Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[white exec]

Hobson's Choice in Glasgow, then

[Mandrake]

Hobson's Choice in Glasgow, then

I suppose there is always Mitsubishi. I haven't had any dealings with them and I don't even know where they are located. I'm sure they could probably work on the car but they may not be able to obtain any PSA specific parts for them, because although 90% of the car is identical, PSA have customised some parts of the car to their specifications. I'm not sure that the Mitsubishi "MUT-II" diagnostic tool works on the PSA version of the car for example. (I know the Lexia doesn't work on an i-Miev!)

[Zelandeth]

Sadly this seems to be pretty well representative of my experiences with Peugeot when I was dealing with the main dealers for servicing the 107 for the first three years...

Took them three return visits and well over a month to sort out an ABS fault that THEY caused changing a wheel bearing that failed under warranty.

After the third visit and the light popped back on less than a mile down the road I just went and sorted it myself! Sure enough they just hadn't plugged the wheel sensor back in properly...Pretty much proving that they'd just plugged it into the computer on each occasion and cleared the fault without actually checking to see what it had logged.

[Mandrake]

The Ion is in at Peugeot today (and tomorrow) for the airbag recall and they have a courtesy car for me this time. Yay!

However it's another Peugeot 208 1.2 litre 3 cylinder petrol. Boo!

Looks like it's fresh off the boat too - if I am correct that it's the odometer I'm reading (it has lots of zeros in front of it) and not a trip counter it has only done 38 miles...

Seems a little better than the one they loaned me last time - the clutch seems ok whereas the last one they gave me the clutch was biting right at the top of the pedal travel to the point it was almost slipping after only 5k miles!

The car overall is actually quite decent but the 1.2 3 cylinder petrol engine is still a complete dog to drive even brand new with a properly working clutch. Noisy, lots of vibration, and a very undignified and clutch riding take-off is necessary to get the thing moving. After driving an EV (even a cheap basic one!) a small 3 cylinder petrol engine feels like jumping onto an old massey ferguson tractor from the 60's and is about as smooth!

I would drive a 208 as a car, but not with this particular engine.

I've owned a 3 cylinder petrol before too, a 1984 Daihatsu Charade turbo, 993cc.

I loved that thing, incredibly fun to drive and I reckon it had more power than this 208 (or at least power to weight ratio) and apart from that typical 3 cylinder imbalance at about 1500 rpm it was actually a really smooth revver and loved to be revved to 6500 and beyond. It got off the mark from a standing start very quickly and without fuss or clutch riding too, unlike this 208 where it feels like a fight to get it moving. Glad to see that 35 years later we have made so much progress. Not!

[Hell Razor5543]

I remember a friend having a Charade Turbo (I cannot recall the year), and the top speed was around 110MPH. Not great, but it accelerated like mucky brown stuff off a greased shovel! I recall him once overtaking a bus, with a gap that a RIZLA+ paper would struggle to get through. I nearly cacked myself, and the bus driver was averting his eyes (as was the oncoming driver). My friend was perfectly relaxed, knowing how agile that little pocket rocket on steroids was.

[Mandrake]

Must have been one of the later Charades - they changed to 1.2 litre 4 cylinder a number of years after mine, I doubt mine would have done over 90MPH as it was fairly low geared and only 65HP!

[Zelandeth]

I can vouch for the fact that the 208 with the right engine is a hoot to drive - last one my father had was the 1.6 BlueHDi version and it went like the proverbial scalded cat. Handled lovely too.

[Mandrake]

Took the Ion into a local Indy garage for it's MOT today - passed with flying colours naturally.

After years of taking old cars in for MOT's its a nice feeling to take a car for an MOT that is new enough that there is no feeling of anxiety about it passing or not.

Someone in another thread here (can't remember who sorry) a while back said that his local garage had claimed they needed tens of thousands of pounds of equipment to be able to do MOT's for EV's - I was chatting to the guy who did the MOT today and mentioned this and my scepticism of what this other garage had claimed, and as I expected he said that it's complete bullshit. Straight shooter who doesn't mince words this guy, I like him.

He said there are no additional tests, procedures or equipment required for an MOT of an EV, in fact there are less tests - the obvious one being no emissions test for a pure EV. So an EV MOT is just a subset of the normal MOT tests and any MOT certified garage can do it.

[RichardW]

Nice one Simon. Still trying to get used to the fact our new one doesn't need an MOT till 2020!

[CitroJim]

Excellent Simon Good that you've found a good, honest, say it how it is MoT tester...

They're as rare as rocking horse poo so look after him

[Mandrake]

Haven't updated here for a while - I've actually had to do a couple of minor repairs to both cars!

A few weeks ago I started up the Xantia, which gets used twice a month if it is lucky, and after it had been idling for about a minute it suddenly cut out and died, although it did start again afterwards.

