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Earlier this week I was checking out a suspect heater matrix leak on my younger daughter's 07 plate 307 and found it's actually coming from the joint between the matrix and the twin plagnasty pipeage that carries the hot water from the bulkhead. There's two o-rings in there to seal it that are sandwiched between the two plastic flanges. Needless to say you can't buy them separately, but can get the pipes, O-rings and clamp bolt as a kit for £25. Only problem with swapping the lot is that if it's leaking because the plastic has distorted, won't this affect the other half of the joint, (the matrix) too? So I'm gonna try some sealant.....

Same day elder daughter phones me from 5 miles into her 25 mile commute to say the stop light is flashing and she has an engine overheating message on the MFD of her 02 vintage 307. This one looks head-gasket flavour terminal.

To complete the trio, this morning mine presented me with a flashing STOP light and engine overheating message.
It had only covered about 2 miles from start-up, the water and oil temp gauges both showed stone cold and there was just the first traces of warmth from the heater. Suspecting a spurious sensor reading, (it has dipped to zero occasionally), I carried on for a couple of miles to get to somewhere I could get properly off the road and have a decent butchers, by which time the heater was properly hot. Turned it off, looked under the bonnet - cold radiator & hoses that felt full, no pressure in header tank, so started it up.......

Temp gauge went straight to 80 degrees and all seems fine.

Trials and tribbleations

Maybe the overheating message is another "antipolution fault" - the ECU sees there's something wrong and just flags up the overheating message 'cos that's the only one it's got...

I might actually be in the process of finding someone here who will make o-rings to your own specs.

The story is, as the temperature is heading towards zero, this morning I headed off to my gaff to fire up the heating. I cleaned the boiler out (oil-fired) but, just before I fired it up, I noticed a dribble of water below the mix valve. Oh crap. So I started pulling it to pieces (this is where I discovered I'd left my specs at home ) to find that the front plate, which holds all the seals, is made out of plastic. Whuh? And heat and time hasn't been kind, so it basically started disintegrating the moment I touched it. 20 years old, made by a Swedish company called Esbe. I Googled it and, to my surprise, they still make then, and they do a rebuild kit The only trouble is I can't get either here

This valve controls the mix for the central heating and it's quite specific to my boiler, so I wouldn't be able to use anything else.


This afternoon I've been with Max and his mate Fritz, we've found someone who turned up the plastic part on a lathe out of brass for a tenner. I've left it with Fritz because he thinks he knows someone who can make the two o-rings for it out of vitron. Fingers crossed.

My alternative would be to stick it in place with epoxy, no more adjustment but I've not touched it in almost 10 years so I don't suppose it'll matter.

Btw I've since found a website in Germany selling the kit for 42€, so I might actually win this time (pigs fuelled and ready to fly)

Good luck with the work around, deserves to be successful. (I think it'll be Viton BTW, that's normal for high temp fluid seals).

I think I've had intermittent water temp mis-measurement since I change the water pump / refilled the cooling system last year. Normally doesn't do this, but I have caught the gauge dipping to zero or recovering from doing so a few times. I've unplugged / re-plugged the connector several times in the hope of curing it, but chickened out of changing the sensor since :
a) I'm not sure it'll help
b) I'll probably wind up with a leak

Mind you, hoping it will get better has not been visited with success thus far.

If it aint quite broke... It's probably ok to leave it if you know exactly what's going on, but I know I'd always be thinking "maybe this time it's not lying..."

Next time I'll spell it vuitton