Peugeot 308 CC - Falling apart now?

[xantia_v6]

We are now back in NZ. The 308 CC is still behaving itself, but it has not been sunny enough for much top-down motoring yet.

We got a letter form the dealer to say that they needed to have the car in for work under a recall campaign.

I took the car in this morning, and there are 3 recalls on the THP engine:

• An engine software update (although strangely they need to keep the car in overnight so that the engine is cold to perform this)
• Replacement of a temperature sensor (don't know which one)
• Replacement of the "oil pump harness" this has a book time of 2.5 hours.

I don't remember hearing about those recalls in the UK.

[xantia_v6]

Well... we got the car back today, they have done the recall work. They also gave it a WOF test (the NZ equivalent of an MOT) and it failed on worn brake pads, which looking at them is fair enough.

They also gave the car a "routinecheck" which uncovered the following faults:
Front brake pads (mentioned above) $188
Front brake disks (what is the official minimum thickness?) $430
Labour 1.5 hours $198

Rear brake pads $127
Rear brake disks skim $188
Labour 1.5 hours $198

Coolant concentration low flush needed.
Coolant $79
Labour 1 hour $132

Aircon service (it is working perfectly) - they claim that Peugeot recommend that the system is regassed annually!
450g gas $41
Labour 1 hour $132

C service
oil change, oil.air filters pollen filter, spark plugs, brake fluid.
Parts $440
Labour $370

Wheel alignment due to uneven front tyre wear (it looks perfectly even to me and I measured with a micrometer!) $97

Door check straps noisy when opening doors
Parts $420
Labour $330

An last but perhaps not least...
Fault code P1385 found in engine ECU (what is the stated meaning of this?)
As per TSB#B1AW0117QA
Inlet port cleaning required.
No price given, they will attempt to get Peugoet to do this under warranty, awaiting servicing records from previous dealer.

None of this work has been done yet, still hurting form the quote.
I think (the last point not withstanding) that it may be time to start servicing this myself.
BTW, the car has done 41,000 km from new, with a full dealer service history till now.

To add insult to injury, when we got the car back, the roof would not go down, which I eventually worked out was caused by the passenger door window needing reinitialisation after they had disconnected the battery.

[xantia_v6]

Can someone with access to service box verify which brakes are fitted to VIN VF3**************[VIN obfuscated, can be read by forum staff] please? are there any special instructions for fitting these?

[CitroJim]

Gosh That is shocking Mike

Looks like they're both drumming up work for themselves and using a random number generator for the quotes...

I'm amazed a car that's travelled such a small distance needs so much...

Definitely time to start looking after it yourself...

[Hell Razor5543]

I wonder what would happen if you contact your local Trading Standards (or equivalent, if they have such a body)? I would agree with Jim that it sounds like the garage is trying it on.

This is what a search on P1385 came up with;

http://www.engine-codes.com/P1385.html

[xantia_v6]

I think that this car has the rear brake disks which include the wheel bearing and ABS ring, so are expensive. I am sure that there is a post on the forum somewhere about replacing these (on a different model) but I haven't found it.

[RichardW]

Can someone with access to service box verify which brakes are fitted to VIN VF3**************[VIN obfuscated, can be read by forum staff] please? are there any special instructions for fitting these?

Teves on the front:

01

4246 P5
RP 96 876 021 80

2 FRONT DISKS KIT, VENTILATED
DIAM 302 EP 26

They look similar to the ones fitted to our C4 Pic - remove the caps from the slides then you will see a 7mm allen inside. Once removed, and the rattle spring, the caliper lifts off. On ours the inboard pad is clipped into the cylinder. Have fun refitting the spring!!

Lucas breaks on the rear - and yes, it's the type with the bearings in. It's not sure whether yours has the small or large stub axles though (I would suspect the larger ones as that was a late change on 307, so expect it carried over into 308). Pop off the bearing cover and check the nut size - 32mm for the smaller axle, and 36mm (note NOT 35 as per the front hubs!!) for the larger. This will ensure you get the right size. Easy enough to change; remove the caliper and then the bracket (a NZ car shouldn't have a trouble with the T50 caliper bolts being rusted up!); un stake and remove the hub nut, then pull the disc off the shaft - they should come easily. Refit is reverse of removal!!