I was aware that the positive battery terminal was split and that the split had worked its way most of the way down the terminal, so I checked and sure enough the terminal was now loose on the battery and the split had almost reached the bottom. Even though I got it tightened up again I knew I wasn't going to be driving it anywhere until I fitted a new terminal. So I fitted one of these quick release terminals from Halford which are only £8 for the pair, as I know they fit the car well as I used them on my previous Xantia V6!

http://www.halfords.com/workshop-tools/ ... ck-release

I started it up and let it idle for a while, and a couple of minutes after starting it briefly cut out and then continued to idle again! I guess even though the battery terminal was faulty and needed replacing it wasn't actually why the engine cut out! I then gave the car a 20 mile drive for the first time in about a month and it was flawless during the drive, but that still leaves the question of what is wrong. I have a nasty feeling that another one of the wires in the radiator bundle is about to go on me - some may remember that I had a critical power wire in the under radiator wire bundle fail a couple of years ago that I had to work around with a bypass behind the interior fuse box. Lets hope I don't end up having to do that again or that it doesn't let me down away from home!

On the Peugeot side, my darling 2 year old boy who I had let out of his rear car seat into the front passenger seat to keep him amused while waiting for his mum to come back to the car somehow managed to break the flaps on the left centre air vent! When I say break, the little vertical flaps that control the horizontal air direction were all disconnected from each other and pointing in random directions....

After we got home and I was contemplating how to fix the vent another problem presented itself - the RF fob for locking and unlocking stopped working! Or at least so it seemed at first. I know from enquires made when I first bought the car that replacement RF fobs are £200 from Peugeot. Damn!

By accident I discovered it was actually still working - but only at an extremely short range. Normal range is about 50 metres however I noticed that it still worked if it was held less than 20cm from the front door windows! I assumed the problem might be a broken antenna so I took the fob apart and checked for any dry joints - nothing to be seen, and it is extremely well made compared to the Xantia fob, complete with rubber gaskets to keep the circuitry water tight and even the battery cover had a rubber gasket. I tried another battery but no change, and I don't have a 433.9Mhz receiver to try to pick up the signal it transmits.

I was a bit gutted by this and realised that the problem could be in the receiver in the car... so I decided to tackle the air vent in the meantime. I thought that lifting the radio unit out might give access to the rear of the air vents so that I could push the cross bar back onto the joints on the flaps, but no such luck:

However after lifting the radio out I discovered the Fob was working at normal range again! Hmm.... so I can only assume I disturbed the wiring for the antenna for the central locking receiver and that fixed it - and perhaps it even shares the radio antenna with the radio... After putting the radio back in the Fob is still working normally. Perhaps the wiring behind the dashboard was disturbed when the whole dashboard was out for the airbag recall...

To fix the air vent I needed some sort of hook to poke into the vent and pull the cross bar forwards - only trouble is I don't have a single hook shaped tool of any kind in my toolbox! So I ended up stealing a metal cooking skewer and bending the pointy end into a J shape. It is now a permanent addition to my toolbox as every toolbox should have a long rod with a hook on the end!

Another odd problem I've had with the Ion lately is that at about 70mph or above (which I don't often do) I would start to hear a loud tapping from outside the car. I eventually realised the radio antenna was vibrating up and down so much in the wind that it was hitting the roof! If you look closely you can see where the tip of the antenna has made a black mark on the roof:

I was pondering what to do about this until I realised that the antenna could be tilted up a bit more vertical than shown in the picture. DOH! So obvious... But I'm still puzzled how the wind could bend it down so far that it was hitting on the roof from the angle shown in the picture...

Finally one last piece of Ion trivia - back when we had the Beast from the East there was one day in particular where we were home from work but which I'd gone out driving in (because I'm a loon) and when I got home and plugged in to charge, the car wouldn't charge. Uh oh! I had been plowing through deep snow so of course assumed the worst that maybe I'd ripped a cable off underneath or something similar...

I tried unplugging and plugging back in a few times and the charge light would come on and flash for a few seconds and then give up. Hmm.... in the year I've had the car the only time it has ever failed to charge at home was when the seizing gear linkage was causing the lever switch to sit half way between park and reverse, but that wasn't the issue.

I was cold and tired and wanted to come in for the night but there was no way I was leaving the car uncharged with an unknown charging fault with the severe weather conditions were were having. So in the middle of a heavy snow shower I dragged the Lexia out to the car and plugged in to see what was causing the charge failure and also lighting the general warning light. (Amber car with an exclamation point through it)

There was one relevant fault code, and I forget the exact wording now but it was something like "Voltage on the output of the power factor correction module out of range" in the onboard charger module. Aha! A problem with the voltage!

So I grabbed a 3 pin power meter I had handy which will measure voltage and plugged it in in the porch and sure enough, 248 volts! 248 volts is actually allowed in the UK (which can go up to 252 volts by specification) but the normal voltage at our house is 233 to 238 volts and I don't think I have ever seen over 240 volts let alone 248 volts.

