Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[Mandrake]

Well this is not a good start. Dropped the car into Peugeot this morning to be told that the airbag hasn't arrived yet and "might" arrive today!

I left the car with them and walked to work anyway just in case it does arrive but I'm not impressed to put it mildly. I should have grumbled a bit more before I left because I booked this airbag recall visit over 3 weeks ago - and at the time I was offered a booking two days from then but that week wasn't convenient for me so I delayed it until the 3rd of January which is, only to be told after getting there that they haven't received it yet. It can't take 3 weeks to receive a part if they were offering a booking two days from then ??!

Today was ideal as I don't need to ferry either Joshua or Sara today, any other day I will so if I have to rebook that complicates dropping the car off greatly...

Ho hum. And people wonder why we do our own work on our cars instead of taking them to dealers ? It's not just about saving money...

[Mandrake]

Nope. Part not arrived yet, so will have to pick up the car tonight and wait for a call that the part has arrived to rebook. Grr...!

Booked the job back around the 12th of December but they didn't order the part until the 29th of December.

[Hell Razor5543]

That would have me complaining to Peugeot UK. There is no way that cannot have realised there would be delays is part procurement over the Christmas period.

[Mandrake]

When I complained the excuse was the booking is handled by their national call centre and the local branch don't "print out the service order" until a few days before the booking is due. So basically claiming that they as the local dealer are not aware of the pending booking until a few days before, thus the part wasn't ordered until the 29th... whether that is true or not still doesn't reflect very well on them from a customer service point of view though.

After all it was them that contacted me to bring the car in for the recall in the first place! It's actually pretty darn inconvenient for me to do so as I have both Joshua and Sara to drop off at two different locations on the way to drop the car off and then a lengthy walk to get to work on time then the reverse in the evening. Oh well.

[Mandrake]

Thoughts ? I'm dropping the car in to get the air bag replacement done tomorrow so I thought I'd order the parts from the service department while I'm there, hence trying to figure out exactly which bits I do and don't really need...

Regarding the grease - does anyone have a recommendation or link to a tube of high temperature silicone grease that would be suitable for using on the slide pins without damaging the rubber ?

I ended up changing my mind and instead of ordering the 4 slide pins with with rubber bushes 'D' included on two of them I ordered two of item 15 "Brake Caliper repair kit" for about the same price - which also contains rubber bush D - I did this because I think I really ought to replace the outer rubber boots on the slide pins after they have been contaminated with mineral grease, and I think it's unlikely that metal wear of the pin was ever the cause of caliper rattle as the metal of the pins looked pristine and the calipers did quieten right down to silent with the pins adequately greased, even with the wrong grease. So I think with the right grease the pins will be silent and I'd rather change the rubber boots for new ones that unnecessarily replace the pins.

I'll also end up with the seals for the piston that I don't need but I'll save those for a rainy day!

As for grease for the slide pin I eventually settled on some Permatex 20353 which is a silicone grease specifically designed for slide pins and supposedly rubber safe:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Permatex-203 ... 2749.l2649

Pins and Grease should both be here around Monday/Tuesday, it's then just a matter of making an appointment with the weather to do the job.

The slide pins are quite quick and easy to swap in and out, once the car is jacked up and the wheels are off it doesn't take long at all, so I may do that job quickly first and see if that solves the sticking/binding brakes issue until I get time to do the more time consuming swap of discs and pads. It would also be nice to know which of the two is causing binding - slide pin rubber bush jamming, or a problem with the rust lip on the edge of the disc catching on the pad, which I won't know if I do both jobs at the same time.

[Hell Razor5543]

I would STILL complain to Peugeot HQ. Using that excuse is a load of male bovine excrement (in my opinion). Even if the booking was made by a central location either it should have been flagged that parts will need to be ordered (so the local centre could make that order with sufficient time to spare), or the booking centre should have triggered a parts request. Either way a properly designed call booking system (manned by intelligent personnel) would have prevented this error from happening.

[Michel]

I would STILL complain to Peugeot HQ. Using that excuse is a load of male bovine excrement (in my opinion).

Not just yours. It's very poor service. I'd be writing a very snotty letter to Peugeot HQ, and making sure the dealer in question got a copy. I might suggest they collect the car too, as a goodwill gesture or at the very least ensure there is a courtesy car provided in case they balls it up again. Such an approach worked with the bunch I bought my Focus ST off. If customers don't complain properly service will never improve.

[CitroJim]

I would STILL complain to Peugeot HQ. Using that excuse is a load of male bovine excrement (in my opinion).

Not just yours. It's very poor service. I'd be writing a very snotty letter to Peugeot HQ, and making sure the dealer in question got a copy. I might suggest they collect the car too, as a goodwill gesture or at the very least ensure there is a courtesy car provided in case they balls it up again. Such an approach worked with the bunch I bought my Focus ST off. If customers don't complain properly service will never improve.

Fully agree with both of you on this issue...

[Mandrake]

Thanks guys, but I don't have the will power or time to pursue a complaint about this with Peugeot HQ - I've had my rant about it on the forum, and I did also complain over the phone when they phoned to say it hadn't arrived, so I'm going to leave it at that. They had given the car a wash for me yesterday when I came to pick it up (it was absolutely filthy from top to bottom when I took it in) so that cheered me up a wee bit as well and made some goodwill with me.

I'm more concerned about the brakes at the moment, which gave me a real scare this morning. The first two times I tried to apply the brakes fully this morning they felt like I had no assistance. The first was out my driveway, the second time was when I stopped at the T junction to enter the main road beside the house - I say stopped in a liberal sense because I pressed the brake pedal down a normal amount and kept going, rolling half way out into the lane! It wasn't until I pushed a lot harder than normal that I came to a stop. Fortunately the road was empty and nobody was coming or that could have been nasty.

