squeal reduction:

Fitted:

I'm pleased to report that in the weeks since then, the incessant never ending front brake caliper rattle on rough seal finally seems to be gone for good. It's amazing how much more "solid" a car feels when a major source of rattles is eliminated. I don't know how much the new pins contributed and how much the anti-rattle shims contributed but either way, silence is bliss.

I still don't know the purpose of the rubber bush on the bottom pin - if it's for anti-rattle purposes its a miserable failure.... The all metal top pin fits the bottom yoke hole perfectly, and there is absolutely no rattle now. Another thing I've noticed is that the front brakes are finally consistent and sensitive in their operation. They no longer stick on ever so slightly on occasions, and they are sensitive and smooth in their initial application and with plenty of bite if you push hard. In other words they work properly now. Terrible design decision having that jam prone rubber bush in my opinion, and totally unnecessary! It gives me peace of mind to know that that rubber bush cannot possibly jam on me again - as it's no longer there...

[white exec]

Simon, why is it all so rusty around there?
On the anti-squeal shims, having two placed together is normal for some cars - our RAV4 has just this arrangement. Some of these shims are now coming 'ready-coated' with a teflon-like layer, and some pad sets are also rear-side coated with a heavy, sound-coupling layer.
Where they don't have a special layer of any kind, and are just plain metal, I think is important that both sides of the shims are smeared with copper grease, to provide positive acoustic coupling (and some anti-rattle at the same time).

[Skull]

Simon

Glad you've finally got to the bottom of this problem and are now up and about enjoying driving again

The puncture theory is a good one and in your case the fact you've got a wider rear must increase your chance of hitting debris as well - I also think the camber plays a part as all the debris is washed / pinged towards the kerb.

Only had 1 puncture on a motorcycle in 30 years I tend to ride nearer the crown of the majority of roads.