So I knew that was probably it, and I can only assume the national grid were having severe difficulties in the weather conditions as there was also a "gas shortage" reported earlier that day which meant the national grid gas generators were turned way down and coal was turned up to the maximum to compensate...

As a quick test I turned on the electric shower to knock a few volts off our mains supply - which pulled it down to 243 volts, plugged the car in and it charged normally! I experimented a bit more with small loads like toasters and kettles (I'm nothing if not very scientific ) and found the threshold where the car became unhappy was 247 volts. 246 volts and below it was happy, 247 volts and above it refuses to charge, displaying a fault light on the dashboard and setting a fault code.

Given that the UK mains voltage is allowed to go as high as 252 volts this is actually a pretty serious limitation that the car won't charge beyond 246 volts! The onboard charger clearly hasn't been adjusted to meet the UK voltage specifications properly and while it wouldn't be an issue at home for me, I can envisage there may be AC public charging points that present more than 246 volts, especially at night time near an industrial area. So something to watch out for and keep in mind if unexpected failure to charge occurs!

I have no reason to believe other EV's are similarly affected, I suspect its a simple case of taking a variant of the car designed for the EU and selling it in the UK with no changes in the power supply design. Japan of course is RHD like the UK, but uses only 100 volts at 50 or 60 Hz (depending on whether you're in the north or south) so a 220/240v version of the power supply would only be applicable in the EU/UK/AUS/NZ, and of those, the UK has the highest voltages in practice.

Whatever the cause of the high voltage it only lasted the one day and has been back to normal since then, as has charging at home!

[CitroJim]

Simon, an excellent update to your blog! Enjoyed that

I'm amazed the Ion is so sensitive to mains voltage... I wonder why?

Your next challenge is to determine the lowest voltage at which it will charge You'll need a few big resistors for that or a giant variac

It may be relevant perhaps that during the bad weather the National Grid were having trouble maintaining the mains frequency and as a consequence many mains-sync'd electric clocks ran very slow - up to three of four minutes in some cases... They later upped the frequency above 50Hz for a while to bring them back to right time...

[Jan-hendrik]

I'm pleased to report that cleaning the throttle plate has cured both symptoms. No more hesitation on take off and no more trying to stall or engine speed trying to cycle up and down by holding the throttle slightly open. I did have to reset the ECU for it to fully adapt to the clean throttle plate though.

I had trouble with the ICV. The valve was stuck so I treated it to a good cleaning with carb cleaner. After that it rotated very smoothly (unpowered of course). Thing is engine still stutters when cold and seems about to stall. When the engine is fully warmed up it runs perfectly. How do I reset the ECU?

[Mandrake]

Well it was playing up again today and as it wasn't raining tonight I thought I better do something about it, even in the dark!

When I left work the lever was quite stiff and "springy" at the ends of travel and I found I couldn't push it fully into park - and it triggered a fault immediately. It also felt like it was trying to spring out of drive. So I backed it up onto the ramps tonight and saw this:

IMG_0503.JPG

The switches themselves can barely be made out from the dirt and corrosion. The two switches are quite a long way apart (about 6 inches) with a long link rod with a ball joint at each end joining them. I just gave all the pivot points and ball joints a thorough douse of standard cheapy halfords spray grease I had on hand:

IMG_0506.JPG

After greasing it like this and giving it a good working back and forth the gear lever feels like new again - it travels easily right to the ends with no springiness and there is a nice satisfying engagement when you go between drive and neutral instead of it feeling like its trying to jump out of drive. So far, I can't reproduce the problem with it reporting an error in the park position.

The bowden cable itself is completely enclosed with a large rubber concertina boot (at the top) so I wasn't able to get any grease into that, but it doesn't look like the cable is to blame anyway.

From what I can see the issue is the ball joints seizing up - probably due to dirt and moisture building up in the cups, as they look somewhat exposed to the accumulation of dirt and moisture! Although I sprayed grease on the shafts themselves, I'm not convinced that that actually did anything. It's possible corrosion at the top pivot point where the cable attaches to the lever arm was also a potential culprit. I greased all the pivoting points just to be safe.

Touch wood this has fixed the problem and it looks like due to the silly exposed design of these levers and ball joints a bit of spray grease on the joints should be an annual maintenance activity. With the car backed up onto ramps it only took a few minutes, I didn't even have to remove a wheel!

I'm not going to try to adjust the switch position - with all the build up of aluminium corrosion and dirt around the switch I'd probably have to remove it completely and scrape it clean before I could rotate the switch body, and I don't really want to do that!

Came across a picture of what the gearbox and the two switches look like on a nice new never used gearbox so thought I would post them! (Bowden cable not shown fitted)



Rather tiny gearbox isn't it!

[CitroJim]

Rather tiny gearbox isn't it!

It's only a tiny car Simon!

Just like the gearbox in the C1 - you could almost pop in in your pocket