Various electrical problems making my friends car dangerous!

[jc1984]

Hi everyone

I am posting on behalf of a good friend of mine who has a 2002 206cc SE 2 litre petrol. She is having various electrical and starting problems which we are hoping someone may be able to shed some light on as she has been to various garages for assistance and they have all been useless! When i mentioned this forum to her she asked me to explain what a forum was! So definitely a damsel in distress lol! The faults are as follows:

Every time she turns the key in the ignition the dials fly around and the clock resets.

At completely random intervals when she goes to start the car it will turn over sluggishly and will struggle to start. It then takes her 4 or 5 attempts to start it. Other times it starts perfectly, it doesn't seem to matter whether the car is hot or cold, or whether the journey is a short or long one.

The car also sometimes tries to stall when driving up to a roundabout or junction and changing down into second or first gear.

Finally, she is having problems when using her indicators, when she uses them the headlights also flash on and off (she has auto headlights) and the indicators cancel before they should. The horn also does not work! Am I right in saying this may be the comm unit?

Any help would be massively appreciated as the car is quite dangerous to drive in is current state! Please let me know if you need any more information.

Many many thanks

J

[shadow]

sounds like the comm unit but i would get it into a garage with PP2000 and have the codes read

[GrandadMonkey]

With these cars you often get spurious electrical faults when the battery is on its last legs. If it is on its original battery then it is 10 years old. If it is not the original battery then a previous owner may have replaced it with the wrong one for the car. Check it. The 206cc is taller than the one for the hatchback. I have heard of connection problems when using a shorter battery because it puts a strain on the terminals and consequent connection problems.

If there is anything suspect at all about the battery replace it with a brand new one of the correct spec from your Peugeot dealer. I have always found dealer prices competitive for batteries, and you know it will be the correct one for the car. Heed the instructions in the owners manual when changing it.

[GrandadMonkey]

http://www.peugeot206cc.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14067

[jc1984]

Thanks guys. Will check the battery first then and let you know what I find. I don't know anywhere near me who specialise in peugeots or use pp2000. There is a main dealer nearby but I am sure they would charge silly money to read the codes? Interesting reading r.e. the horn issue. Lets hope it's the battery as I know the comms unit is not cheap!

I rang peugeot to get a battery price but of course they are shut on Sundays! Euro car parts have 15% off batteries at the moment which brings it down to about 48 quid. Do you think this one is any good?

http://www.eurocarparts.com/ecp/c/Peuge ... 965&000020

Thanks for your help

[jc1984]

Thanks guys, it was the battery! Car working fine now!

[GrandadMonkey]

Well done - glad you got it sorted. Did you get the one from Europarts or did you go to a Peugeot dealer? How much did you pay in the end?

Thank you for feeding back. It helps other folk.

Ron

[jc1984]

No problem Ron, will be glad if this post helps someone else. My friend went to a mechanic friend of hers who got the battery, not sure what make but it was 65 quid. All problems ceased immediately after fitting! I also found an amp power lead running to the boot and the bare end of the wire was squashed between the boot carpet and the metal bodywork, I'm sure this was not helping matters.

Not used to these battery issues with my seat leon, but I believe the French are not known for the quality of their electrics!

Regards
Jason

[gazza82]

Not just the French believe me ... but it can also be down to who put the car together, where and when.

It's not so much the manufacturers but the supplier of the parts. Most use two or three main suppliers and it's the quality of those parts that is the issue ... everyone wants to make them for the least cost to be able to sell them on at a profit. So well known, and once highly regarded, German parts are made in East Asia ...


If you do need someone to check the diagnostic codes and don't want to pay an hours labour at a dealer, a number of forum members on http://www.peugeotforums.com/forums/ offer the service for a lot less. PP2000 is a system you can run on a laptop but the cost is in the cables to connect said laptop to the car. Especially older models before diagnostics were standardised.

[jc1984]

Thanks gazza. Use vagcom on my car and it is very useful, if only to diagnose issues prior to visiting a garage. My only personal experience with French cars is a peugeot 106 gti which I still maintain is the most fun car I have ever owned (although bits fell off it constantly as I drove it down the road). Very underrated and surprised a lot of larger performance cars. Genuinely quick in the twisties. My wife also has the obligatory Citroen Picasso and the build quality of that is shocking! Once you get over that it is an excellent value motorway cruiser though. Thanks for the continued advice.

Regards
Jason

[Capncol]

Gazza, 99 times out of 100 you don't need pp2000, a good code reader will do. I have got pp2000, but nearly always find it with my Macscan (Mac tools)

See here