The next time I tried to stop the normal brake sensitivity was back again, and continued to work the rest of the way to work. Then shortly before I arrived at work I noticed it was doing the "grabbing" thing again where when you try to apply the brakes lightly as you're almost at a stop they grab as if you slammed the pedal to the floor. In my car park near work I tried rolling back and forth a few times lightly applying the brakes trying to analyse what is going on, and I'm now pretty convinced that both the scarily weak brakes this morning, and the grabbing brakes later on are caused by the swollen rubber bush in the slide pins intermittently jamming the bottom slide pin.

If they jam when the pad is fully relaxed then the brake will not apply properly - weak brakes. If they jam when the brake is applied then the brake won't relax fully and thus will bite with the slightest pedal movement (hence it grabbing) or indeed will drag all the time.

During the rolling back and forth tests on multiple occasions I was able to get the brake to drag after I had released the pedal - I could tell because I could hear it squeal as I rolled the car forward, as well as it rolling very slowly, and then if I pressed and released the pedal again then let it roll again it rolled normally and silently. So on some occasions there was slight drag between the pad and disc after releasing the pedal.

It also occurs to me that if the bottom slide pin is tending to jam then a disproportionate amount of the braking effort will be applied to the top, leading edge of the pad which will also tend to make the brakes grabby as the pad will dig in on the leading edge where normally you'd want it to bite harder on the trailing edge. There are no bias shims on these brakes, so perhaps part of the purpose of the rubber bush on the bottom pin is to make the bottom slide pin move more easily than the top one and thus bias the braking force to the trailing edge of the pad - when the bush is not swollen!

So sorting these brakes, or at least the slide pins is getting really urgent now. Unfortunately although I have the discs and pads I won't have the new bushes/seals and grease to do that part of the job until next week so it will have to be next weekend - which is scheduled to be snowing!! I might have to try to clear out the front half of the garage to get at least the nose of the car in there...

[bobins]

You might want to have a look at the DFT recalls site ASAP as there are 4 different brake servo / pump related recalls listed for Ions - you might want to see if yours is within the VIN / recall range

https://www.dft.gov.uk/vosa/apps/recall ... lt.asp?tx=

[Zelandeth]

I don't want to sound like I'm a whiner and I'm not going to mention this again past this post...but personally I'd seriously not drive the car other than in a dire emergency until you've sorted the brake problem.

You've ascertained that there's a fault and that it can result in a loss of braking effort. The consequences of that happening again at the wrong time don't bear thinking about. If something happened and it was found that you were driving a car with a known brake fault, they can and most likely will throw the book at you in the courts.

[Michel]

.. so it will have to be next weekend - which is scheduled to be snowing!! I might have to try to clear out the front half of the garage to get at least the nose of the car in there...

I do hope for your safety, and the safety of those who share the road with you that you'll be having a week of Xantia driving now..

[Mandrake]

You might want to have a look at the DFT recalls site ASAP as there are 4 different brake servo / pump related recalls listed for Ions - you might want to see if yours is within the VIN / recall range

https://www.dft.gov.uk/vosa/apps/recall ... lt.asp?tx=

Yes I'm aware of those. It's actually one issue but the VIN range was expanded multiple times to encompass an increased number of cars...

This car has been serviced yearly by the main dealer before I bought it (it had to be to maintain its extended battery warranty) so as far as I know the recall work relating to braking will have been done. However, I will be asking them to look up their records to confirm this just to be sure when they get back to me about the Airbag part arriving.

The brake recall issue was with the electric vacuum pump failing to work properly, I believe it was something to do with the output pipe filter of the pump getting blocked with dirt under the car believe it or not, and they fitted a revised design pump with a different outlet.

There is a dashboard warning light and buzzer if vacuum pressure is insufficient - you can deliberately trigger this warning by pumping the brake pedal very rapidly to use up the vacuum faster than the pump can generate it, and this warning is working. When the braking seemed weak the warning did not come on so I have no reason to believe it's vacuum loss.

Another factor is that the car relies quite a bit on regenerative braking through the motor - all light to moderate braking is done by regeneration only and only a stronger press of the brake pedal even applies the friction brakes at all. However when the battery is 100% charged, for about the first 2 miles of driving - including outside my gate when the brakes seemed weak this morning, you get very limited regeneration, which means the brakes are in the normal course of operation significantly less sensitive for the first couple of miles of driving after a full charge, although hard/emergency braking still works normally.

This is a normal characteristic of the car however they were quite a bit less sensitive than normal this morning so I was caught a little by surprise.

As for the binding issue - the plot thickens...! When I went to leave work I noticed that when I released the handbrake the car didn't creep, so I accelerated slightly to get it to break free and it felt like it was one of the rear brakes sticking not the front.

So on a hunch I tried the handbrake (which works on the rear drums) and sure enough it's the left rear drum brake which is sticking and binding, not the front! (or in addition to the front)

With the car rolling forward slowly, pulling the hand brake on relatively gently was abruptly locking the rear left wheel and wasn't always full releasing when I let it go. GRRR. So it looks like I have to recondition the rear drums as well, which is not something I have much experience with.

It's certainly had it's fair share of brake problems this car... As the binding issue looks like it could actually be the rear drums, I'll pull them apart this weekend and have a look to see if there is anything obvious.

Does anyone have any pointers on servicing drum brakes that are trying to grab or stick on ?

[daviemck2006]

I never touch drum brakes, I hate the things. So therefore my advice for doing drum brakes is get someone else to do them! I’m not very helpful there sorry lol

[Michel]

I'd guess at weeping wheel cylinders and/or gummed up handbrake mech. I had the former on the DRK front drums when they were grabby and binding. Replacing the cylinders solved it.