Experiment Ends

Well. It's over. The experiment with the Peugeot I mean, but not necessarily this blog. It ended on a high however - not the roadside cloud of steam that you're expecting me to talk about!

 I decided to sell the Peugeot mainly because it was due for road tax. Thinking about it, was it really sensible to pay £120 for new tax on a car that was certain to fail its MOT in October? I decided not, as I'd totalled up the issues with the car and was looking about the amount I paid to keep it on the road.

There was one more issue: size. The car was too small for the things that I have planned for my kids this summer holidays. We're going camping, walking and staying away for a while. The Peugeot royally failed to hold all their stuff for the last camping weekend that we tried, so I wanted something bigger.

I put the car on eBay and got £260 for it. It had 129,980 miles on the clock, meaning that I'd done 2606 miles. Not bad for £90! This proves that you can get some low cost motoring if you are careful and buy a reasonable car that you don't mind running into the ground.

Now - on to the replacement:

300 Miles

Last night we drove down to Wales for a camp and walking day today. After driving back just now, that's 300 miles in two days in a super cheap banger... and... not a beat missed. Even in some quite harsh Welsh mountain roads, she just kept on going. Winner!

And that 300 miles seems to have used about half a tank of fuel. Have signed up on Fuelly.com, so we'll see the MPG figures when I next fill her up.

Update

I figured it's about time to update this blog with the tiny things that I've done to the car. I've stopped trying to keep a track of the fuel costs. Mainly because I forgot three times and that's screwed the figures. I'm going to sign up for fuelly.com however, which should give us an MPG figure which is arguably more useful anyway.

I think I've worked out what the engine light is trying to tell me. It's saying: "there isn't enough fluid in the radiator". Or at least that's the symptom. Topping up the radiator seems to have fixed it. It's losing coolant slowly, but nothing I'm going to worry about really. I'll just keep topping it up every few weeks. I doubt it's being lost via the head gasket - no oil filler cap mayonnaise and no white smoke.

 I've also worked out what I did wrong when I fitted the car radio. The radio has two power wires. One to provide a normal fused power feed for operating the radio, and the other to provide a permanent feed keeping the radio stations tuned and so on. I'd got these the wrong way round. So the permanent feed was going to the normal power and the switched feed to the memory backup. This explains why we were having to retune the radio each and every time I turned on the ignition! Doh.

Boot sorted, but engine light...!

The boot was easy to sort. All I had to do was remove the panel inside the boot (T20 Torx screwdriver) and pull the rod that works the catch. I'm thinking that I've solved it now after a bunch of wiggling and repositioning the rod and springs. All seems good so far (touch wood!).

However, I've had a couple of occasions when the engine management light has come on. This look a bit like this:

It comes on when the car is low on fuel.
It doesn't seem to actually indicate a fault though. Hmm.

Boot Up The Bum

Typical. There I go suggesting all is well... and the boot won't open. The key doesn't turn the lock, so the central locking has no chance. Time to get on a the forums and find an answer. At least you can get to things in the boot via the fold down back seats... Sigh.

I could drive 200 miles...

I've done two hundred miles in the car now and I'm pretty happy. This has been made up of mostly fairly short journeys, although I went for a 60 mile round trip today. It's pretty good for the money spent. In fact, my first car was far less reliable, slower, had less 'toys' and cost me twice as much.

I found this on eBay. It's not my actual first car - that would have been too cool - but a very nice example of the Fiesta Bravo that I had. It sold for over £3500. Yes. 10 times what my 306 cost me. Go figure.

Haynes Manual

I think that the Haynes manual is simply an essential item for any car owner who wants to perform even the smallest bit of work on their vehicle. It's especially useful if you can pick one up for £2.99 on eBay! Mine arrived in the post today. Best of all, it's the specific one for the exact model of Peugeot 306 that I have - rather than one of the later Haynes that tries to cater for all models.