[xantia_v6]

Thanks for the info RIchard.

I have decided to just replace the pads at the rear, as the discs are not really worn much at all. I managed to find the front brake parts locally today, but it was a bit of a struggle, because all the local parts suppliers wanted to supply 285mm brakes (it seems that only the CC got the bigger brakes with the THP engine).

I will attempt to fit them tomorrow.

A link just for you Richard... http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-ca ... 274316.htm

[RichardW]

A link just for you Richard... http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-ca ... 274316.htm

Wow that must be rare in NZ!! If only mine was in that condition.... I am not sure about the interior fabric though!!

On the rear brakes on yours, the LH caliper MIGHT be LH thread - they are on my 307.

[DHallworth]

Is that the THP engine on the 308? When our 207 GTi was down on power there were no fault codes stored on it. It was put on a rolling road and measured 140bhp, that was after it had gained 10bhp from having the timing chain replaced.

We had the back of the inlet valves walnut blasted by a Citroen/Peugeot specialist in Hinckley and it was put on the rolling road again after this and measured at 174.7bhp, so almost the stock 175bhp.

Apparently BMW invented the machine that blasts the crushed walnut shells, PSA officially know nothing about it. To clean our car the only option they could offer was to take the head off

Jamie @ SP Tuning who carried out this work for us advised that he monitors his own cars and after having carried out the process on many cars, he reckons the walnut blasting should be done every 30k miles.

EDIT: It's actually quite easy to check the condition of the inlet valves. If you loose the inlet manifold you can stick a borescope down the inlet port and you'll be able to see what's going on. It's also easy to check the timing chain for wear, if you take the rocker cover off you can see the chain around the top sprocket. On ours you could wiggle it loosely with a screwdriver before it was changed.

P1385 is the variable camshaft timing solenoid.

David.

[xantia_v6]

The car is a THP 155, and has done 41,000 km. I think the fault code was set just last week, the first time (since its 6 month layup) we ran the car up the hill (which is quite steep) it beeped and gave an engine malfunction message, which it had not done previously. If so, then it is a happy coincidence that it happened just a few days before it went in for the recall work.

It looks like Peugeot may decarbonise the engine under warranty. It was conditional on the car having a full and correct service history, which has now apparently been established to the local dealer's satisfaction. They also had me take the car back into the workshop yesterday to do something that they said was necessary to establish the warranty claim, but they were not telling me exactly what it was. The initial explanation was that they needed to "do" the BSI. Whatever the procedure was, it took about 15 minutes. Just waiting for the warranty claims desk to approve the work.

I have seen somewhere on the internet another case where that fault code on a THP triggered a Peugeot dealer to decarbonise the ports under warranty.

I did spot that there is a company in the USA selling media blasting adapters to fit Peugeot engines. If the warranty claim fails, I will investigate further.

[xantia_v6]

The car was in at the dealers today. They couldn't submit a warranty claim to Peugeot unless the servicing was all up to date, and that got a bit confusing because due to it being a low km per year car, the previous services were done out of sequence.

While waiting for the paperwork to be done I had a chat with someone from the service department, and learnt that (fairly recently) Peugeot have changed their policy and they now perform walnut blasting with a Peugeot-supplied tool, and that for the purposes of de-carbonising the THP, they have extended the engine warranty to 5 years (conditional on full service history).

I presume that there is more detail in the service bulletin TSB#B1AW0117QA does anyone have access to that document?

[CitroJim]

This is getting very much like the old days wen engines needed de-carbonising on a regular basis... Used to be a routine job too...

So much for progress

Still, I guess it keeps the walnut growers in business...

[xantia_v6]

We heard the results of the warranty claim today, and initially they wanted us to pay about half the cost, but we managed to negotiate a much better deal. We will probably get it done next week.

What I did learn was that this car has already been decoked under warranty (by head removal), it was done at about 27,000 km by the previous dealer, and now needs doing again after a further 14,000 km. Not very encouraging.

The dealer says that they have had to do them with as little as 12,000 km on the clock, it seems that they carbon up much more here than in Europe. It is not known whether this is due to different driving conditions, or different climate, or something else.

[CitroJim]

That's quite horrific Mike I'd be looking to either find a method of sorting it yourself, establish an orchard of walnut trees or get shot of the car as soon as possible!